Vaccination Etiquette

I’m sure you are all very familiar with the vaccination debate.  Are vaccinations safe, are they necessary in a first world country such as the United States, do we over vaccinate our children, do they harm our children, is this just another big trick that the pharmaceutical companies have played on us to fatten their bank accounts, is it irresponsible not to vaccinate our children, are we compromising the greater public health by not vaccinating?  As parents, I’m sure you also have your very strong opinion about this topic.  It’s a heated topic for sure.  One that is too daunting and complicated for me to enter in this column. 

A tangent topic surrounding vaccinations came to me the other day when thinking about the growing number of parents who are choosing not to vaccinate their children.  I found myself wondering about the possible health risks that non-vaccinated children might pose to other children and the question of vaccination etiquette.  Do parents ever discuss the vaccination status of their children with other parents, play groups, preschools and extended family? 

Most preschools and daycares have clear illness policies, which they ask parents to follow.  If my child has a fever, cold or some other type of virus, and we have a play date or preschool on the books, I keep her home. It’s a well-known etiquette to which most parents generally adhere. 

The same etiquette surrounding vaccinations isn’t as prevalent, if it exists at all.  As a parent of a fully vaccinated and healthy 3-year-old, I’m not overly concerned about my daughter being around non-vaccinated children. I’ve always assumed that most children around my child are vaccinated and the chance of a disease like polio circulating in Shoreline are pretty slim. Of course, there are many other diseases we vaccinate against that could and are popping up more and more in our Western population, such as pertussis, more commonly known as whooping cough.  I recently got revaccinated for pertussis because of the current baby boom in my circle of friends.  I would never want to risk the health of those little ones. 

If I were to have another child, I would be much more concerned about my child’s exposure to non-vaccinated children until he/she was fully vaccinated. Whether it’s a justified worry or not, it’s now on my radar. Many pediatricians feel strongly that infants who are not yet vaccinated should absolutely not be around non-vaccinated individuals. They have also expressed their concern about the rise of once-wiped-out diseases in our population. 

A friend of mine who has an in-home daycare has now temporarily closed due to this very issue. She had her second baby this summer and one of the children for whom she cared comes from a family that chooses not to vaccinate. At the strong recommendation of her pediatrician she decided not to reopen her daycare this fall in order to protect her own family. While the risk of her baby being exposed to a deadly disease by being around this child is very low, is your child’s health ever worth risking?

I know some parents who ask their child’s preschool director or daycare provider the vaccination status of the other children in the class. Not names, just the number of children who are not vaccinated.  They feel that it is their right to know this information in order to make good decisions about protecting their children. Some argue that it’s the children who are not vaccinated who are at risk, not the other way around. 

We cannot always assume to know who is at risk or not. In the words of my friend Jeanne Gunsolus, “Having had a niece with childhood leukemia, anything--even chicken pox--could badly compromise her immune system and kill her. Being around children that were not vaccinated was not an option and I feel strongly parents need to discuss it and let the parents of the other children know their child’s status. No one knows everything and a lot of children have compromised immune systems and need protection.”

If the trend of choosing not to vaccinate children continues to rise in the United States and there is a greater population of children who are at risk of catching a disease and passing it along, how will vaccination etiquette evolve? At this time, most of the population is vaccinated, which creates a safety net for those who are not vaccinated. Will parents, schools, play groups and the public health system start demanding to know the vaccination status of the children? Will parents of non-vaccinated children be quicker to share this information with schools, friends and extended family? 

At the end of the day, as parents, we just want to do what is best for our children and protect them the best we can. I consider myself to be lucky to live in a society where I have choices about how to protect the health of my child and can have this discussion. Imagine having this discussion in a third world country where children do not have easy access to these vaccinations and continue to actually die from these diseases.   

CDC website on vaccines:  http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/

Bastyr Center for Natural Health:  http://bastyrcenter.org/