More stringent immunization requirements, combating bad information needed in measles fight

In 2002, as a young pediatrician, I treated an 11-month old girl who had just been adopted from an orphanage in China. She was miserable, and I diagnosed her with a nonspecific viral illness. Days later, she developed a rash, was seen at Seattle Children’s Emergency Department, and a seasoned pediatrician in his late 60s was the one who figured out that she had measles. He recognized it from the 1960s. None of the residents or younger doctors had ever seen measles, other than in textbooks.

That’s because in the early 2000s measles was effectively eliminated in the United States thanks to the hard work of local and state governments to get children vaccinated. Sadly, that is no longer the case. To date this year there have been more than 70 confirmed cases in Washington, with others potentially exposed but Measles is highly contagious, so more cases may still emerge.

{mosads}So what changed between 2000 and now? In the early 2000s, fringe groups started to claim that there was a connection between vaccinations and autism. These claims have since been debunked by numerous studies. But fear abounds. Washington state’s immunization exemption rate is almost 4.5 times higher than the national average, and one of the highest in the country. Most are for personal or philosophical reasons. Yet these families are still allowed to send children to public schools, and into public places, because of the personal belief exemption. While this gives parents autonomy, it puts our entire community, especially infants and people who have weak or compromised immune systems, at risk.

States with more stringent immunization requirements are better able protect their communities from these illnesses. I urge our state legislators to follow their lead by eliminating the personal and philosophical vaccine exemption and applaud the Washington state House health committee for starting this process.

We can combat this at the national level too. A lot of the debate around vaccines has centered around information and where people get it. Companies like Facebook and YouTube have come out recently saying they are starting to monitor content for untruthful information surrounding vaccines. That is a good place to start but it isn’t enough. We must combat bad information with true, fact-based information. I am in the process of working with the American Academy of Pediatrics and Washington State Secretary of Health to develop legislation to help the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) launch a public information campaign on vaccines. When scared parents are searching the internet about how to best protect their young children, websites like the CDC’s should be the first results, not hoax videos.

I write this not only as a new member of Congress but also as a community pediatrician who has spent 17 years counseling anxious parents about the importance and safety of childhood immunizations. I understand parental anxiety. And I also understand that most of this anxiety stems from an unabashed anti-vaccination misinformation campaign. The number of parents who protested vaccines at the Washington State Capitol and who are calling my congressional office is concerning. The real fear here should be of a potential epidemic of measles or whooping cough, not the immunizations which have been proven safe and effective at preventing those diseases for decades.

I applaud Gov. Jay Inslee and the state Department of Health for their swift and appropriate response to this outbreak in my home state. I hope that state legislatures continue to look for solutions to this issue. Lastly, I encourage parents to meet with their pediatrician, learn about the benefits of immunizations, and then get their children vaccinated. Then we can again say that measles is a disease of the past.

Kim Schrier, M.D.  represents Washington’s 8th District.