Tide turning on vaccine critics
Lawmakers tackle issue after measles outbreak in nation
WASHINGTON — The resurgence of measles across the country is spurring a backlash against vaccine critics, from congressional hearings probing the spread of vaccine misinformation to state measures that would make it harder for parents to opt out of immunizing their children.
In Washington state, where the worst measles outbreak in more than two decades has sickened dozens of people and cost over $1 million, two measures are advancing through the state Legislature that would bar parents from using personal or philosophical exemptions to avoid immunizing their school-age children.
In Arizona, Iowa and Minnesota, lawmakers have for the first time introduced similar measures. The efforts have sparked an emotional, sometimes ugly response from those protesting what they see as efforts to trample on their rights. Opponents of the Arizona bill, which died quickly, have described the toll of stricter vaccine requirements as a Holocaust and likened the bill’s sponsor, who is Jewish, to a Nazi.
In Vermont, legislators are trying to do away with the state’s religious exemption four years after eliminating the philosophical exemption. In New Jersey, where lawmakers have sought unsuccessfully to tighten religious exemptions, a bill to repeal it was recently amended on the General Assembly floor.
While it’s too early in the legislative season to say how many of the state efforts to tighten vaccine exemptions will be signed into law, some public health advocates say the rash of vaccine-preventable illnesses is creating a shift in public thinking.
“The wave is starting to turn back,” said Michelle Mello, a professor of law and health research and policy at Stanford University.
Diane Peterson of the Immunization Action Coalition, a Minnesota nonprofit group, said that “there is a growing consensus for state authorities to make the bold move to require all children to be vaccinated, with the only exception being those who cannot be given the vaccine for medical reasons.”
Amid mounting public pressure, websites that have been a platform for the anti-vaccination movement’s misleading claims are also making changes. Pinterest has blocked all searches on vaccinations to stop the spread of misinformation, while Facebook is considering removing antivaccination content from its recommendations. YouTube said it is also pulling ads from anti-vaccine videos, claiming they violate its policies against “harmful or dangerous” acts.
The U.S. House and Senate have scheduled rare bipartisan hearings to investigate the reasons behind recent outbreaks.
“If vaccine hesitancy persists — or even expands — it could seriously undermine these important advances,” Sens. Lamar Alexander, RTenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash. — the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee’s chairman and ranking Democrat — wrote to federal health officials.
All those actions are happening against a backdrop of rising global concern about vaccine hesitancy as cases of measles have surged because of gaps in vaccination coverage. For the first time, the World Health Organization listed vaccine hesitancy as one of the top 10 global threats of 2019.
No measles deaths have been reported in the United States since Jan. 1, but the virus can be deadly, especially for children.
In Europe, measles cases are at a 20-year high, with 60,000 cases and 72 deaths. A quarter of those are in Italy, where anti-vaccine groups allied with populist politicians won passage last year of a law to end compulsory vaccines — a law repealed a short time later because of soaring measles cases.
Such fears are not going away soon.
The introduction of competing anti-vaccine bills in state legislatures reflect continuing alarm about vaccine safety, said Barbara Loe Fisher, who heads one of the oldest and bestestablished anti-vaccine groups, the National Vaccine Information Center.
“You cannot bring down the hammer on people and force them to obey one size fits all when the risk is not being shared equally,” she said, adding that individuals have different genetic risks.
While 11 states are considering bills to restrict or eliminate vaccine exemptions, her group supports 60 out of 141 vaccinerelated state measures, “which is the most bills we have supported in a legislative session,” she said.
Groups such as Fisher’s frame their message in terms of individual rights, insisting that parents, not the government, should decide whether to vaccinate their children — an argument championed by affluent, well-educated parents that resonates with liberals and conservatives.
Those responsible for protecting public health counter that immunizations are designed to protect whole communities, not just individuals — especially those community members who cannot get the shots, such as young children, pregnant women and those with compromised immune systems. When immunization rates fall below a certain level — 93 to 95 percent for measles — the vulnerable are at much higher risk. It is a rationale that has repeatedly persuaded judges to uphold mandatory vaccination programs.
And the enforcement of such mandates resulted in the elimination of measles from the United States in 2000.
As public memory of the terror of measles epidemics has faded, however, doubts about vaccines have grown — often stoked by debunked assertions linking the shots to autism. Between 2009 and 2013, the use of nonmedical exemptions for kindergartners increased by 19 percent nationwide, according to a 2014 study.
That created pockets such as the one in Clark County, the epicenter of Washington state’s outbreak, where rates fell far below the threshold needed to create community immunity.
Since this year began, there have been 159 measles cases reported in the United States — more than the total reported for all of 2017, according to data from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.
New York has been scrambling to contain its largest measles outbreak in decades, with more than 200 people sickened since it’s start in October.