Department of Bad Ideas: the idea that vaccination is “a personal decision.” Vaccination is a personal decision the way texting while driving is a personal decision. That is, it’s not.
And it’s exponentially less so when the non-vaxxer is somewhat famous, and has published a book that includes her views on non-vaxxing, and talks about non-vaxxing on NPR’s Science Friday.
In certain circles, especially in the [Attachment Parenting] community, there’s huge pressure to reject or at least delay vaccines. (While a delay is better than not doing it at all, it’s still dangerous.) You then show by your personal meddling with the schedule that you care, that you’ve paid attention and done research. Hey, we haven’t all gotten degrees in epidemiology and studied the schedule, but we can all scowl at it skeptically, right? Following the recommendations of the scientists who research this stuff for a living is for sheep. They must all somehow be in the thrall of large pharmaceutical corporations. Or so the thinking goes.
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It’s time for a little social pressure of our own. It’s time for us to tell Mayim to take this one back. Stop being responsible for the measles or pertussis revivals. Once you blog about it and talk about it on interviews, like the one you did recently for Science Friday, you’re no longer just influencing your friends. It’s no longer a private, personal decision. You’re influencing everyone within earshot. Stop being a disease vector. Stop pretending like the only person affected by your decisions is you. Start acting like the role model you aspire to be.
But Mayim Bialik – Amy Farrah Fowler on The Big Bang Theory, which is why I know who she is – is firm that it is indeed personal. I find that kind of imperturbable selfishness deeply irritating.
I have been notified by my child’s school that there are confirmed cases of Whooping Cough among the students. Thanks, anti-vaccers.
In the UK the everyone over 60 or in certain vulnerable groups are offered a free ‘flu vaccination every year. One person I know particularly annoys me as he and his wife accept this offer every year and yet he defends his son’s “right” not to vaccinate his grandchildren.
How can anyone look at the current pertussis epidemic in Washington and not realize that this can’t be a personal decision? There are those, like young babies and people who are immunocompromised, who count on the rest of us for herd immunity.
It also really bothers me that Mayim Bialik has a PhD in neuroscience and is still anti-vaccine. She obviously has the scientific background to analyze the current research here, but she’s letting her judgment be clouded. She will also be pointed to as “Look, here’s a scientist who doesn’t think vaccines are safe!”
My son is at the age where he is almost but not quite due for his DTaP booster. Which means that his resistance to pertussis has declined since he was last vaccinated. Which means that when some jerk decided not to vaccinate, and that jerk’s kid got pertussis, my son was vulnerable. Which is why my son missed a week of school this month, had to have a nose swab to confirm the diagnosis, had to take antibiotics and suffer with a cough, and why I have had to pay $50+ (US) for office visits and medication, not to mention take time off of work.
A “personal” decision, my Great-Aunt Fanny.
Four babies, here in the UK, have died this year. Tiny babies. I’ve had pertussis. I was thirty, so I knew why my rib was. broken, why I coughed til I vomited, for over a month.
To think of. that happening to a baby who can’t understand what’s happening, and for their parents to watch them struggle and die… Devastating.
The idiocy has got to stop.
I suppose you could make a hardcore bodily-integrity argument against forced vaccinations. I might even agree with such an argument.
But even so, it’s hardly a purely personal choice. Even if vaccination is wholly voluntary, civic duty should still factor into the decision.
It’s like claiming drinking and driving is a “personal decision” … when someone’s decision to do or not do something can kill someone who had no voice in that decision, it’s not personal any more.
Freedom of the press is at the level of personal decision.
The problem isn’t that people publish nonsense. The problem is that the press won’t point out that it is nonsense. They will just give it equal weight with an opposing opinion.
Even if the state accepts a hard-core bodily integrity argument – and it does; you always have the right to refuse medical care – it can still force you into quarantine. And will. Just look at the history.
Also – you all have gotten a recent pertussis booster, yes? I picked mine up at the skeptic’s track at Dragon*Con last year, and am therefore pretty sure I’m not vectoring pertussis to any of the tiny preemies.
Ugh, this is what gets me about the ‘attachment parenting’ crowd. I do many of the things that make you an attachment parent (breastfeeding, not crying-it-out, etc) but I REFUSE to be anti-vaccine. I don’t understand how you can tout the science of breastfeeding and at the same time, deny the science of vaccination – it’s so hypocritical.
