Why Texas is becoming a major antivaccine battlefield

[William Tell]

Article is old, all attempts to infringe on vaccine freedom all failed this session.

Peter Hotez used to worry mostly about vaccines for children in far-away places. An infectious diseases researcher at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, Hotez is developing shots against diseases in poorer countries such as hookworm and schistosomiasis.

But now, Hotez is anxious about children much closer to home. The number of schoolchildren not vaccinated against childhood diseases in Texas is growing rapidly, which means that the state may see its first measles outbreaks in the winter or spring of 2018, Hotez predicted in a recent article in PLOS Medicine. Disgraced antivaccine physician Andrew Wakefield has set up shop in the Texan capital, Austin, and a political action committee (PAC) is putting pressure on legislators facing a slew of vaccine-related bills.

"Texas is now the center of the antivaxxer movement,” Hotez says. “There is a big fight coming,” adds Anna Dragsbaek of The Immunization Partnership, a nonprofit organization in Houston that advocates for vaccinations.

Texas still has one of the highest vaccination rates for childhood diseases overall, 97.4%, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the number of children not vaccinated because of their parents' “personal beliefs”—as opposed to medical reasons—has risen from 2300 in 2003, when such exemptions were introduced, to more than 44,000 so far this year, according to numbers prepared by The Immunization Partnership based on Texas Department of State Health Services data. The actual number may be much higher because an estimated 300,000 Texan children are schooled at home, says Susan Wootton, an infectious disease pediatrician at the University of Texas in Houston; though the law requires these kids to be immunized too, parents don't need to submit proof of vaccination.

Measles is an extremely contagious pathogen and often the first one to spread when vaccination rates dip below about 95%. The risk of outbreaks is even greater because unvaccinated children aren't randomly distributed. In Gaines county in western Texas, for instance, the exemption rate is already 4.8%, and at one school in Austin, it's 40%. "I would describe Texas as sitting on a ticking time bomb," Wootton says.

Not everyone is so gloomy. Some counties in Washington and Colorado have higher levels of exemptions, says immunologist Diane Griffin of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. “I don’t think that Texas is any worse than a number of other states, but pointing out the problem and the solution is important,” she wrote in an email.

But Hotez believes the situation in the Lone Star State is more perilous. One factor is the arrival of Wakefield, widely seen as the father of the modern antivaccine movement. Wakefield published a paper in The Lancet in 1998 that alleged a link between the MMR vaccine (which combines shots against measles, mumps, and rubella) and autism. Several large studies have failed to find the link, Wakefield's paper was retracted in 2010, and he was disbarred as a physician after the U.K. General Medical Council found him guilty of dishonesty and endangering children. Wakefield has appeared at screenings of his film Vaxxed, released in April, all over Texas and has testified at many city councils, Dragsbaek says. “He is definitely a major influencer.”

Meanwhile, a PAC named Texans for Vaccine Choice has sprung up after state Representative Jason Villalba, a Republican lawyer from Dallas, proposed scrapping nonmedical exemptions last year. (The bill was never voted on.) “While they do not have a whole lot of money, they have a lot of people that they can deploy to interfere in primary campaigns,” Dragsbaek says. “They made Villalba's primary campaign very, very difficult.” Rebecca Hardy, director of state policies at Texans for Vaccine Choice, says the group is not trying to convince parents that vaccines are dangerous, but fighting for their right not to immunize their children. (It's also helping them apply for exemptions.)

The Texas legislature is now pondering several bills that would help shore up vaccination. One would make it compulsory for parents to complete an online course before refusing vaccination; another would require them to discuss their decision with a doctor.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/12/why-texas-becoming-major-antivaccine-battlefield

 

[William Tell]

 

[William Tell]

AUSTIN — The group of 40 people gathered at a popular burger and fish taco restaurant in San Antonio listened eagerly to the latest news about the anti-vaccine fight taking place in the Texas legislature.


Some mothers in the group had stopped immunizing their young children because of doubts about vaccine safety. Heads nodded as the woman giving the statehouse update warned that vaccine advocates wanted to “chip away” at parents’ right to choose. But she also had encouraging news.


“We have 30 champions in that statehouse,” boasted Jackie Schlegel, executive director of Texans for Vaccine Choice. “Last session, we had two.”

***************************************************************

Peter Hotez, director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, predicts that 2017 could be the year the anti-vaccination movement gains ascendancy in the United States. Texas could lead the way, he said, because some public schools are dangerously close to the threshold at which measles outbreaks can be expected. A third of students at some private schools are unvaccinated.


“We’re losing the battle,” Hotez said.


Although the anti-vaccine movement has been strong in other states, including California, Oregon, Washington and Colorado, experts say the effort in Texas is among the most organized and politically active.


