Christianity Today ran an article a few years back called Love Your Neighbor, Get Your Vaccines.  It’s not the only article (or post) I’ve seen with similar reasoning: even if you don’t think your kids should get vaccines for their own sake, get them for everyone else’s sake, or you’re failing to love your neighbor.  There’s a major flaw, though, in this reasoning.  It assumes that our decisions are based on their presuppositions.  They’re not.

I can’t speak for every parent, of course, but for most thoughtful non-vaccinating parents, the same beliefs about vaccines that resulted in our choice to skip them influence our beliefs about their impact on the broader culture.  We don’t believe that we would be protecting those around us by vaccinating our kids.  You believe that.  Here’s what we believe:

Herd Immunity is Unreliable

The theory behind herd immunity (in very simplified form) is that if enough people in a given community are immune to a given illness, few enough of them are susceptible that there’s really no one to pass it around.  So far, so good.  In the “real world,” it works that way — if enough people in a community get the illness, they develop (depending on which illness) lifetime immunity and the “herd” is safe.

The problem with transferring that concept to vaccines is that “vaccines” and “immunizations” are not truly synonymous.  Vaccine-induced herd immunity is calculated based on who got the shots, not based on who’s immune — which we generally don’t know until there’s an outbreak.  Some vaccines are more effective than others.  Virtually all of them wear off (and nobody has a clue how fast).  So even if 100% of the population is vaccinated, nobody knows exactly how much of the population is immune.

Take measles, for instance.  According to the CDC, the average rate of immunization for measles-mumps-rubella, as measured by the percentage of children enrolled in kindergarten, is more than 94%.  (As of October 2014.)  Even in the lowest state is above 80%, and it’s the only state below 85%.  But we still have measles.  Why?

In part because vaccines aren’t guaranteed effective.  Even that freshly-vaccinated kindergartner may or may not be immune.  On top of that, unlike naturally-acquired immunity, vaccine-induced immunity wanes.  So “in the old days,” nearly all of the older children and adults were immune — permanently — providing a true herd immunity.  Today, the only way to guarantee that herd immunity is to repeatedly give booster shots at unknown intervals.  This was strongly demonstrated in the so-called “Disneyland outbreak,” where the majority of those who became ill were over 20.  Many of them were listed as having “undocumented” vaccine status (in other words, they didn’t have proof of vaccination readily at hand) but unless they were older than 40, most of them were probably fully and properly vaccinated as children.

Vaccination Campaigns Shift the Vulnerable Population

The majority of illnesses for which we now have “routine childhood immunizations” used to be “routine childhood illnesses.”  Most people got them as school-age children.  In some cases, they had serious complications — I’m not denying that — but in the majority of cases, they were unpleasant, children got over them, and they emerged with strengthened systems and permanent or semi-permanent immunity to illness from which they had just recovered.

Most teens and adults did not contract these illnesses because they’d already had them.  Most babies did not because their nursing mothers had antibodies to transfer to them through breastmilk.

Today we experience a very different scenario.  When vaccines work, they confer immunity for a relatively brief period of time.  This period corresponds to the period during childhood when, traditionally, these illnesses would have been battled with minimal ill effects.  And then the immunity begins to wear off.  This means that, while our school-age children may be at decreased risk, other segments of the population are not.  We have now shifted the bulk of the risk to teens, adults (including the elderly), and babies too young to even have the option of vaccines.

Pertussis is pretty miserable, but older children rarely experience serious problems as a result of it.  Tiny babies, on the other hand, can die from it — and they’re no longer protected, because their mamas have no antibodies to provide.  Rubella is not a big deal for an 8-year-old, but it can be a huge problem for a pregnant mother — who is now at much greater risk than in decades past (when she would have had the illness in childhood and be immune by the childbearing years).  Boys are more likely to get measles post-adolescence, when sterility is a risk.

Vaccines Provide a False Sense of Security

Even if they acknowledge at a theoretical level that vaccines don’t have a 100% success rate, most vaccinating parents and most medical professionals treat vaccines as a guarantee of immunity.  When children get sick, they assume it must be something other than what the child has been vaccinated for — after all, he’s vaccinated!

The result is delayed diagnoses (and, as a result, delayed treatment), as well as a greater likelihood of disease spread.  Parents may, for instance, send their kids to school with “a cold,” and spread pertussis.  (A point of clarification here: I have heard parents say that they’ll “know” if their children have any significant illness, because those come with a fever.  But pertussis is almost always afebrile.  That means “without fever.”  This is another negative effect of vaccines’ false sense of security.  Parents are comfortable remaining ignorant about the symptoms of illnesses their children are vaccinated against.)