Often, I receive Facebook updates through websites, etc – usually they are good; BUT there is a contingent,though, of mommy-bloggers who feel it’s their right to refuse vaccinations and they refuse the right of others to criticize them.
This makes me crazy and wary of these parents – some actually feel that by breastfeeding, they are protecting their kids from any and all diseases. Ugh. Again.
But Mayim Bialik –
Amy Farrah Fowler on The Big Bang TheoryBlossom, which is why I know who she isI am so old.
Oh come now, I’m the oldest person in the world – I just never saw Blossom. (Never even heard of it.)
I saw Mayim Bialik just last month at a science convention in Washington DC aimed at kids. She spoke about how her parents were teachers and how she got a PhD in neuroscience. I’m very disappointed by her vaccination views.
You can make a bodily integrity argument against requiring vaccination. I think that’s perfectly valid. But, as has been pointed out, the decision to not vaccinate affects others’ health. So it’s sort of like smoking. You have the right to kill yourself with cigarettes, but not anyone else. Smoke only where it won’t hurt bystanders. And if you don’t vaccinate and can’t prove you’re otherwise immune, stay away from all vulnerable people. Which means, essentially, quarantine until vaccination or natural infection.
Vaccination threads always make me sad. How can people be so selfish and so wrong. Getting your children vaccinated is a no-brainer.
Chance of death from measles: 0.1%
Chance of death from MMR vaccine: too small to measure.
If no-one was vaccinated against measles, nearly everyone would contract it in childhood.
Before the vaccine, there were about 500,000 cases per year in the US, with about 430 deaths per year. And that was with really good health care. In 1920, the death rate was 1.6%
http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih1/diseases/activities/activity5_measles-database.htm
Another example of Hollywood vs science. A couple of years ago Jenny McCarthy was making headlines with an anti-vaccine campaign, spreading the misinformation that vaccines cause autism. Maybe she’s still at it, but it’s been a while since I’ve heard about it. I heard a rumor that McCarthy was going to get a talk show, focusing on children’s health, on Oprah’s OWN network — as if Dr Phil, Dr Oz and Rachel Ray weren’t already enough — but apparently that was just a rumor, or the show died in the planning stages. (Recently, the British physician who first proposed a link between vaccines and autism had his license to practice medicine revoked, good for the UK for finally getting in his way.)
McCarthy claimed that her son was autistic, that this was because he had been vaccinated, and that she had cured him of her autism, by means of chelation therapy if I recall correctly.
I feel bad for her son, he’s obviously got some problems, perhaps the biggest one being that his well-intentioned mom is giving him treatment based on things other than science. I’m not even sure he’s autistic. That diagnosis could have come from a guru who uses things like magic crystals and pyramids. That’s the sort of “healer” McCarthy seems to be turning to these days, rather than actual physicians and psychologists. Maybe her son has never actually seen a real doctor in his life, or maybe not since he was vaccinated.
If McCarthy’s son was cured of autism, it’s the only such cure I’ve heard about. Autism isn’t an illness which comes and goes, it’s a lifelong condition.
People who advance the thesis of a connection between autism and vaccination claim that there is an “epidemic” of autism which has coincided with the rise of vaccination. I don’t think the rate of autism is rising at all, but that it’s being diagnosed more often. I’m 50 years old, I’m autistic, and I was first diagnosed a few years ago, by dumb luck: I happen to know a psychologist who specializes in autism, and she urged me, several times, persistently, to get tested, until I finally caved and did it. Most autistics my age or older have never been diagnosed, or they’ve been mis-diagnosed as schizophrenic or bi-polar or something else.
This is what she said according to the website you linked to:
She researches the vaccines individually and makes a decision for herself. She has the background and credentials to understand the relevant research, the risks and benefits and make her own decision. She does not say vaccines are bad.
She does not say that she doesn’t vaccinate her children. She just says it’s a personal decision and she chooses not to discuss it other than to say that she does the research for herself and makes her own decisions. She hints, but does not say, that she chose against getting vaccinated for the flu.
