Measles vaccinations for greater good
It’s not your own healthy kids you are protecting with the measles vaccine.
It’s Malaki Kerr-Went, sitting on a bench between his two dads up on the eighth floor of the Hospital for Sick Children.
Malaki is 4. He is groggy and headachy. He just finished a round of chemotherapy that went directly into his little spine.
Malaki has acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common childhood cancer in Canada. He was diagnosed more than two years ago, meaning he’s spent half his short life visiting this place for treatments.
“Emergency” was one of his first words. His fathers carry thermometers and overnight hospital bags like most parents carry snacks. They’ve been instructed to bring Malaki directly to the hospital whenever he shows the slightest fever because the chemotherapy has wiped out his immune system.
It’s destroyed the very cells that carry the memory of his measles vaccine.
If Malaki gets measles, his chances of getting pneumonia, brain damage and even dying are “far greater than the general population,” his oncologists say.
“Before we had Malaki, I never understood the stakes. It’s not like the flu shot. This is not a cold,” says Michael Went, one of Malaki’s fathers. “This is really life or death.”
Malaki’s other father, Doug Kerr, takes a more philosophical standpoint. For the past two years, he’s put all his hopes in our country’s advanced medical system.
“One of the things that makes me very upset and scared is the number of people who believe something on the Internet, rather than listening to the advice of Toronto Public Health or Sick Kids Hospital,” he says. “One of the greatest achievements of the twentieth century has been the elimination of these diseases for our kids.”
The sixth case of measles was reported in Toronto last week.
At the same time, a survey by Mainstreet Technologies revealed one in five Ontarians believe the measles vaccine could cause autism and another one in five were on the fence about it. This, despite years of doctors assuring us that is simply not true.
This uncovers a widely held suspicion of the medical system here. (A good test of how deep-rooted it is would be the first case of Ebola to hit our country. How many parents would distrust that vaccine?)
The Mainstreet Technology survey also found 30 per cent of Ontarians said parents should be able to decide against vaccinating their own children.
That exposes a huge hole in our sense of community.
The very principle of vaccines is the common good. We get vaccinated to protect ourselves, but also to protect one another — our neighbours, our work colleagues, our grannies, those strangers pressing in against us on the subway.
Measles in particular requires community action. It is among the most contagious of diseases. The microbes from a few infected sneezes will stay in a room for 48 hours. People are infectious for around 10 days before the spots appear.
A case of the flu dropped into an unimmunized crowd will typically infect 1.5 to 2 people. A case of the measles will infect 15.
If one of those people is your healthy, unvaccinated child — well, he or she has a 10 per cent chance of having complications like pneumonia and ear infections, and a 0.1 per cent chance of brain damage or dying.
But if one of those people is Malaki, or another person who is immune-compromised?
Malaki isn’t up for talking much today. He’s not up for hockey or karate (which he loves), or even going back to school, where he is in junior kindergarten.
The reason — he doesn’t want to get any other kids sick, “which is impossible,” Kerr says, laughing. Leukemia is not contagious. Don’t get measles vaccinations for your kids. Get them for Malaki. Catherine Porter can be reached at cporter@thestar.ca.