Seattle doctors are making national headlines for suggesting children should be able to opt-out of all vaccines except for measles.
The proposal — by Douglas J. Opel, Matthew P. Kronman, Douglas S. Diekema, Edgar K. Marcuse, Jeffrey S. Duchin, Eric Kodish — was published in the distinguished medical journal Pediactrics. It is contrary to widely-held medical thinking about vaccines and law.
“Efforts to restrict parents’ ability to exempt children from receiving vaccinations required for school entry have recently reached a pinnacle,” the proposal reads. “The American Medical Association voiced support for eliminating nonmedical exemptions (NMEs) from school vaccine requirements, and California enacted legislation doing so. Although laudable in their objective, policies eliminating NMEs from all vaccines are scientifically and ethically problematic. In the present article, we argue for an exemption policy that eliminates NMEs just for the measles vaccine (MV) and is pursued only after other less restrictive approaches have been implemented and deemed unsuccessful.”
Kids who attend public school must be immunized against 11 diseases, but the doctors say that takes away families’ freedom to make health decisions, a common refrain from anti-vaccination parents.
Parents in Washington can opt out their kids of vaccines for medical, philosophical, or religious reasons.
The doctors say vaccination laws are missing the point, because they should be focusing on vaccination of measles. Here’s the video:
via Seattle doctors: Kids should be able to opt-out of all vaccines except for measles | KIRO-TV.
