A-tishoo! A-tishoo! We all fall down!
1st May 2015
As a teacher, it’s unsurprising that I often come face to face with issues to do with children. I don’t pretend to be an expert on children, and neither am I a parent, pediatrician or psychologist. However, while the government is making their laws, and social media is debating the ins and outs, and parents are wailing about their parenting rights, I have been there with the kid who has nothing for breakfast, the kid who thinks hitting is a way to solve problems, and the kid who thinks a certain way because that’s what his mum and dad think.
Parents can be great. And parents can be so wrong. Sometimes I think that when people have kids, they automatically think they know best. “I’m not an expert, but as a mother…” is a sentence-starter that I’m sure most of us have heard bandied about. The loudest being the anti-vaxxers.
As an early childhood teacher, I had numerous conversations with parents about immunisations. The usual points from parents who are leaning towards vaccine refusal are often mentioned: that vaccines cause autism, that there is a Big Pharma conspiracy, and that doctors just plain don’t know what they’re talking about.
Should childcare centres be able to refuse admission to children whose parents are vaccine refusers? The Australian government recently announced, to be effective in 2016, that parents who fail to immunise their children based on conscientious objections will no longer be paid childcare benefits or rebates, and that the only reasons for exemption will be medical. Short of barring anti-vaxxers from childcare centres, they have at least made it more difficult for them to access childcare.
Hitting parents in the pocket is a crude, but probably effective way to get anti-vaxxers immunising their children. Although it would be great if educating the public was enough, we all know the pitfalls of how people think. Give them a sensational headline or a celebrity on their side, and rational, well-documented arguments go flying out the Window.
A doctor friend of mine sent me an article called What if measles were lice written by Dr. Amy Tuteur for The Skeptical OB. In the article she parallels the anti-vaxxers’ reasons for not immunising their children as a case for not treating head lice.
While most parents I know would never dream of letting their child walk around with an ongoing infestation of lice, and while most preschools don’t allow children who are infested to come back until they have been treated, Dr. Teteur makes the interesting point that the same cannot be said of measles. But why is that? Lice aren’t deadly; measles can be. Lice need close contact to be contagious; measles is transmitted through the air. Lice can’t lead to complications; measles can. Treatments for lice involve chemicals, while the measles vaccine works with the body’s immune system.
What if a mother walked up to me and told me that she refused to treat her poor kid Sally’s head lice because: a) it’s completely natural; b) the treatments cause autism; c) she had head lice when she was younger and it was fine; d) she has the right to raise Sally however she wants to and freedom means Sally can pass head lice on to as many children as possible, God willing?
I would say: here’s some head lice shampoo and a comb. Get to it.
The skeptical movement plays an important role in ongoing efforts to inform the public about the importance of vaccinations. There is no doubt that every child deserves the right to be healthy and safe from disease, no matter what their parents think.