Vaccinated Children Spread Illness

As a bit of a “part B” to the point above, vaccinated children can spread illness.  Yes, even illnesses they’re vaccinated against.  Especially if their parents are “sure” they “can’t” have whatever it is they have.

In fact, vaccinated children are probably more likely to spread pertussis than unvaccinated children.  See, the pertussis vaccine has a pretty lousy success rate at completely preventing whooping cough.  What it more often does is keep the illness milder when children do contract it.  The result?  You guessed it.  People have no idea they have whooping cough and go around coughing in public places for weeks.  The unvaccinated probably have a less pleasant time of it, but they’re generally sick enough to realize they’re sick and stay home.

Vaccines Can Spread Illness

Many vaccines use killed or inactivated strains of viruses, bacteria, or toxins, and these typically cannot be considered contagious.  However, live-virus vaccines can result in shedding of viral substances, just as would happen with a case of the actual illness, resulting in a spread to others, particularly those with compromised immune systems.

These would include the live pertussis vaccine and live polio vaccine (neither of which is the default option used in the U.S. at this time), and the nasal flu vaccine.  Varicella vaccine is also typically live (‘though “attenuated,” or weakened) and can technically pass chicken pox or shingles.  Rotavirus is a live vaccine.  (Seriously, if your child has ingested live gastrointestinal virus within the past several weeks, please stay away from me and my children.)

Surprisingly, even the acellular version of the pertussis vaccine may result in the spread of illness.  Researchers have discovered that those who are recently-vaccinated may be asymptomatic carriers…meaning it’s the vaccinated children making the unvaccinated children sick, not the other way around.

Vaccines May Mask Laziness, and There Are Better Things to Focus On

No one (that I know of) is claiming that vaccination is not necessary because our kids can’t get sick.  We know there’s some risk involved.  But we believe there are more effective ways to mitigate that risk.  Vaccinating parents, for the most part, get their kids shots, then cross their fingers that they work, because their hope is in the vaccines.

Non-vaccinating parents are not concerned about our kids getting sick; we’re only concerned about our kids getting really sick.  Battling a typical childhood illness is not inherently all bad.  Sure, it’s no fun.  But if you weather the storm well, you typically emerge with a stronger immune system, a very strong and long-lasting immunity to the illness in question (for most of the vaccine-related childhood illnesses), and, some people postulate, a better-modulated immune system (meaning decreased susceptibility to things like allergies, asthma, and autoimmune disorders).

What we don’t want are severe negative complications, like sterility, encephalitis, or (obviously) death.  What the medical community has largely done is (figuratively speaking) put its fingers in its ears and pretend this is not a question because we can just play God and make the diseases all go away.  This is a foolish approach.  Learning more about how we can weather an illness without lasting harm is beneficial for unvaccinated and vaccinated alike.  Remember, one’s “vaccinated” status is not a guarantee of immunity!

Thoughtful parents who don’t vaccinate are not busy pretending our kids can’t get sick; we’re busy learning how to keep their bodies strong, and support them when they’re ill, so they can fight off illness as efficiently and effectively as possible.  (And if the health industry would study this more instead of just funding new vaccines all the time, we might know even more!)  Did you know, for instance, that measles infection rapidly depletes vitamin A?  Simply supplementing with vitamin A during the illness can make a significant difference!  To my knowledge it has not been studied, but I would venture to guess that ensuring our children’s vitamin A levels are good to begin with is a benefit over those who are deficient, as well.

We live in a nation where it’s considered irresponsible to thoughtfully forego vaccines, but no big deal to feed children diets comprised entirely of fast food and packaged white flour products.  There’s something wrong with this picture.  It would be more helpful to society to teach people the importance of eating well, and how to eat well, than to shoot them up with toxins and make them think they can’t get sick.

Be Responsible

I am responsible for my children first, just as you are responsible for your children first.  If I can serve your children without putting my own risk, I’ll make that choice, every time.  And when I serve my community, I serve based on my understanding of how the world works, not on someone else’s.

Whether your children are vaccinated or not, it is responsible to know they still have the potential to become ill.  It is responsible to know the symptoms to watch for.  It is responsible to raise them in a way that keeps their bodies strong, and know how to support them (rather than fight them) during illness.  (I’m not being an absolutist here.  We have to balance idealism with reality, and reality is that sometimes fast food is the alternative to not eating tonight ’cause it’s too late to start dinner.  I’m just looking at the big picture.)

I Do Love My Neighbor

I do love my neighbor.  I keep my kids home when they’re sick.  I share my knowledge.  I help people learn to cook good food within a real life.  In short, I do for others what I would want them to do for me.