Constable: Why hail medical advances when we don't vaccinate?
We all hail the medical advances that are helping us live longer and better. But new evidence suggests that not all of us are moving in the right direction when it comes to an obvious method to keep our health.
A new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study showing that fewer newborns are getting the recommended vaccines troubles Dr. Anita Chandra-Puri, a spokeswoman for the Itasca-based American Academy of Pediatrics and a pediatrician with Northwestern Medicine. According to a national study, 1.3 percent of children born in 2015 weren't vaccinated, which is a small minority but represents an increase of 44 percent when compared to the vaccination rates of children born in 2011.
Some of that reluctance to vaccinate a child can be traced to a 1998 paper published in the Lancet, a respected British medical journal, suggesting a link between autism and a common vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella. That study was refuted by other research, the paper was retracted and the doctor in charge of it was found guilty of ethical violations and lost his medical license. But fear still lingers on social media.
For many, the decision to not vaccinate might not be voluntary. Chandra-Puri says the rise in unvaccinated babies might have more to do with a lack of insurance, financial hardship, transportation issues, the lack of advocacy from doctors or simple ignorance about the value of vaccinations. Doctors in her busy Chicago practice don't accept patients who don't vaccinate, because they don't want an unvaccinated child arriving in the office with a virus that might put other children at risk.
An estimated 70 percent of children nationwide have had the recommended number of vaccines, but about 100,000 young children have not had a vaccination against any of the 14 diseases for which shots are recommended, according to the CDC. Illinois does better with vaccination than the national average, according to the CDC. A federally funded Vaccines for Children program run by the state can provide free immunizations for people who qualify.
Statewide, 95.2 percent of kindergarten students in Illinois have received the recommended vaccines, according to the CDC. Individual schools' vaccination rates can be found at the Illinois State Board of Education website.
With Illinois teens, only 66.1 percent have received the human papillomavirus vaccination. Very common and often spread through sexual activity, HPV affects about one in four people and can lead to cancer. About 14 million people, including teens, become infected with HPV each year.
One of the easiest vaccines to acquire is the flu shot. A new Illinois law requires every state-licensed hospital and health care facility to offer employees flu shots and allows an employee to decline a vaccine only with proof that the vaccine "would likely be detrimental to the employee's health" or that it violates a religious belief. "General philosophical or moral reluctance to influenza vaccinations does not provide a sufficient basis for an exemption," the law states.
At the start of the school year, Dr. Nirav D. Shah, director of the state's public health department, urged that everyone older than 6 months be vaccinated for flu.
The CDC estimates 80,000 Americans died of flu and its complications last winter, making the flu deadlier than traffic crashes and drug overdoses. One recent CDC survey found that only half of pregnant women get flu shots, even though the shot cuts a pregnant woman's risk of being hospitalized with flu by 40 percent and protects the baby from flu for several months after birth.
Everyone in contact with a newborn "should be vaccinated to cocoon that baby," Chandra-Puri says.
You'll always be able to find an anti-vaccine thread on social media, but Chandra-Puri says it's important to remember that "the vast majority of people are being vaccinated."