What happens to our kids when vaccine misinformation reigns?

It has been my honor and privilege to practice general pediatrics in Idaho for 25 years. I have worked with families from Boise and Eagle to Nampa and Caldwell. But I feel compelled to speak out today because the world has shifted underneath my colleagues and me, and not in a good way. 

Until this year, I can honestly say:

• Never have I ever thought I would worry about taking care of a child with measles, a disease that I have studied but have never seen before now, thanks to the MMR vaccine. However, because of misinformation spread by people who have not spent their lives taking care of kids, we have seen over 1,500 cases nationally this year, with more than one in ten children needing to be hospitalized. And it’s not just measles. Because of decreased immunization rates, more children have suffered and died from measles, influenza, and pertussis in the United States in the last year than during the past several decades combined. 

• Never have I ever seen a mother, paralyzed by doubt over the barrage of conflicting, politicized information, cry over whether or not to vaccinate her newborn…not until last month.   

• Never have I ever thought that something that was proven wrong years ago would be brought up again as “fact” by people in authority. We know the MMR vaccine does not cause autism. Any supposed link has been robustly and repeatedly disproven by large-scale, independent, published studies conducted over many years.

Never have I ever imagined that individuals who misspell the names of the vaccine-preventable diseases, diseases that I have spent my professional life studying and treating, would hold sway over public health decisions.

The American people should be able to trust the government to use science, experience, and expertise when it comes to our nation’s health. But today we have a Secretary of Health and Human Services with no medical background who is pushing his own agenda. While I strongly believe that everyone is entitled to an opinion, I submit that RFK should not be the person dictating health policy for all Americans.

Vaccines save lives. They have done so for over a century. Do they carry potential adverse side effects and preservatives? Yes, they do; nobody has said otherwise. All medicines, such as intravenous antibiotics and chemotherapy agents, carry risks and also use preservatives. Should we have a federally-appointed attorney make life-and-death decisions about those as well? We, providers, go through years of medical training so we can spend our days helping families weigh the benefits and risks of all types of decisions, including vaccines. I do not need unfounded accusations in the room between my patient and me while I am practicing medicine.

So, who will protect the children in this year of falsehoods and half-truths? It is not our government, or perhaps not even the 67,000+ pediatricians across the U.S. I believe it will be the parents. Because despite everything that has happened in the last several years, seventy-five percent of American parents across all political affiliations support vaccines and school entry requirements. If parents use their parental freedom to ignore the divisive noise and once again trust evidence and their medical providers, we can protect the progress we’ve made against vaccine-preventable diseases.

Next month, during Idaho’s legislative session, there will be a bill introduced to ban all immunization requirements. This bill is extremely dangerous and unnecessary, as it is already very easy in our great state for families to opt out of vaccines if they choose. All this bill will do is send our record-low vaccination rates even lower, which will, in turn, cause more illness and death. We need to step back from the constant barrage of information and demand medical facts over political fiction. Our children are counting on us. 

Statements made in this opinion piece are supported by pediatricians across the state through the Idaho Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.”

DR. NOREEN WOMACK, MD  

Boise

Dr. Noreen Womack, M.D. is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics, co-founder of Idaho Children Are Primary and a guardian ad litem for Idaho’s Fourth Judicial District.