What is wrong with this? Yes, there can be repercussions of the vaccine decisions that affect others, just as driving and texting does. That’s why vaccination records can be demanded in certain situations, such as enrolling your child in school.
As to there being a civic responsibility to vaccinate, I’m not so sure about that. It’s a reasonable argument for some vaccines, not for others and not for the entire vaccine schedule as a whole.
At any rate, I am perplexed at the negative response to a young woman who clearly takes her responsibilities as a parent seriously, does the research and makes her choice thoughtfully, weighing the risks and benefits as they apply to her personal situation. Isn’t that want we want parents of young children to be doing? Doesn’t that make her a role model of the kind of behavior we want to see more of in our society?
It seems to me that if you want to support ‘freethinking’, then you have to support people who are doing it, even when you don’t like their conclusions.
@ Michelle:
This, a thousand times.
@ Beth:
No, she doesn’t. Her PhD is in neuroscience, not epidemiology, or public health, or even in infectious diseases. Her claim that vaccination is something “everyone gets to decide” is not based in science, it’s not the consensus of experts in the field. From what she says, for instance, it’s obvious that either she has no idea what herd immunity is and how it works, or that she just choose to ignore what she read about it. And she doesn’t seem to realize that if there are more vaccines on the schedule today than 20 or 30 years ago, it’s because our understanding of childhood diseases and their prevention has progressed!
Did you actually read Ophelia’s post and the Wired Blogs page she linked to, or only Mayim Bialik’s side of the story? Because Bialik’s claim that vaccinating is a personal decision is the problem.
I know what she said, Beth, I read it. It’s a mess.
The number of vaccines that we received when you and I were kids is a third or a fourth less than kids get now.
That’s a ridiculous objection. I hope you can figure out why without my spelling it out.
So my feeling is, you can really do whatever you want, just like I get to do whatever I want.
Who cares what her “feeling” is? And as for what follows, it would sound petulant and self-centered coming from a six-year-old; coming from an adult on this subject it’s shocking.
No, being a fan of free thinking doesn’t mean “supporting” every loony idea that anyone has.
In my view, there’s a distinct difference between ‘freethinking’ and supreme arrogance. I would argue that freethinking is inhibited if you lack sufficient humility to understand that you are not the equivalent of innumerable specialists and the entire scientific process. Whilst the analogy may be hyperbolic, I have no more faith in her abilities to properly assess the merits of vaccination than I have in engineers or statisticians that reject anthropogenic climate change based upon their isolated assessment.
I’m afraid I don’t think this is satisfactory and regard it as far too compartmentalised. In reality, humans generally interact with a plethora of individuals in a plethora of circumstances every single day. As a result, restricted mandatory disclosure is not sufficient justification for accepting anti-vaccination. Those that lack vaccinations do not glow purple, there is no outward sign that they’re any different thus parents of, for instance, unvaccinated toddlers have no way to make appropriate judgements throughout daily life.
I regard the individual sovereignty line of argumentation as incredibly hypocritical for these reasons.
As an aside, I am unaware of your geographic location so don’t know if this is illegal where you reside. May I ask if it is? I’d be able to properly assess the intent of your comparison then. Thank you if you’re able to do that.
I hadn’t heard of Ms Bialik, but on checking I see that she has a book out which lists her on the cover as “Mayim Bialik, Phd”. It has long been my opinion that if somebody puts “PhD” after their name on a book, the book is crap, and the author should not be trusted on anything. It’s unnecessary on academic books, and credential-mongering otherwise.
Thank you for the response.
Well, no, I don’t think it’s a ridiculous objection, but please don’t waste your time spelling out why you think it is. I’m already acquainted with the arguments on both sides of that particular issue. More importantly, the fact that you feel it is ridiculous is irrelevant to my question of why you object to her doing her own research on the matter, discussing it with her pediatrician, and making her own decisions about such risks.
Apparently she has fans that care about her feelings on the matter. Given that she was apparently writing this in response to a request from her editor, it seems an appropriate response to me. At any rate, this response doesn’t answer the question of why you object to what she wrote.
Right. In fact, I would go so far as to say that free thinking doesn’t require supporting any particular conclusion. For me, it’s about supporting people going through the process of gathering information and coming to their own conclusions rather than simply accepting the conclusions of others. Which is apparently what she has done. So why the strong objection to her doing so?
