The Vax Vandals
But she said she can sympathize with worried parents. “Just looking at it from a parent’s perspective, you are responsible for this other being, and every decision you make on their behalf you’re wondering, what are the consequences going to be? … But then when you look at small pox, or whooping cough … or polio, you have to weigh that against the risk of being vaccinated.”
Humboldt County has a huge pocket of non-immunized children. California Department of Public Health statistics from 2008 reveal that in most elementary schools in the state, 80 to 100 percent of kindergarteners were immunized. An immunization rate above 80 percent provides “herd immunity,” said Ann Lindsay, Humboldt County Health Officer, on Tuesday.
“But if fewer are immunized, there’s a chance you could get an outbreak of a real serious, preventable disease,” she said. “About half of our schools [in Humboldt] have insufficient immunization rates.” Several fall below 30 percent. And there have been outbreaks — two years ago, 67 Humboldt kids got whooping cough and two were air-ambulanced out for intensive care.
Lindsay said she “can’t support that kind of ‘community education’” that the vandals had engaged in.
Bray, at Trinity Elementary, said even if you’re vehemently anti-vaccination, “this is not the way to get your point across.”
“Schools are in financial crisis as we speak and we just really don’t have the money or the time to have to deal with something like this,” Bray said.
As a side note, the character trait for next month’s assembly at Burnt Ranch Elementary School is “Respect.”
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Comment / By Troy A / Oct. 2, 2009, 8:56 a.m.
In regard to the article that linked autism with vaccination: Not only was the article retracted, but it has been discredited by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and 4 of the article’s co-authors withdrew their previous professional opinions.