Letter to my Representative

I won't be making it a habit to write much about vaccines here, since I've found that the topic is one that so divides people, despite objective science (which, because of its separation from opinion and emotion, is the kind of data I trust most), that there is no "convincing" and almost never any rational discussion or debate. I have already written about where I stand on this topic, and as I promised, I wanted to post the letter I finally got around to writing to my local representative in case anyone else needed a template. My letter is specific, in places, to Minnesota law. It does, however, cite New York State's "sincerity testing" for parents who opt-out of mandatory vaccinations for "philosophical reasons." I felt it was important to let my rep know that parents like me are out there, even if we aren't writing as many letters.

Dear Rep. Simon,

When my son started Montessori this fall, I was terrified. These were not the raw nerves of a mother sending her toddler off to school for the first time. This was the fear of a mother sending her child into a classroom in which vaccination is optional. Minnesota has one of the most lax, truly laughable policies regarding vaccination, and because of this, the entire community is at grave risk. The loophole in the vaccination policy for children is so wide that the 5% of the population who is not vaccinated (and who, therefore, have put our precious herd immunity at risk), could fall through it. It is of cold comfort to me, as a parent, that vaccinations are “mandatory”—unless there is a medical reason vaccination would be dangerous or a parent has a philosophical objection to vaccination.

When my son was an infant, I was concerned, like many new parents, about the information swirling around the Internet about vaccines.
It's natural for an intelligent parent to question medication and vaccinations. In an ideal world, we would all have access to and the ability to understand the raw scientific data regarding the medications and vaccinations we get. However, it is reckless to ignore science in favor of celebrity advice and scare tactics used by doctors who rely so little on science that they have been ostracized by the medical community. As I’m sure you’ve heard, the sole piece of research that suggested a link between autism and vaccines was withdrawn by The Lancet, in which is appeared, due to error-filled data and unethical practices. In an article by Dr. John Snyder, who took anti-vaccine pediatrician Dr. Sears to task for his book The Vaccine Book (http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=512), he responded to another physician who commented that he had decided simply to not see patients whose parents were not vaccinating them. I can't have you bringing pertussis or measles into my waiting room and infecting vulnerable patients (like babies too young for the vaccine, for example), he said. Dr. Snyder responded this way:

I can absolutely appreciate your stance with vaccine-refusing parents. I have opted to keep them in my practice as I think I am more likely to get them to vaccinate than others might be. I posted a sign the other day in my waiting room, referencing a recent local measles outbreak, asking parents of under/unvaccinated children to immediately notify the front desk as they enter, so that they can be removed from the waiting room. It makes it clear that they are a risk to the other families. We’ve reached a point at which it’s important for these parents to feel a bit ostracized, and for the other parents to feel some outrage.


Dr. Snyder is right. It's time for the heretofore-quiet vaccinating parents to speak up and ask our representatives to change the current laws regarding vaccinations, to close that loophole or at least make it smaller. In New York State, parents who object on “philosophical” grounds must attend a court hearing, not simply get a form notarized. I’d like to see this sort of law enacted in Minnesota. Thankfully, the majority of us vaccinate our children (90%), which is the only reason the parents who don't vaccinate their children feel comfortable keeping their children unvaccinated, even as they put the rest of the population at risk. We need 95% vaccination rates, however, to keep diseases like measles, mumps, etc., at bay. As one physician said, vaccine rejectionism is dangerous. “It harms the children who are not vaccinated, and it harms unrelated children who are too young to be vaccinated. Parents who reject vaccines implicitly rely on other people being vaccinated. They are willing to accept the benefits, without partaking of the risk. They expose their own children to life threatening illness, and they expose other people’s children to life threatening illness. The government should act to restrict vaccine waivers to only those with medical indications for forgoing vaccination. The right to indulge one’s philosophical beliefs ends at the point where it threatens the life and health of other people’s children.” (italics are mine)

In Minnesota, we are nearing that threshold for several childhood diseases. Unvaccinated children may come in contact with the disease in many ways, including from children coming here from other countries where immunization is not standard or is unavailable and where these diseases still exist ( polio is still a huge issue in India for example) And this final thought is the most frightening to me, as the mother of a five-month-old: a vaccinated child might come in contact with an infected unvaccinated child in a preschool setting, carry home the virus and/or bacteria and remain immune: however, the infant sibling, who is too young to be vaccinated for these diseases, will not be immune and could fall seriously ill or even die. Representative Simon, please consider introducing legislation that tightens the loopholes in our vaccination requirements It’s unfeasible to simply eliminate the philosophical opt-out, but we can make it more difficult for parents to put their children, and ours, at risk. New York State insists on “sincerity testing” of all applicants for religious exemption. I’d like to see such safeguards put into place. I guarantee you that millions of Minnesota parents will thank you.