MMR vaccinations: thoughts on ignorance and willful ignorance...

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I'm just going to lay my cards on the table here. It seems to me that there are two main reasons to neglect the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccination of one's child: ignorance and willful ignorance (obstinacy). Now, let me be absolutely clear on a couple important points here. First, to refer to one as ignorant is not to degrade or slander them. All people are, to varying degrees and at various times, ignorant of many things. We simply cannot be knowledgeable of everything. We begin life with so much to learn, and our subsequent life consists of that journey of declining ignorance as we grow and learn. Second, this is a sensitive topic and I want to be very clear that this isn't in any way meant to be an attack on the many parents who have nothing but the best of intentions and have only their children's welfare in mind when they, mistakenly, choose to neglect their children's MMR vaccination.

It is an amazing thing that in the face of overwhelming evidence there are many who continue to cry wolf about alleged links between the MMR vaccination and Austism/Austistic Spectrum Disorder. The anecdotal 'evidence' of those angry parents whose children have autism and blame the vaccination are indeed moving; and I do not know what it is like to walk the road that they do. However, the difficulty that they and families endure does not validate their claims of a link. A celebrity going public on a personal mission to warn parents about what could happen to their children also does not validate these claims. A parent's love of his/her child can be a powerful motivator; so can the fear of any harm coming to them. But these ought to motivate one to investigate the validity of these claims and not to simply swallow them whole. Herein lies the difference between ignorance, which is not a fault, and willful ignorance or obstinacy, which is. Every possible authority on the subject has repeatedly rejected such a link. Again and again, the claim that there is a connection between autism and the vaccination has been duly refuted.

If a parent is truly concerned about this question (possibly a justifiable concern when one considers the amount of media attention the issue received in recent years), they owe it to themselves and their children to find out what the real story is (not to simply listen to the self-righteous claims of some trendy blogger or celebrity who sees him/herself as a proper authority on the subject). There are credible agencies that one can turn to. There are medical professionals that one can ask. If your local public health unit tells you that your child is due for vaccinations and you have any questions, ask them. You don't even have to take their word for it; you could ask them to point you in the direction of some sources that may further address your concerns. This is the responsible course of action; conversely, simply neglecting to vaccinate your children is not.

I would even go so far as to argue that it is a parent's civic duty to get their children vaccinated. I say this fully cognizant that the idea of 'civic duty' is not an overly popular one in most segments of our culture. Nonetheless, as citizens we do have certain civic duties; and vaccinations for our children may just be one of them. By choosing to not vaccinate his/her child a parent is potentially putting countless people at risk of that which they do not vaccinate him/her against. The parent is potentially putting both the responsibility and the financial burden (thousands and thousands of dollars) of dealing with a possible outbreak on the shoulders of an already overburdened medical system. Some see this decision as a strictly personal choice; but it is not. If one decides to forgo the vaccination for his/her child, I would suggest that in order to do so responsibly, one ought to have a better justification for his/her choice than personal fear and the anecdotes of strangers.

I write this as one who was previously ignorant regarding this issue. I write this as one who desires that the truth will be known and parents' minds will be put at ease (and their children protected/vaccinated as they ought to be). I write this as one of the recently converted/educated on this and similar issues.

Ignorance is not fault; willful ignorance (in the face of overwhelming evidence) is.

http://www.bccdc.ca/imm-vac/CommonQuestions/VaccineSafety.htm

http://www.who.int/vaccine_safety/topics/mmr/mmr_autism/en/

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