Dear Vaccine-Refusing Parents

By Karen Ernst

Dear Vaccine Refusing Parents,

I get it. Vaccine Advocates like me have put a lot of pressure on you. Refusing to vaccinate your child is not as popular as it used to be, and some of your peers consider you a pariah, fearing that your children will make them sick. So you’ve gone underground.

You’ve been encouraged to go underground by charlatans, like the anti-vaccine Dr. Bob Sears, who uses fear of vaccines to promote his brand. In his book, he told you not to share with your neighbors the fact that you have left your children vulnerable to disease, and to “hide in the herd.” He probably didn’t bank on the fact that the herd would thin out and your choices would leave us all vulnerable. He sold you two lies: one–that you should be afraid of vaccines, and two–that disease would never visit your children.

So you’ve decided to lie about not vaccinating your children. You’ve told ER doctors that your children are up-to-date on immunizations. You’ve told nurses that your children have allergies that they do not have so that you could avoid vaccinating. And you’ve rationalized it all with the falsehood that if your child ever did become ill, you would keep her at home and not expose others.

But your children, as they’ve grown, have not learned that last part. They have only learned, as you have stated time and again, that they only need to be concerned about their own well being and that they don’t owe anyone the truth or anything else.

It turns out that one of you brought your unvaccinated children to Disneyland while they were contagious with the measles. Because measles is so infectious–90% of those not immune can catch measles from a space where a contagious person had been for up to two hours after he leaves–other unvaccinated people caught it.

One woman went home to Pasadena and visited her unvaccinated sister, who is now refusing to be quarantined. Her mother defended her, saying "It's not nice when my daughter is threatened like this because she's not even sick.”

Of course she can pass along measles before becoming ill with it. Chances are she will. But you’ve been lied to. Someone told you that your children were special and they couldn’t get measles. Someone told you that your children were owed more than children like Ben, who had to be quarantined after a potential measles exposure because his chemotherapy had wiped out all his immunity to the disease.

Someone told you it was okay to lie and to hide from the consequences of your decision not to vaccinate. And now it is time for you to own the truth. Are your children unvaccinated? Be honest about it so ER doctors can treat them appropriately, so schools can exclude them during outbreaks (for their own protection), so your neighbors will know not to visit you and catch diseases we can easily and safely prevent.

I know I’ve been tough on you, and that you disagree with me and all the science showing vaccines are safe. But you still need to have some honesty about your vaccine refusal so that we have some choices about how to protect our children best.

Moms Who Vax: Why Am I So Certain?

By Gillian Tarr

People who don’t vaccinate their children intrigue me. If I knew any personally, and was on good enough terms to have a frank discussion, I would be so tempted to put them under a microscope and try to understand where the wires had gotten crossed.  Perhaps that’s why I don’t know anyone who’s ever admitted to me that they don’t vaccinate their children.

Being a typical 21^st-century denizen of the Internet, I’m aware of the wide variety of arguments often used against immunizations.  Whether they’re being spouted by some swindler trying to sell garbage to bamboozled parents or by the bamboozled parents themselves, I haven’t yet read a line I would buy, and certainly none I would stake my children’s lives on.  

Gillian and one of her daughters.

Why am I so certain?  You see, I’m not just the lucky mommy of two amazing little girls.  My first passion in life was infectious disease epidemiology, and I’ve had the great opportunity to work directly with vaccine programs. I also have a Masters degree in epidemiology, as well as a graduate certificate in vaccine science and policy.

My education and all the reading required by my training and the original research I’ve conducted left me assured that immunization was one of the greatest triumphs of public health.  So when it came time to vaccinate my own children, I didn’t hesitate.  I was that parent making the special appointment to get my daughter Prevnar 13 when it came out despite her having already completed her series of Prevnar 7 (protection against six more strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae!). I was that parent convincing our pediatrician to give my 22-month-old daughter FluMist off-label (higher efficacy than the inactivated vaccine in children).

While I made sure my own family was as protected as we could be, I didn’t start paying much attention to the anti-vaccine movement till I was working on a phase 4 vaccine trial with a state health department. Part of my job was to telephone pertussis cases and potential pertussis cases. I talked to hundreds of families.  Anyone can find a website with a description of what pertussis does to a person, but hearing it first-hand was a completely different experience.  Parents described how their children had suffered, and how they felt powerless to help them.  Some even openly lamented their previous choice not to vaccinate their children.  Having my own children, I can’t understand how some parents can set their children up to suffer, leave them open to preventable diseases.

