Dear Parents: Please, Please Do Your Own Research On Vaccines

The vaccine debate is as ripe as ever in the parenting world. It seems that on almost a daily basis, I hear the pros and cons of vaccination with both pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine movements attempting to tell parents what they should or should not be doing. But who is right? Are anti-vaccine families putting their child at risk for unnecessary harm, or are pro-vaccine families doing the same by inviting a vaccine reaction?

One Inquisitr writer seems to think that not vaccinating your child is extremely risky. In an opinion piece titled, “Dear Parents: Please, Please Vaccinate Your Kids,” Bayot says he is a strong vaccine advocate because it is the responsible thing to do.

“Why am I being so passionate about getting your kids to have their shots? It’s because refusing vaccination isn’t just downright crazy, it’s also an extremely dangerous and irresponsible choice. Here is a simple yet terrifying reality for unvaccinated kids: There is a huge chance your child will die if you don’t vaccinate them. How huge a chance is this, exactly? Well, a 2013 CDC report revealed that 90 percent of children who died from flu that year were unvaccinated, so yes, the chances are pretty huge.”

However, when you really delve deeper into the statistics, you can see that non-vaccination is not the issue. In fact, the CDC report can actually prove quite the opposite. For starters, the CDC admits that it does not know the true numbers of people who die from the seasonal flu each year, thus how can they know for certain the percent that was unvaccinated. However, even if you look at their limited data, you can see that vaccination most likely would not have changed the death toll numbers. Why? Because the study does not say why the person did not vaccinate. There are many people with compromised immune systems that cannot take certain vaccines, including the flu shot. Should a person with a compromised immune system get the flu, the chances of death are much higher than the normal, healthy population. Therefore, unless a study is done on HEALTHY individuals with and without the flu shot, these statistics are meaningless.

Furthermore, the CDC claims that roughly 35 to 171 people die each flu season. At a rate of 90 percent unvaccinated, that means of the millions of people in close contact with others each flu season, 31 to 151 unvaccinated individuals die each year from the flu. Is it honest to say that by not vaccinating your child for the flu, you are ensuring that their chances of death are “pretty huge?” I have to say, absolutely not. In fact, you child is much more likely to die from being in an improperly restrained car seat. When you add into the list the chance of flu reaction (which is low, but still present), the two pretty much wash each other out.

In the opinion piece, Bayot also says, “When Thimerosal was finally removed from U.S. vaccines for children under 5-years-old, autism diagnosis continued to rise in number at the same rate, effectively dismissing claims of a direct causation between vaccines and autism.”

What is interesting about this statement is that Bayot is using correlation as a means to claim that vaccines do not cause autism, but it is correlation versus causation arguments that are used to refute autism-linking research. Pro-vaccine proponents frequently state that correlation does not equal causation, the correlation of countries who give the most vaccines having the highest infant mortality rate, being the main target of this rebuttal. So if pro-vaccine proponents say that causation and correlation are very different beasts, which I agree, why is it a valid pro-vaccine argument?

Ultimately, I feel that each parent should look at their individual child and decide what is best for their family. Both pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine rhetoric should be one of positive support of the other group. What do you think of the constant “vaccine wars?” Should parents just do what is best for their own family and allow others that same right, or is one choice so dangerous that intervention is needed?