@Irene: Who, in your opinion, should be allowed to make such decisions for themselves and their children?
I happen agree with Bialik’s claim that vaccinating is a personal decision. Yes, it has effects on other people, but so do almost all personal decisions. There is very little we do that doesn’t impact others in some way. Why should vaccines not be considered a personal decision in the same way that hundreds of other decisions, from choosing to smoke to choosing to grill steaks on the backyard barbecue are personal decisions?
@ Valindrius: I believe that driving and texting is illegal in my locale, though I’m not 100% certain of that. If you feel that unvaccinated individuals should be more prominently identified for casual interactions, feel free to lobby for such in the court of public opinion. Myself, I don’t find them to be all that much of a risk to others, at least I don’t think it’s riskier than many other risks we are generally willing to accept as part of living in a free society.
Then you’re a sloppier thinker than me and I’m pretty sloppy.
Maybe you can explain why it’s a legitimate concern? (And bare in mind that if there is no evidence for it being harmful it can’t be legitimate.)
I’m sorry (not really) but that’s a pretty pathetic attempt to prime us to feel guilty for disagreeing and illicit sympathy from those who call themselves free thinkers.
It’s a distraction. Whether what’s-her-face made an informed decision doesn’t matter. The question you’re trying o get away from is “Should we be allowed to engage in behavior that noticeably and substantially increases the risk of injury, hurt and illness among other people?”
You should try staying on topic.
Yes it did. Did you read what you quoted? It’s “petulant” and “self-serving, “shocking” coming from an adult.
I’d say it’d be nice if you got your just desserts for that but the likely scenario would be you hitting some fool like me on his way home. (Like the schmuck that totaled my last bicycle.)
Beth – you’re too literal. “Who cares what ___” is not a literal question about who actually cares what ____.
My point was that it’s not a matter of “feeling.” It was also that she started with thinking and then shifted to feeling for no apparent reason.
Why should vaccines not be considered a personal decision in the same way that hundreds of other decisions, from choosing to smoke to choosing to grill steaks on the backyard barbecue are personal decisions?
Are you kidding? I don’t consider those purely “personal” at all. “Choosing” to smoke in other people’s air can’t possibly be purely “personal” and neither can “choosing” to stink up the air with a barbecue if there are neighbors near by.
You’re not the first person to tell me that.
Actually, my point was that while they are NOT purely personal decisions they are still considered to be personal decisions. I agree that they do impinge on other people, but that’s true of all human activities. Which is why some locations enact laws restricting certain behaviors that are perfectly legal in other locations. I don’t see why her considering vaccinations a personal decision is inaccurate or inappropriate. Of course, I happen to agree with her that such choices are personal decisions.
I’m not the first person to tell you that – yes, and?
I’m not the first person to tell you that, so it’s a problem. It makes you clumsy at commenting on blogs. It makes you irritating to argue with. Maybe you shouldn’t just wave it off in that breezy way.
I don’t see why you don’t see why her considering vaccinations a personal decision is inaccurate or inappropriate, and since you’re plenty informed and intelligent enough to know about herd immunity and the stats on immunization, I’m tired of your repetition of your failure to see. I’m also tired of that “I happen to agree” trope – you don’t “happen to,” you have reasons, bad or good.
I’m sorry you find that my continuing failure to understand the logic of your argument tiresome. Yes, I know about herd immunity and yes, I’m familiar with the stats on immunization. I don’t follow your logic moving from those facts to declaring that vaccinations are not a personal decision. Those facts show the impact that the decision to vaccinate can have on others. I don’t see why they change the nature of the decision being a personal one.
Perhaps you could elaborate on what you consider to be a personal decision and what is not? Based on your previous reply, apparently we also disagree on whether smoking or barbecuing in your back yard constitute personal decisions. I consider decisions we make for ourselves, even if they impact others and even if laws exist that place restrictions or regulations on those behaviors, to be personal. How are you defining ‘personal decisions’ such that vaccination does not qualify as one?
Yes, I have reasons. Are you actually interested in hearing them? I didn’t think you would be nor are they particularly on-topic, but if you are interested, I can elaborate.
Well then I don’t understand your point. Yes of course it’s a personal decision, but the usual point of saying “it’s a personal decision” is to say or imply that it’s a personal decision that has no impact on anyone else and is thus none of anyone else’s business.
In other words, I agree with you if you’re just making the obvious and empty point that it’s a personal decision because she’s a person and she made the decision. I disagree with you if your point is that because it’s a “personal decision” in that mostly empty sense, therefore it doesn’t matter that it has an impact on other people.
I don’t know if you’re pointing out hidden premises or declaring absolute value for all “personal” decisions or what.
Yes, I do find it tiresome, I’m afraid, because of confusions like the above.
No, I’m not interested in hearing your reasons, but that doesn’t mean you just “happen” to think what you think, so I don’t see why you keep using that word.
Thanks for the response. Yes, I guess trying to tease out hidden premises is an apt description for what I am doing. As you pointed out above, I often take things too literally. I also often fail to understand the unstated assumptions that lie behind many arguments and it can take awhile (and a patient correspondent) to figure out what that assumption is.
I don’t agree with the assumption that “therefore it doesn’t matter that it has an impact on other people.” Just because a decision is personal doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t consider the impact of it on other people. I think ALL of our personal decisions impact on others in some way or another. When I choose to run an errand to the store, I impact others in my use of resources, the impact on the environment, the addition risk of accidents that could cause harm to others, etc. It’s quite common for governments to restrict or regulate various activities that people make personal decisions about.
Certainly it’s reasonable to discuss the impact of people choosing not to vaccinate on society, what choices are best for society as a whole and why, etc. But apparently the objection was specifically to Ms. Bialik’s phrasing – i.e.
I guess if you’re making the assumption above, this makes some sense. But the assumption itself doesn’t. It’s a personal decision that is subject to societal regulation in some circumstances. While we may disagree on exactly what circumstances should require what vaccines, I don’t think we fundamentally disagree on this point, nor did Ms. Bialik indicate in any way that she would disagree with that idea.
Perhaps what you want to argue is that more society regulation and/or disclosure of those decisions is needed. Presumably, you don’t want to argue that Ms. Bialik is undeserving of the right to do her own research and discuss with her child’s pediatrician each vaccine individually before making a decision on it, right? Is it that you think her personal choices on the matter should be publicly available information?
Hmm. I think possibly you’re just missing the implication of what Bialik said? The assumption that she meant the whole package – personal decision therefore nobody else’s business – does make sense if one is familiar with the usage; it makes sense because that really is what people usually mean when they say that in a context like that. It’s like idioms in that way. If you’re familiar with it you get it, and if you’re not you miss it.
Being literal would interfere with that, so I can see why it really wouldn’t look like that to you. That makes a difference. Maybe I can remember that if we clash in future!
But actually yes, on public health matters I don’t think people should make “personal” decisions that go against the expert consensus, because that’s bad for public health. I think infectious diseases are one area where personal decisions are just not a private matter, and shouldn’t be treated as such. Most US states have religious exemptions for vaccinations, and I think that’s appalling.
Late to the party, but I really want to address the antivax argument about how there are so many more vaccines than there used to be 35 years ago. My mother is 76. She contracted polio in San Francisco in the 1950s (fortunately she made an almost complete recovery, at least until she was hit with post-polio syndrome a few years ago). I’m 53. I had a smallpox vaccination when I was a baby, and had a reaction to it that resulted in the removal of a portion of the muscle of my arm. But smallpox has now been eradicated, and has been *removed* from the schedule. I had “red” measles when I was a child (fortunately a mild case). My kids, born in the 1980s, were vaccinated against measles, mumps, rubella (as well as diptheria, pertussis, tetanus, and polio), but contracted chicken pox (pre-vaccine) – one of them still bears the scars. One of my sons had haemophilus influenzae b pneumonia – the vaccine now available means that today’s children are protected against this as well as the much more serious meningitis also caused by this bacterium. Complaining that there are “too many vaccines” on the current schedules seems to make about as much sense as complaining that there are too many different options for cancer treatment these days.
Exactly. “Oh, oh, oh, too many vaccinations against infectious diseases, it was so much better when there were fewer.” ????
Aha! Blossom! I thought that name seemed familiar.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised she turned out fucked up, poor kid.