But of course, they think they’re saving their children from something worse. There are so many websites, blog posts, Facebook rants on one side or the other.  Almost everyone claims they’ve read "the literature" and that “science” supports them. Of course there’s also the conspiracy theory folks who purport the published literature is filled with lies and everyone’s in Big Pharma’s pocket. If these people knew how vaccines are developed and studied, they would realize they’re talking about thousands and thousands of people that would have to be paid off.  People like me.  I won’t even go into how little folks in public health are paid...

If you’re making a potentially life-or-death decision for your child, whom do you trust?  Do you trust the random blogger who pulls out choice sentences from studies to prove her point but neglects the rest of the study that negates it?  What about the folks that list dozens of animal studies on some vaccine your child wouldn’t even receive?  Dr. Bob Sears, whose only credentials as a vaccine expert are of his own making?  Are you reading the literature yourself and substituting your understanding of it over that of the specialists who’ve devoted their lives to science and the analysis of scientific research?  Do you dismiss the advice of the CDC, the AAP, and the doctors and researchers who have devoted their lives to understanding and improving vaccines?  If so, why?

When did the experts become the ones you can’t trust and the amateurs--many of whom are just trying to sell you something—become the ones you bank your children’s lives on?  

On the rare occasion that I do discuss vaccines with someone, I don’t try to convince them that vaccinating is the right choice.  I simply give them resources so they can see for themselves what the true experts say and try to point out the difference between the consensus of the scientific community and the opinions of a few.

Gillian is the mother of two glorious little girls and trained as an infectious disease epidemiologist. She currently works in the private sector but remains passionate about public health.

Moms Who Vax: "Slow-Vax" to Pro-Vax

By Melissa Clark

As parents, we are faced with making many decisions. It can seem overwhelming. We are bombarded with information and advice from other parents, friends, the media, doctors—the list goes on. When I was pregnant with my first child three years ago, I knew I wanted the way I parented to fall somewhere on the attachment theory continuum. I hoped for a natural childbirth, planned to breastfeed, to use cloth diapers, to wear my baby, to co-sleep—you get the idea.

I thought one of the decisions I needed to make was whether or not to vaccinate my child. As a nurse, I understood the importance of vaccination, but as a soon-to-be new parent, I fell prey to the “toxins” argument. So I did what any well-intentioned parent would; I began to research vaccines. I turned to Dr. Sears’ Vaccine Book and decided that I would follow his delayed vaccination schedule. I knew that vaccines were important, but I thought there was a “safer” way to administer them to my child that would minimize her risk of exposure to toxins.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I am pregnant with my second child. One morning I saw a post on Facebook in regards to the flu vaccine. It claimed that the vaccine contained aborted fetal tissue. In my head I knew that didn’t sound right, and a simple internet search revealed that I was correct, vaccines do not contain aborted fetal cells.

It was at that moment I realized that if that article was false, what other beliefs about vaccines that I held to be true were actually false? My thinking started to shift. I began digging deeper into the issue of vaccines and found that, in fact, I had been duped by fear. I had bought into the scare tactics. I trusted the opinion of one man, instead of the scientific evidence proven by many.

I felt like a selfish jerk because I realized that not only was my decision to delay vaccinating my daughter arrogant, but even worse, that decision could have had deadly consequences for my daughter as well as other children. Never had I been told that my decision to alter the CDC vaccination schedule myself could cause harm to someone else’s child.  

I also felt guilty for spewing the scare tactics and biased information to other parents, thus potentially influencing their decision to vaccinate. After that lightbulb moment, I knew that I would vaccinate future children on time, according to the CDC schedule; I also began getting my daughter caught up on the vaccines that she was missing.

As my attitude toward vaccines changed, the question came to mind “when did vaccines become a choice?” When did it become okay to purposely expose our children to vaccine-preventable diseases, like chickenpox? Why is the loud voice of the anti-vaccine movement often the only one parents hear when they turn to various media and social outlets for information?

I wish I had the answers. What I can tell you is that I know how easy it is for an educated, well-intentioned parent to be swayed by fear and misinformation. I can tell you how easy it is to see the fear- mongering for what it is once you are presented with scientific truth. Yes, as parents we are tasked with making many difficult decisions on behalf of our children; however, vaccinating is not one of those difficult decisions. The ramifications of not vaccinating your child are not contained within your family; they threaten the safety of public health. So, once you are confronted with the truth of science, what will you do?

Melissa Clark is wife to an amazing husband, and mom to two awesome kids. Her educational background is in nursing, and she is a doula and Lamaze childbirth educator. She enjoys coffee, the Internet, and a sparkling kitchen sink.

What Middle Ground?

