Parents' Rights or Public Safety?

The headline caught my eye and it seemed like an anachronism.

It read: Three siblings diagnosed with measles.

This story ran in the first week of February in the San Diego Union Tribune. I couldn’t remember the last time I had heard of someone having measles. Two of the three infected children attended elementary school, one in which 10 percent of the students are not vaccinated. This is an incredible number because, according to the spokesperson for the school district's nursing and wellness program, that number is 1 percent to 2 percent in all other California schools.

State law mandates that everyone born after 1956 must have at least one vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella or show other evidence of immunity – except when parents object for religious, medical or personal reasons. Even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that there is no evidence of a link between vaccinations and autism, some parents still fear that their children will develop autism after receiving vaccines.

As I write this, a radio broadcast by a local station is saying that there now are 11 children in the county who have developed measles. The school is handling the situation by forbidding any non-vaccinated children from attending until the infection period has ended. Several of the parents of these kids have agreed to vaccinate, but most haven’t.

There’s no doubt that vaccinations have resulted in better health for all. In San Diego County, there was only one case of measles in 2006, down from 985 in 1990. There also were three deaths from the virus that year. I respect the rights of parents to make decisions about their kids’ health care, but are the consequences of these decisions fair for their children and others in the community?

What do you think?