“It’s a great example of an issue that has a targeted, small minority but an intense minority who are willing to mobilize and engage in direct action,”said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...5bd3ae-ef08-11e6-b4ff-ac2cf509efe5_story.html

 

[donnay]

Go Texas GO!!

 

[Sonny Tufts]

At what point do parents' rights to raise their kids cross the line and become child endangerment? One parent thinks vaccines are dangerous and is willing to run the risk that the child comes down with measles, whooping cough, or some other disease. Another believes modern medicine is wrong and is willing to treat a child's [appendicitis] [compound fracture] [cancer] with [prayer] [voodoo practices] [St. John's Wort]. Another believes that it's perfectly OK to discipline a child by whipping its butt raw, chaining it to the wall of an unlit tool shed, and feeding it only bread and water for a week. How far does this go?

 

[angelatc]

At what point do parents' rights to raise their kids cross the line and become child endangerment? One parent thinks vaccines are dangerous and is willing to run the risk that the child comes down with measles, whooping cough, or some other disease. Another believes modern medicine is wrong and is willing to treat a child's [appendicitis] [compound fracture] [cancer] with [prayer] [voodoo practices] [St. John's Wort]. Another believes that it's perfectly OK to discipline a child by whipping its butt raw, chaining it to the wall of an unlit tool shed, and feeding it only bread and water for a week. How far does this go?

Children belong to the parents, not to the state.

 

[dannno]

At what point do parents' rights to raise their kids cross the line and become child endangerment? One parent thinks vaccines are dangerous and is willing to run the risk that the child comes down with measles, whooping cough, or some other disease. Another believes modern medicine is wrong and is willing to treat a child's [appendicitis] [compound fracture] [cancer] with [prayer] [voodoo practices] [St. John's Wort]. Another believes that it's perfectly OK to discipline a child by whipping its butt raw, chaining it to the wall of an unlit tool shed, and feeding it only bread and water for a week. How far does this go?

So, you think the state should make medical decisions for people and their children so that parents don't beat their kids and lock them in a basement?

Should the state also tell people what to eat and drink?

 

[William Tell]

At what point do parents' rights to raise their kids cross the line and become child endangerment? One parent thinks vaccines are dangerous and is willing to run the risk that the child comes down with measles, whooping cough, or some other disease. Another believes modern medicine is wrong and is willing to treat a child's [appendicitis] [compound fracture] [cancer] with [prayer] [voodoo practices] [St. John's Wort]. Another believes that it's perfectly OK to discipline a child by whipping its butt raw, chaining it to the wall of an unlit tool shed, and feeding it only bread and water for a week. How far does this go?

Takes a village, eh Mrs Clinton? And what's with calling children "it".

 

[Sonny Tufts]

Children belong to the parents, not to the state.

So are you saying that under no circumstances should a parent be held accountable for injuries to or death of a child so long as he can say he was just exercising his parental rights?

 

[Sonny Tufts]

Takes a village, eh Mrs Clinton? And what's with calling children "it".

No, I'm saying it's sometimes a very hard line to draw and that I don't think it's a good idea to allow parents to abuse their kids.

 

[euphemia]

I had measles, rubella, chicken pox, and mumps. There was no vaccine when I had them. I'm not sure you can call natural illness the result of parental neglect.

Parents have the right to make medical decisions on behalf of minor children.

 

[Sonny Tufts]

Children belong to the parents, not to the state.

Funny...a lot of people conveniently forgot about this during the Elian Gonzalez affair.

 

[euphemia]

Funny...a lot of people conveniently forgot about this during the Elian Gonzalez affair.

No, they didn't. Elian's mother died at sea. His father was not in the country at the time. What I don't agree is that Janet Reno should have sent an armed SWAT team to retrieve the boy when his father was located. If Cuba felt it was that important for the boy to be with family (which he was), they should have allowed his father to come to the US to get him.

But we are not talking about that. We are discussing vaccines in the 21st century and why Texas has chosen to codify parental rights in this case.

 

[William Tell]

No, I'm saying it's sometimes a very hard line to draw and that I don't think it's a good idea to allow parents to abuse their kids.

So you think not giving kids certain vaccines may be abuse? That's pretty radical. Even pro-vax folks admit that some kids have allergies that prevent them from being able to have some vaccines and medicine safely.

 

[euphemia]

So you think not giving kids certain vaccines may be abuse? That's pretty radical. Even pro-vax folks admit that some kids have allergies that prevent them from being able to have some vaccines and medicine safely.

That is the truth. A lot of viruses are cultured in eggs. A child who is allergic to eggs cannot be vaccinated with cultures developed that way.

