I am sure we have all read and heard about the recent outbreak of measles. More important, I am sure we have all read and heard about all the blame wars going around surrounding a parent’s decision whether or not to vaccinate their children.
The other night David asked me what I thought about vaccinations. I could not tell if he was asking me from the perspective of a parent (yikes!) or from a public health/public policy perspective. Turns out, he was asking my overall opinion from a public health perspective. After all, I have spent years of my life thinking about food, health and society. It took me a while to form a coherent answer. For what it is worth, here it is:
First of all, I HATE the blaming of parents that have made a choice not to vaccinate. I think the issue is a lot more complicated and nuanced than blaming parents. I also do not think this is an issue that federal politicians should be addressing. Sure, they can give their opinions, but I do not think we should have mandatory laws enforcing vaccinations. This is a complicated issue and I am definitely not proposing an answer or solution. Instead, I am trying to draw attention to other societal issues (namely, the lack of support for public education) that are being overlooked in the debate where the media is focusing on parents or high-level politicians.
That being said, when we look at history in this country of who has chosen not to get their kids vaccinated, it has been groups of people who have already marginalized themselves from mainstream society, public goods and the economy (generally speaking). In other words, rural people who belong to religious or spiritual sects which, for one, do not believe in the science of medicine. However, they also do not believe in public education and choose to homeschool their children. Again, generally speaking, these are pretty isolated groups of people.
The issue today is that over the past decade or two, more and more mainstream suburban and urban families have chosen not to vaccinate their children. The kids attend public schools, visit the public library in their towns, take classes and/or participate in sports. In these activities, they are constantly surrounded by kids who have travelled and been to other places and may or may not have picked up communicative diseases.
So should it be the schools and other local organizations which enforce vaccinations? That has been the case, but is it working? Or is it still easy for a parent to check off a box saying that they have declined to vaccinate for religious purposes? This is where the problem lies. Is this a federal government issue or a local problem? After an outbreak such as this, should parents themselves take more responsibility to recognize that this is an issue that benefits the public good, not just their individual families? A lot of people think it is up to the parents and that is what started these wars.
I think one issue is that a lot of parents distrust mainstream public institutions and, as a result, are directing their mistrust into finding ways to take control of things they can control. In this case, they are deciding not to vaccinate their kids because it is one thing they can control. Part of this distrust comes from the breakdown of local and state government institutions, including public health and education institutions. Public schools and municipalities are lacking the support that they have been afforded for years. If they had more support, they would have the time and resources to spend on analyzing the claims that parents make. Instead, through a number of loopholes, parents are able to slip their unvaccinated children through the system. I believe that with stronger support for public health and education, parents would see vaccinating as a moral act to support the greater public good. With little support for these institutions, we see a lot of disrespect for public institutions and self-righteousness that plays out in certain ways.
And for the record, yes of course, we plan to vaccinate our child, but we would like to spread the vaccinations out as much as possible 
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