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Sept. 28

Fort Worth Star-Telegram on children without immunizations:

Mumps, measles, polio, chickenpox, whooping cough. One big reason why headlines don't feature stories about outbreaks of these debilitating and potentially fatal diseases any more is the consistent use of vaccinations in this country.

The strong residual immunity in America's children, a result of high inoculation rates in recent years, is paying off with the virtual disappearance of diseases that were once an inevitable part of childhood.

Take, for example, the varicella vaccine. Introduced in 1995, it reduced cases of chickenpox by about 80 percent in six years. Previously, about 4 million people in the United States, most of them children, contracted chickenpox annually. That should be more than enough reason for parents to make sure that their little ones are immunized.

And yet the Fort Worth school district reported this week that more than 3,200 students are not current on their inoculations. If the parents of these children don't provide proof of immunization by Monday, the students will not be allowed to return to class.

Fort Worth, unfortunately, is symptomatic of a statewide problem. "Texas has the lowest percentage of children entering school who were previously immunized," said Dr. Carol J. Baker, professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, during a recent interview with Star-Telegram staff writer Amanda Rogers. "We rank No. 50. We're a joke with national health care professionals."

Alarmingly, some of these preventable diseases are making a comeback because of the poor vaccination rates and waning immunities. Pertussis, or whooping cough, was essentially eradicated in Texas in the mid-'70s, but 615 cases were reported in the state last year -- the highest number since 1968. Fifty-two of those cases were treated at Fort Worth's Cook Children's Medical Center in 2001, hospital officials said.

No excuse is a good one when parents are gambling with their children's health. Vaccine costs are minimal -- especially when compared with the potential cost if a child contracts a disease -- and the Tarrant County Public Health Department charges no more than $15 per shot, with charges assessed on a salary-based sliding scale.

Some parents have expressed fear about the safety of childhood vaccines. Although nothing in life is 100 percent risk-free, a recent report from the Institute of Medicine confirmed the safety and effectiveness of the shots, stating that they are not linked to autism, attention deficit disorder or speech and language delays.

"Any medication that you give has side effects," Dr. Margaret Fisher, chairwoman of the department of pediatrics at Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch, N.J., and a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics committee on infectious disease, told Rogers. "Shots are no different. "They have been well-tested, and the benefits outweigh the risks," she says. "All you have to do is see one child die of liver disease or chickenpox."

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Sept. 29

Houston Chronicle on child abuse:

One highly publicized child abuse case can generate a great deal of public discussion about physical punishment that crosses the line, but it's not clear that all the talk does much to stop the problem. The repeated showing on television of a video in which Madelyne Toogood appears to punch and shake her 4-year-old daughter in an Indiana shopping center parking lot is a case in point. When all the hoopla dies down, it's unlikely that fewer children in this country will become the victims of simply misguided or plainly abusive parenting.

Some people believe that it is always wrong to strike a child. In 1998, the 53,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics said that while spanking is no more effective than other forms of punishment, it has enormous potential for harm. Studies show that hitting children can foster aggression in them. When a spanking gets out of control, it can cause serious injury or death. According to the organization, however, around 90 percent of U.S. parents spank their children.

Of those parents, probably 100 percent believe they know the difference between corrective punishment and abuse. Not all do, however. Take the appalling case of a Brazoria County man who repeatedly shocked his 8-year-old son with a 100,000-volt stun gun to hurry him along to school and as punishment for missing his school bus. Before his arrest last week, along with his wife for failing to report the abuse, the man unabashedly acknowledged he had beaten the boy with a belt hard enough to leave marks, and he defended his use of a stun gun as not being abusive.

It's hard to see this case as one of good intentions gone wrong, but the law apparently makes a distinction between deliberate abuse and extreme ignorance. Still, the charges this father faces could net him serious time in prison.

That seems appropriate. Because children cannot always speak up for themselves, much less defend themselves from the people who are supposed to nurture and protect them, society cannot give a free pass for stupidity, especially when it's compounded by cruelty and shocking indifference to helpless suffering.

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ALL INFORMATION, DATA, AND MATERIAL CONTAINED, PRESENTED, OR PROVIDED HERE IS FOR GENERAL INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS REFLECTING THE KNOWLEDGE OR OPINIONS OF THE PUBLISHER, AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED OR INTENDED AS PROVIDING MEDICAL OR LEGAL ADVICE.  THE DECISION WHETHER OR NOT TO VACCINATE IS AN IMPORTANT AND COMPLEX ISSUE AND SHOULD BE MADE BY YOU, AND YOU ALONE, IN CONSULTATION WITH YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER.