Veel Amerikaanse ouders weigeren inenting kind

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MoreMainefamiliesareskippingor delayingchildhoodvaccines

Public health advocates worry the trend could lead to outbreaks of long-controlled diseases.

Mainers increasingly question the safety of vaccines, and the state now has one of the highest rates of unvaccinated children in the United States.

The number of children entering Maine’s kindergarten classrooms without all of the required shots has jumped by about half in the past decade, to about 600 statewide, because parents philosophically object to vaccines.

Parents and health officials speculate that the trend is driven by a large body of anti-vaccine literature claiming the shots are unsafe, Mainers’ sense of independence, and parents’ desire to do what’s best for their children. But public health advocates worry that diseases common decades ago that were nearly eradicated could return.

Yarmouth Dr. Laura Blaisdell, a pediatrician who is teaming with MaineHealth to research why some Mainers are choosing to forgo vaccines, predicts an outbreak of measles or pertussis will erupt in Maine. The state experienced its highest number of pertussis, or whooping cough, cases in decades in 2012, and pertussis numbers in 2013 remained high compared to recent decades.

“It’s not a matter of ‘if.’ It’s really just a matter of time, of when it will happen. These are diseases that will come back,” Blaisdell said. “It will take the death of children for people to understand and realize the merits of vaccines.”

Blaisdell said doubt about the safety of vaccines has spread from the fringes to typical parents who have read sophisticated anti-vaccination messages on the Internet. The anti-vaccination movement started in the late 1990s, stemming from a study linking autism to vaccines that has since been debunked. National surveys report that people choosing to opt out of vaccines tend to be upper middle class and educated, and autism is only part of the reason for the skepticism.

Anti-vaccine advocate Ginger Taylor, 45, of Brunswick said the free market should dictate what vaccines, if any, people choose for their children.

“The jig is up. The system is broken,” Taylor said. “If they want to live in happy-land, in a world where vaccines are completely safe, that’s up to them.”

But Blaisdell said patients who doubt vaccines are most often not anti-vaccine crusaders, but people who are misinformed.

“We shouldn’t vilify them. These are reasonable people looking to make decisions with the best information that they have,” Blaisdell said.

The opt-out increase in Maine is entirely accounted for by the number of people signing philosophic exemptions to vaccinating their children, as opposed to religious reasons, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Blaisdell is part of a group of Maine medical professionals trying to stem the anti-vaccination tide by educating the public and warning parents of the dangers of leaving their children unvaccinated. One of the leading efforts is vaxmainekids.org, a public health education partnership between MaineHealth and the Maine Immunization Coalition, an advocacy group made up of doctors, nurses and other medical professionals.

The message, if it succeeds, will take time to resonate, public health officials say.

Maine’s opt-out rate for children entering kindergarten – 3.9 percent – is the ninth highest in the country, according to a 2013 report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While less than 4 percent may not sound high, vaccines are most effective when nearly everyone is immunized. When even 5 percent to 10 percent of the population opts out, what is known as “herd immunity” can be compromised, according to the CDC.

In 2012, Maine experienced its highest rate of pertussis since at least the 1960s, with 737 cases. The numbers declined to 330 in 2013 but were still high compared to historical standards, more than twice as much as a few years ago. This year, with 181 cases through June 30, pertussis cases are tracking similar to 2013.

The numbers are worrisome, health experts say, and represent a danger even to those who have had their shots.

When herd immunity breaks down, even those who are immunized can be at risk, according to scientists. That’s because not everyone’s body responds to and is inoculated by the vaccinations, but widespread vaccination prevents the spread of disease to those who aren’t protected. Herd immunity also protects babies who are not yet old enough to get their vaccines. When the percentage of those opting out of vaccines climbs, the effectiveness of herd immunity declines.

MEASLES COMING BACK

Measles, while not a problem in Maine, with only one confirmed case in 2013, is starting to make a comeback nationally. The CDC has reported nearly 600 cases so far this year in the United States, more than 10 times higher than a typical year.

One in 1,000 children who fall sick with measles dies, according to the CDC.

Children can’t start receiving their measles vaccine until age 1. As an airborne infectious disease, along with pertussis, it’s extremely contagious, Blaisdell said.

“If you’re in the same room as someone who has contracted measles and you’re not vaccinated, you’re pretty much going to get measles,” Blaisdell said. “I wouldn’t want to see a baby with measles.”

Dr. Larry Losey, a Brunswick pediatrician, said “vaccines are a victim of their own success.” Because vaccines have done such a good job eradicating or greatly minimizing diseases, people forget about those past scourges and focus instead on imagined threats, he said.

Over time, the heroic image of vaccines – Dr. Jonas Salk developing the polio vaccine in the 1950s and earning the Presidential Medal of Freedom –has faded, Losey said. The polio virus infected 50,000 people or more per year in the 1940s and 1950s, before the Salk vaccine. Those who didn’t die were often paralyzed or had to receive treatment in “iron lungs.”

Ann Lee Hussey, 60, a South Berwick polio survivor who contracted the disease as a baby, a few years before the vaccine became widely available, remembers schoolchildren standing in line to get their vaccines, and how grateful parents were to have their children vaccinated.

“I remember adults talking about how much of a sense of relief it was to have the vaccine,” said Hussey, who can walk, but with difficulty.

Similarly, hundreds of thousands of cases of measles were reported annually in the 1950s, causing hundreds of deaths per year. But, after the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, cases dropped to near zero.

And millions were infected with German measles – rubella – in the mid-1960s, with more than 11,000 babies dying between 1963 and 1965. After a vaccine was introduced in 1969, rubella also was nearly eradicated, according to the CDC.

Hussey said it galls her to see people voluntarily forgo vaccines. In countries that don’t have easy access to the vaccine, polio is still killing and maiming people.

“Quite frankly, I think they’re being very selfish at the expense of children. I can’t imagine us going backwards,” said Hussey, who has volunteered in Africa to help administer the polio vaccine.

http://www.pressherald.co(...)-childhood-vaccines/

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Op woensdag 13 augustus 2014 10:52 schreef CynicusRomanticusRob het volgende:

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Jij denkt serieus de inentingen die ze daar hebben (meer dan hier) blindelings te kunnen vertrouwen?

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Op woensdag 13 augustus 2014 10:51 schreef DroogDok het volgende:

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Dan moet je BNW en OUD hier even heen halen.

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Op woensdag 13 augustus 2014 11:03 schreef Moppert het volgende:

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Dat is sowieso in nl ook niet zomaar een optie.

Ik denk dat je dat veel makkelijker moet kunnen maken zodat ouders wel kunnen kiezen om dingen als polio of mazelen vaccinatie te geven en dingen als rodehond niet.

Denk dat het best goed is om als land wat meer open te staan voor meer optie's dan alleen maar het standaard programma.

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Op woensdag 13 augustus 2014 11:07 schreef CynicusRomanticusRob het volgende:

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Geen idee eigenlijk.

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Op woensdag 13 augustus 2014 11:08 schreef DonJames het volgende:

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Dat is best veel. Bedenk even het volgende: In 1956 heerste er in Nederland een polio-epidemie. 2.200 slachtoffers. Zoals hierboven staat komt 1 op de 1.000 te overlijden. Dat betekent dat zo'n 2 miljoen mensen polio hadden opgelopen, op een bevolking van 10,9 miljoen.. En dan hebben we het nog niet eens over de mensen die het wel overleefden, maar permanent verlamd bleven.

Sukkels..