Self-defeating choices
On herd immunity, self-sabotage, and why running away from wonderous medical tools is a colossal error
Vaccination rates for the basics -- like the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine -- have sunk below the threshold for herd immunity in a huge number of counties across the United States. USA Today mapped and expanded upon data collected by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, and found that the vaccination rates are below 95% in three-quarters of counties.
■ This is a terrible self-sabotage, on a scale that would look like sabotage if it were being imposed by outside forces rather than being chosen from within. Some things only work if they have widespread consent and commitment, and vaccination for highly contagious diseases like measles is one of those things.
■ Vaccination combines self-interest (who wants to suffer from a nasty and preventable disease?) with community interest, since some people simply cannot be vaccinated, either due to age or existing immunocompromise. Unfortunately, what is rationally accounted-for in public health overlooks a sinister intervening factor: The greed, irrationality, and civic indifference of the cottage industry that has grown up around campaigning against vaccines.
■ Where is the pride in showing respect and concern for one’s neighbors? And why do some outlets and institutions persist in amplifying the voices of people who plainly don’t understand the purpose or protections of vaccines?
■ It’s one thing to be wary of any new medication. Benjamin Franklin lamented that he was a skeptic of an early approach to smallpox inoculation, because his hesitancy led to the death of his four-year-old son. Franklin openly admitted, “I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of parents who omit that operation”.
■ He would undoubtedly beg modern-day Americans to protect themselves and their children with the proven tools easily and readily available to stop dangerous contagious diseases, and he would undoubtedly endorse a vaccine with a track record half a century long (like MMR, which was introduced in 1971).
■ Modern medicine figured out how to halt diseases that used to kill thousands of Americans a year. We have a solution, and even better than a cure, it’s preventative. It is much better never to have gotten a disease in the first place than to have been cured of it.
■ It’s one thing to be lost, confused, or apprehensive about dealing with new and novel problems, but it’s downright daft to surrender to old threats when we know plainly how to stop them.
