Rare for me, but a firm “what she said” to Valerie over at Home Education Magazine on the recent firestorm over vaccines and homeschoolers.  Her conclusion, backed up with nifty graphs and summaries:

In any case, homeschooling is not the cause of the choice to not vaccinate.   That cause, in the noted cases, is an objection to vaccination.

Case in point:  here, we are up in arms about 131 cases of measles.  In Canada, it is mumps with 116 confirmed cases.  Traced not to homeschoolers, but to the Netherlands Reformed community.  Who, as it turns out, also seems to have been responsible for outbreaks of measles and rubella, outbreaks which were perhaps more dangerous because the students attended their own private school, thus contributing to a quicker rate of transmission.  And I wonder, if we are concerned about partial coverage of vaccines…wait…this news is somewhat older, May of ’07, but anyone born between 1970 and 1992 are at risk because the triple MMR has been shown to not provide enough coverage for some people?  That covers most of the vaccine’s thirty year history!  But I digress.

Anyway, if we are concerned about the the partial coverage of vaccines and the small percentage of vaccinated children and adults who can contract one of these diseases despite two rounds of the injections, I would think the greatest concern would not be among homeschoolers, but among those populations who reject for whatever reason and send their children to school.

It is a topic I have been thinking a lot about recently, and I have even pondered just keeping my opinion to myself because I got somewhat tired of the emails I received after first discussing my daughter’s ulcerative colitis.  I have always supported a parent’s right to make decisions regarding prevantative health, and any time I have mentioned vaccines on this blog I have argued against government mandates.

But I am quickly learning that not all people have that view, and it is not only those who trust the government to make better decisions regarding the health of my children.  After that entry on my daughter’s ulcerative colitis, I was inundated by emails.  Most were supportive.  Even most of those which encouraged me to look at this or that alternative treatment were generally supportive.

But I also got my fair share of “You call yourself a Christian, yet…”  My faith, my parenting and my intellectual abilities were all called into questioned by an impassioned few who thought that my decision to follow the doctor’s recommendations was evidence of trusting man over God, science over faith.  It was a bit of a shock and I composed more than a few responses which vented all my frustration over my daughter’s chronic illness at these new “enemies” who were a little more tangible to me than the disease my daughter suffers from.  I did not have a lot of nice things to say, but at least I did not hit “send” on any of them.

Ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s are not well-understood, but the best model at the moment contends that it is an overactive immune system attacking its own internal organs.  Medications, such as steroid treatments, which suppress the immune system can bring the disease under control and put it back into remission.  Mouse was on these medications for a very short time and most of that was the tapering off period.  Yes, I read all the side effects.  Yes, it made me a bit nervous when I received two phone calls from the nurse emphasizing the fact that should my daughter end up in the emergency room with suicidal or murderous thoughts, they were under no circumstances to take her off the medications or the situation would get worse.  I completely understand why parents look at that and say, “No way!”

Funny thing is, my daughter’s emotional frenzy we had been attempting to cope with prior to her diagnosis completely levelled out within a week of beginning the medications.  It was like we suddenly had our daughter back.

But this brings me back to the vaccine issue.  While on these medications, Mouse could not receive vaccinations, nor could she be around unvaccinated children.  Nor could she be around sick children because her weakened immune system might not be able to fight off an infection.  At first, I was relieved she was not in school.  After all, I wouldn’t have to worry about any and everything being passed around in her school.  But then I started realizing just how big this “pocket” of unvaccinated children is among homeschoolers.

That, I suppose, is why I stuck so long on this statement by Jennifer Margulis which Spunky selected for her post:

“People say, ‘You’re putting my kid at risk, but that doesn’t make any sense at all,’” she said. “If the vaccine works, I’m just putting my child at risk.” MSNBC

But it isn’t true.  Like I said, I respect the rights of parents to make these decisions for their own children, but we need to make these decisions and the resulting public arguments based on truth.  If that is the result of her own research, I am not all that impressed.  Her children aren’t the only ones put at risk.  My daughter is at least some of the time, and many more thousands of children are as well.  These numbers from the article stuck with me:

In the first seven months of this year, 131 cases of measles were reported to the CDC, compared to 42 cases in all of last year. Of that total, 112 were unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination status, the CDC said. Some were too young for vaccination, but in 63 of those cases the patient or their parents had refused the shots.

112 were unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination status.

63 of those refused the vaccination.

That leaves 49 measles cases in unvaccinated people who did not refuse vaccinations.  Do they all fall into this “too young” demographic?  Or how many could not tolerate vaccines due to health issues, medications or a prior history of problems with vaccines?

And should my daughter have another flare up and should we again opt for the steroid treatment which worked so well for her, do we ask Sunday School teachers and homeschool groups about the vaccination status of the children in their care?  Or do we just stay home from church and other social gatherings as well?

homeschool vaccinations measles mumps