Public health experts once again must defend the safety — and necessity — of vaccination, this time in response to misinformation spread among the Somali community in Minnesota by anti-vaccine activists.
The rising skepticism about vaccines is dangerous on its own, of course. Last year, a study in the journal Pediatrics found that more parents than ever believe vaccines are simply unnecessary to prevent childhood diseases. But the anti-vaccine movement highlights another, troubling aspect in the world of child health: Wealthy people are more likely to be let off easy when they do things that can harm their children than low-income people are.
Parents in affluent communities enjoy a privileged status under the law that manifests most clearly — and most dangerously — when they refuse to have their children vaccinated. These parents are vaccination “free-riders” who are not held legally accountable for putting their own children — as well as other people’s children — at risk of potentially fatal childhood diseases.
Take a look at where the highest rates of vaccine exemptions cluster and you quickly begin to see a pattern: These are relatively affluent enclaves, including suburban Marin County, Calif., and wealthy areas of Chicago, Los Angeles and Manhattan.
In fact, many state legislatures changed their laws to accommodate these parents, often on First Amendment or due-process grounds. Eighteen states permit parents to refuse vaccination on the basis of personal beliefs; 47 states permit parents to “opt out” based on their religious beliefs. Indeed, so many parents have succeeded in opting out of vaccination that in many communities across the country, the rates of immunization have fallen to record lows, threatening to undercut the dramatic advances in children’s health made possible by the vaccine revolution of the 20th century.
This extraordinary deference is being paid even as prosecutors around the nation have ramped up the severity of charges they are using to prosecute pregnant women and mothers — particularly those on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale — for other behaviors seen as risking the health of their children.