By Karen Ernst

This morning OCWeekly published an article about self-declared vaccine expert and pediatrician to the stars, Dr. Bob Sears. The article, titled “Dr. Robert Sears Takes on Both Sides of the Great Vaccination Divide: The author of 'The Vaccine Book' presents his own alternatives to the CDC-recommended schedules,” is mostly a discussion about reasons that Dr. Sears promotes his own vaccine schedule, available in his book. 

The problems with the article and with Dr. Sears reveal themselves in the headline.  We absolutely cannot allow the media to portray vaccination as something with a “divide” or “middle ground.”  While he-said, she-said journalism works for enticing readers and create buzz, it does an incredible disservice to public health.  So, while the article notes, “For years, the issue seemed to be black and white—moms and dads either gave kids all their shots or were ostracized by doctors and their communities. But now concerned parents are discovering what they see as refreshing middle ground,” this middle ground is, in fact, not refreshing.  This is ground that is risky and fraught with consequences, such as potential illness and additional procedures in the case of emergency. 

And Dr. Bob's waiting room is a prime example of the risks associated with delaying and skipping shots.  Dr. Bob's waiting room was ground zero during a measles outbreak, which originated with one of his unvaccinated patients who had brought measles from a vacation in Switzerland. (Click here for a photo of a child with measles, a disease whose seriousness anti-vax activists and fringe celebrity practitioners like Dr. Jay Gordon have consistently downplayed.) Yet, half of Dr. Bob's patients remain in this risky middle ground, according to this OCWeekly article: “Roughly 25 percent of his patients do not vaccinate, and another 25 percent partially vaccinate.”   

Clearly, Dr. Bob does as good of a job talking patients out of vaccinating as he does talking them into it.

Why does he continue to endanger the health of his patients?  “Sears sees his role as a bridge between the medical community and those skeptical of it, declaring that vaccinations don't have to be an all-or-nothing decision.”  However, how does one reconcile the idea that vaccines are bad, but I can do some of them?  Or that the CDC doesn't know what it is talking about, except with these vaccines that Sears, as someone with no background in immunology, likes? 

When asked about vaccines, Dr. Bob does not seem to describe them in a positive light: "There are chemicals such as formaldehyde. MSG is in some vaccines. There are chemicals that are very similar to antifreeze. Some flu shots actually have a spermicide used as a preservative. But they're all in tiny amounts, and I believe they're probably safe because they're in such tiny quantities."  He has an addendum at the end about the quantity of various ingredients, and most people with a basic understanding of chemistry know that the dose makes the poison.  However, he equivocates this position, claiming they are “probably” safe.  This statement is utter falsehood.  The ingredients found in vaccines, as well as vaccines themselves, have been studied exhaustively and proven safe.  Thus, his suppositions about ingredients fall into the category of fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

The ingredients are not Dr. Bob's only issue, though. "He also had an issue with the way vaccines are approved by the government. When a medical manufacturer makes a vaccine, a panel of doctors at the Food and Drug Administration must decide whether to approve it. Doctors on that panel might own stock in the vaccine manufacturers or even work for the vaccine manufacturers.”  This point may seem valid, if the FDA were the only check in place for vaccine safety.  However, the CDC and the ACIP also review vaccine data and studies, and they are the ones who make the schedule we all follow, which is supported by the AAP and the AAFP.  The system of nepotism that Dr. Bob alludes to is simply nonexistent, unless millions of doctors--uncompensated, by the way-- are in on it.


You would suppose that Dr. Bob just wants to give parents information and let them decide for themselves what to do.  However, “he continues to be an advocate for parents who want choices, and at the moment, that includes fighting against Assembly Bill 2109, which would require parents to obtain a doctor's signature before they can enroll their child in public school if they wish to skip one or more vaccines.”  In other words, he would rather have parents self-educate than seek appropriate information about medicine from an expert in medicine.

Dr. Bob's advice, as always, is to hide in the herd. "Right now, enough people are vaccinating that the herd immunity of our nation is not being compromised yet," he claims. However, he may have missed that vaccine preventable diseases, like measles and pertussis, are coming back.  He may have forgotten the measles outbreak of 2011, but 222 people who contracted it, and the third of them hospitalized with measles, have not forgotten.  Highly contagious diseases like measles and pertussis are merely signs of what is to come if we do not raise our vaccine rates.

"You can argue with these parents that the decision they're making to not vaccinate is bad for public health, but most parents are trying to make a medical decision that's best for their baby," Sears says. "I think we're all selfish when making any decision for our own children. I can't fault parents for thinking that way."  That true, Dr. Sears.  But I can blame you for supporting and promoting this way of thinking.

Karen Ernst is a mother, teacher, and vaccine advocate. She is the co-founder of Moms Who Vax.