What if said doc is the only one covered by the parent’s insurance, or in a rural area? What’s worse, treating a kid who hasn’t got his shots, or that kid having no access to health care? I suppose it wouldn’t be so bad if all one had to do was switch to another doc nearby, but if that’s not an option, that can do much more harm than good.

I think any doc should have the right to refuse to take on a patient in their private practice (just as any lawyer etc can as well). I have sympathy for those who live in places where many choices are not available, but unless they are working for a gov’t operated healthcare facility, the Doc has a right to dictate the rules of her/his practice.

Of course, they should first try to explain to the parents why vaccinations are so important. But Jeanne makes a good point about liability.

I have heard of practices where the unvaccinated and under-vaccinated kids have to wait in a separate waiting room. This is only for kids whose parents choose not to vaccinate them. Herd immunity can stand if those who truly cannot be vaccinated (too young, contraindications, etc.) are the ones who don’t get their vaccinations. Once people choose, for no reason, to not vaccinate their kids, then we lose herd immunity. Doctors cannot risk kids getting infected in their waiting room because some of their patients are not vaccinated. This seems like a good compromise, but it only works if you have 2 waiting rooms and enough exam rooms to separate the kids. Otherwise, to protect not only themselves but their patients, doctors may have no other choice than to not allow these families into their practice.

Doctors and health facilities have a responsibility to provide a safe environment for their patients. Unvaccinated people pose a significant health risk to those who cannot be vaccinated, too young, allergies, and to those with weak immune systems, e.g. cancer. I think it is perfectly reasonable to choose not to see patients who refuse vaccination, for legal issues regarding liability, as well as to protect the rest of their patients.

Interesting. In Europe where child mortality is the same or better than America, the vaccination average per country is closer to 13, whereas America is over 20 and climbing. I personally grew up in an age with approximately 7 normal childhood vaccinations and we all did just fine, and so did our children. Could there be some sort of push from those who have a vested interest in the sales of vaccines to make us take things we have little need for? Would it be worth a look, a really worthwhile investigation, or are we all too jaded by the TV ads for drugs that we think this is a good thing without inspecting the real science? There are plenty of physicians who will admit they are being “coached” by big pharma towards positions that are not in keeping with the medical education they received. Money talks.

A local practice that used to be very tolerant towards non-vax or slow-vax types recently began requiring all patients to get up to schedule with the recommended vaccine regimen. My understanding is that liability is the reason. Apparently non-vax parents can and have sued doctors for poor care when their children got sick from vaccine-preventable illnesses, even though it was the parents who refused the vaccine. Crazy.

This is kinda harsh punishment..doctors could be sued about this..
Little Preschool

And Jeffry, you seem to be the one who needs to wake up. Obama said, “We want to get vaccinated, we think it’s the right thing to do, we’ll stand in line like everyone else, when folks say it’s our turn, we’ll get it.” Where do you get that he’s not giving it to his kids? He’s just saying he’s waiting until it becomes available to them, like everyone else, rather than giving them special treatment. My pediatrician hasn’t gotten the vaccine in yet, either.

“We are the most vaccinated country in the world.” Another piece of propaganda from the anti-vaccine crusade. What they are comparing is the number of actual “stabs” each kid gets.

I was curious about this, so I looked on the WHO website, where they list vaccine schedules per country. I looked up the schedules in France and Germany (2 countries I am familiar with) and compared them to the US schedule. The main reason for the difference in the number of “stabs” is that, in Europe, they have more combination vaccines. For example, they have one that combines DTaP, HiB, HepB, and polio. This is not available in the US, so our kids get more “stabs”. (There are some differences in the schedule, but nowhere near the number they would lead you to believe.)

Of course, at one point the anti-vaxxers were saying that the MMR was evil and that it should be separated, which would give us more stabs. You really cannot win when it comes to these people.

And please, enough with the whole “we didn’t get them when we were kids and we turned out OK” argument. We didn’t have car seats either, and almost never used seat belts. Does this mean car seats/seat belts are a bad idea?

