Editor’s note: This commentary is by Charlotte Gilruth, a mother of four and grandmother of seven, a practitioner of homeopathy, and a member of the Vermont Coalition for Vaccine Choice since 2012. She lives in Worcester.
[I]t’s a blast from the past, with Sen. Kevin Mullin introducing another bill to remove the philosophical exemption from vaccines, though S.199, his similar bill in 2012, was soundly defeated in the House of Representatives by a vote of 133-6. Gov. Peter Shumlin stated on NECN on Feb. 4 that though he does advocate vaccination, he “… also said lawmakers should leave the philosophical exemption alone. … Shumlin said the balance resulting from the 2012 discussions between public health and safety and a parent’s ability to seek an exemption was ‘elegant’ and seems to be working.”
Amidst the hysteria about measles, it’s good to keep some perspective: according to the Health Department’s own data, fewer than 1 percent of Vermont students in the four grades tracked used the philosophical exemption last year to opt out of the MMR vaccine. And in the event of an outbreak, unvaccinated children are already required to stay home from school. Adults who have faith in the MMR vaccine would do better to get the vaccine themselves than to worry about the tiny percentage of Vermont children who are not vaccinated for measles.
The current director of the CDC, Dr. Thomas Frieden, states, “Antimicrobial resistance is one of our most serious health threats.” More than two million Americans annually get infected with drug-resistant bacteria and viruses, and of those at least 23,000 die — that’s 63 deaths a day from contagious disease spreading in our communities. In stark contrast, the entire country is in a state of terror over less than 200 measles cases — though there have been no fatalities in 10 years in the United States. Why no national panic over diseases that pose much more real threat than measles?
Parents who forgo one or more vaccines for their children base their decisions on research more reliable than super-charged sound bites. Since 2012, disconcerting information has come to light about the MMR (measles/mumps/rubella) vaccine:
• Recipients of live-virus vaccines like the MMR shed viruses, and can be contagious for weeks or months afterwards, or they can carry disease viruses in their throats and infect others, even without symptoms.
Parents who forgo one or more vaccines for their children base their decisions on research more reliable than super-charged sound bites.
• Whistleblower William Thompson, a CDC research scientist, confessed to omitting statistically significant data that showed a link between the MMR vaccine and autism in a subgroup of children. (Last year one in 500,000 Americans contracted measles, while one in 68 children were diagnosed with autism. Which is the real epidemic?)
• A current lawsuit charges Merck with falsification of data and making fraudulent claims about the efficacy of the mumps component of its MMR II vaccine. Can Merck’s measles vaccine be trusted?
Thoughtful citizens continue to assert that informed consent, the right to accept or decline medical procedures or pharmaceutical products — including vaccines — is a basic human right and is non-negotiable. Hands off the philosophical exemption!