 

[euphemia]

I think one of the problems of mandatory vaccines is that parents are no longer aware of the symptoms of various illnesses. I had chicken pox, so when our daughter got them, I knew to contact her summer camp and keep her away from other people until all the blisters scabbed over.

 

[Sonny Tufts]

So you think not giving kids certain vaccines may be abuse? That's pretty radical.

Not really. It's a matter of degree, not of kind. It's one thing to say that a kid has allergies to a vaccine. It's quite another to base an objection on the unverified claims of a quack or some other crackpot notion. Yes, there's a difference between (a) refusing to let a child be vaxxed and running the risk he'll get measles or whooping cough, and (b) refusing conventional medical treatment for a child with treatable cancer and relying instead on prayer or voodoo rites (I am not equating these two alternative treatments, btw). Maybe the unvaxxed kid won't get measles or if he does, maybe he won't infect anyone else. Maybe the kid with cancer will undergo spontaneous remission, even though every doctor who's seen him says he'll die without conventional treatment. My only point is that parents shouldn't have carte blanche to do whatever the hell they want to regarding their kids, and I'd be surprised if most people on this forum wouldn't agree. But so far, that's seems to be the only response I've received: "The kid belongs to the parents, and who is the government or anyone else to ever question a parent's decision?"

 

[Anti Federalist]

Funny...a lot of people conveniently forgot about this during the Elian Gonzalez affair.

I didn't.

But to be honest, Elian was returned to his father after his mother "endangered" him by fleeing Cuba in raft.

 

[Anti Federalist]

Not really. It's a matter of degree, not of kind. It's one thing to say that a kid has allergies to a vaccine. It's quite another to base an objection on the unverified claims of a quack or some other crackpot notion. Yes, there's a difference between (a) refusing to let a child be vaxxed and running the risk he'll get measles or whooping cough, and (b) refusing conventional medical treatment for a child with treatable cancer and relying instead on prayer or voodoo rites (I am not equating these two alternative treatments, btw). Maybe the unvaxxed kid won't get measles or if he does, maybe he won't infect anyone else. Maybe the kid with cancer will undergo spontaneous remission, even though every doctor who's seen him says he'll die without conventional treatment. My only point is that parents shouldn't have carte blanche to do whatever the hell they want to regarding their kids, and I'd be surprised if most people on this forum wouldn't agree. But so far, that's seems to be the only response I've received: "The kid belongs to the parents, and who is the government or anyone else to ever question a parent's decision?"

It's really quite simple: once you grant the premise that government can decide, and administer at gunpoint, medication that it deems "non quackery", then nothing is off the table.

You become, as a parent, nothing more than what all of us are in every other aspect of our life: squatters and serfs, because you, in reality, own or have full responsibility for nothing.

With freedom, comes risks, and sometimes freedom means being free to make dumb choices.

If you're not willing to shine that on, as tough as it may be, then you're not really ready for freedom.

 

[William Tell]

Not really. It's a matter of degree, not of kind. It's one thing to say that a kid has allergies to a vaccine. It's quite another to base an objection on the unverified claims of a quack or some other crackpot notion.

Look, it's up to parents to decide what is best for the kid. If a mother has two children, as is often the case, and the first one had a sever reaction to vaccines, she likely isn't going to give the second one shots. Using the government to inject the family by force is assault, abuse, and if the worst happens, murder. That's what we'd call it if anyone besides the government did it.

We all make choices and take risks, forcing people to do things just adds all kinds of new risks. No one in their right mind gets between a mama bear and her cubs.

Yes, there's a difference between (a) refusing to let a child be vaxxed and running the risk he'll get measles or whooping cough, and (b) refusing conventional medical treatment for a child with treatable cancer and relying instead on prayer or voodoo rites (I am not equating these two alternative treatments, btw). Maybe the unvaxxed kid won't get measles or if he does, maybe he won't infect anyone else. Maybe the kid with cancer will undergo spontaneous remission, even though every doctor who's seen him says he'll die without conventional treatment. My only point is that parents shouldn't have carte blanche to do whatever the hell they want to regarding their kids, and I'd be surprised if most people on this forum wouldn't agree. But so far, that's seems to be the only response I've received: "The kid belongs to the parents, and who is the government or anyone else to ever question a parent's decision?"

Well, you've made your point that you don't think parents should have total control. So the question is what control do you think the government should have? Should we have mandatory yearly checkups, weekly social worker visits maybe? Or something more specific to a problem, like banning parents from having a say in cancer treatments?

On average no one cares more about, or knows more about a child than his parents. Parents should call the shots, they aren't perfect but usually they are the closest to perfect when it comes to making decisions for their children.