And about having a parent sign an informed consent waiver – unfortunately these do not always hold up in court. The parent can say that they are not the medical expert, so did not fully understand what they were signing. (This can happen in malpractice cases.) Plus, as Comstock said, they are putting other kids in danger as well.

Also, as an aside, another thing I hear often is that we are the most medicated country in the world, which is absolutely untrue. Compared to other industrialized nations, we actually have a pretty low per capita medication intake. The real problem is that there are people who need medication that can’t afford it.

Honestly, I agree with this. (Many have stated my feelings above). In addition, I think it’s a parent’s responsibility to find a knowledgeable doctor who they feel comfortable talking with about their child’s continued care. If they can’t find a pediatrician who agrees with them, then perhaps they should re-examine their beliefs about a subject.

Our infant mortality rate probably has more to do with poor access to prenatal care and poverty rates than vaccinations.

All for doctors firing unvax-ed families. They put us all in danger.

Unvaccinated people don’t spread the diseases to the vaccinated. It’s the other way around. In a recent outbreak of the measles in the UK, 93-100% of the people who got the disease were vaccinated. The disease did not spread to the unvaccinated population.
Vaccines aren’t ever 100%, adults rarely get their boosters, no one knows how long the immunity is supposed to last from the new crop of vaccines.
http://insidevaccines.com/wordpress/2009/10/12/mumps-vaccine-perceptions-and-emerging-realities/
http://insidevaccines.com/wordpress/vaccine-efficacy-how-often-do-vaccines-work/mmr/

Robyn, google on up the definition of “herd immunity.”

Why go this route? Why not make some legal changes to medical malpractice such that doctors don’t have to choose between outrageous litigation and respecting patient autonomy? Patients who do not vaccinate should relinquish their right to sue in the event that their child contracts a vaccine-preventable disease – why not legalize that instead? That would protect both doctor AND patient autonomy.

Why so quick to set this precedent of “mandatory vaccination” or “vaccination by coercion” — I don’t like where that might lead. Precedents are no joke. What’s next… mandatory breastfeeding, fired if formula feeding because of increased risks of future potentially fatal or chronic diseases? Mandatory circumciscion, fired if intact son because someday he might transmit an STD? Mandatory sterilization or kids taken away if you’re not feeding/exercising/schooling/caring for your kids the way some other group of people deems “right”?

No thanks. As a US citizen, to be told exactly what medical decisions are going to be made for me and my family, that just seems unconstitutional. Plus, medicine isn’t perfect! It’s fallible and changes over time –> sometimes what is lauded as “the next best thing” is often later found to be “unexpectedly dangerous” — trust me, I wish it weren’t like this. Also, given that so much of how doctors practice these days is being driven by defensive medicine, insurance issues, overly-close ties to and pressure from advertising campaigns by powerful pharmaceutical companies, etc., the best *evidence-based* medicine just isn’t being practiced – it’s more about what’s popular, not what’s proven. So given this, I just don’t see resorting to absolutes as truly getting to the root of a dilemma like vaccination.

I mean, seriously, I greatly admire and respect and regularly see our family doctors (ped, OB, internist, other specialists), and I think our government is one of the greatest on the planet — but c’mon, doctors are HUMAN, and doctors (and legislators, for that matter!) can and *DO* make mistakes, ***just like the rest of us***.

So that’s why, to me, falling into absolutist, government-required vaccination just seems so extreme, esp when the anti-vax movement is relatively small. *AND* when other more creative measures could certainly be used to address the issues raised by a small group of our population not vaccinating.

Vacantions are made to make you and you child sick. The shots are made to break down your body thats why after you got the shots you get sick beacause the shot are made of posion. Docter are required by the goverment to vacc the kids because when your sick you are worth money.

Parent when you child is healthy you are not spending money to go to the docter, but when your child is sick you have to go to the docter then the medicane, then go back for a cheack up, get something eles from for the side effects from the first medicane. Do your homework more sick america is the more controll the goverment has over us Think befor you shot