A Denver news station reports that some doctors are refusing to see children who aren't vaccinated because they're passing diseases like chicken pox and whooping cough onto other children in the waiting room. Those diseases can hit babies too young to be vaccinated especially hard. And in November, The Denver Post reported on a rise in whooping cough, which prompted the state department of public health to urge people to get their children vaccinated.
The problems with diseases like chicken pox and whooping cough is that they've been around for so long they sound normal and benign. Despite the one study linking autism to vaccines being fully discredited, the fight over vaccinations still breaks down along old lines; fear of the unknown and distrust in the system, versus the knowledge of what those diseases can do and faith in the system that treats them. Really young infants with whooping cough get really sick and stop being able to breath. Globally, measles is among the biggest child-killers despite being entirely preventable. Those who distrust the public health system enough to not vaccinate their children because of what the system might do exhibit an awful lot of faith in the medical system that might not be able to save them if they get these diseases.
Yet, we've created a system where parental choice is almost as important as expert advice. There are good reasons for that: It's not as though the scientific consensus never turns out to be dangerous. Still, this is a fight parents and children could lose in big ways.
