Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Senate panel: Get vaccinated
Ohio teen’s testimony impresses lawmakers, annoys activists
Group warns of dangers of false information, calls for a national campaign similar to the one against smoking.
WASHINGTON — A Senate panel warned lawmakers Tuesday about the dangers of false information about vaccines and called for a national campaign, similar to the one against smoking, to counter the public health threat posed by anti-vaccine groups.
Virtually all the witnesses and members of the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which held the hearing, endorsed the safety and importance of vaccines. But Rand Paul, R-Ky., struck a defiant note.
Even though Paul said he and his children had been vaccinated because the benefits greatly outweigh the risks, he asked whether it was appropriate for the government to require people to be vaccinated against certain diseases.
“I do not favor giving up on liberty for a false sense of security,” he said, prompting applause from anti-vaccine activists in the hearing room.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who, like Paul, is a physician, gave a rebuttal.
“Let me give some color to what Sen. Paul said,” Cassidy said. “You may or may not know that I’m a physician. And I’ve seen people who have not been vaccinated, who require liver transplantation because they were not . ... Or ended up with terrible diseases if for no other reason that they didn’t understand vaccination was important.”
Cassidy said hospitals commonly require their employees to be immunized against the flu because they understand the importance of community immunity. “If the nurse’s aide is not immunized, she can be a Typhoid Mary, if you will, bringing disease to many who are immuno-compromised,” he said.
As for parents who don’t wish to follow state requirements to vaccinate their school-age children, Cassidy said there should be repercussions.
“There should be a consequence, and that is you cannot infect other people,” Cassidy said.
The hearing witness who attracted the most attention was Ethan Lindenberger, an 18-year-old Ohio high school student who got himself vaccinated after questioning his mother’s anti-vaccine stance. He said he tried many times to explain to his mother that vaccines are safe, citing information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
He fought a losing battle because his mother relied on false information from anti-vaccine groups rather than health officials. “These sources that spread misinformation should be the primary concern of the American public,” he said.
In his written testimony, he described how he and his mother watched a video published by an anti-vaccine group that falsely said the measles outbreak was created by big pharmaceutical companies, and falsely said measles did not cause deaths. In fact, measles caused 110,000 deaths worldwide in 2017. Lindenberger said he never realized “how misinformed my mother was” until he started high school and “learned about the importance of finding credible information” by leading the school’s debate club and from his teachers.
The teen said public health officials need to use the same strategy that makes inaccurate anti-vaccine messaging so powerful: anecdotes and personal stories.
“That speaks volumes to people,” Lindenberger said. The public health community needs to share stories of people who suffer from preventable diseases that are ravaging other countries, and the side effects and complications of those diseases, he said.
“When you convince parents, not that information is incorrect, but that their children are at risk, that’s a much more substantial way to get people to change their minds,” he said.
Lindenberger described his choice to protect himself and other people, saying, “My school viewed me as a health threat.”
Several anti-vaccine activists who were in the hearing room shook their heads in response while he spoke.
Several senators praised Lindenberger for his poise and testimony.
“You’ve done something that we don’t often do in Washington,” Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa. “You’ve been able to be very clear about where you stand and bear witness to the truth, without being categorical and without being demonizing. I hope people are listening.”
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., praised his “critical thinking skills.”
Washington state health Secretary John Wiesman, who is overseeing the state’s worst measles outbreak in more than two decades, urged the federal government to launch a national campaign, spearheaded by the CDC, to counter the anti-vaccine messages.