The Vermont Legislature passed a watered-down version of the controversial vaccine bill and it became effective in July 2012 with the stated goal of raising VT’s vaccination rates by way of improved education. At this time it may be useful to highlight some of our key questions which remain unanswered.
#1: What are “dangerously low” vaccination rates ?
It is important to note that while herd immunity seems to be sold as a reason for being fearful of persons who do not use vaccines, the efficacy of vaccines is not studied during clinical trials for longer than six months (2 yrs in the case of DTaP). Efficacy varies by vaccine and from person to person. Check package inserts for more.
The herd immunity argument takes advantage of what most people do not understand about the immune system and how it works. There is no “cutoff” on a vaccination rate to ensure herd immunity. This is a sales pitch from the pharmaceutical industry.
Even so, if you take a look a the Vermont Health Department’s own report to CDC on vaccination rates in Vermont for public school entry you will see that vaccination rates for all required vaccine are over 91% for all required vaccines except chicken pox.
These are our baseline, “dangerously low” vaccination rates. News reports even claimed we were in the 60-percentile range. WHY?
#2: If Vermont’s vaccination rates were not in fact dangerously low, why all the fuss?
We did our best to communicate this question as early as February 2012. We wrote to the bill’s sponsor. We spoke in person with the Health Commissioner. We phoned him and emailed him to follow up. We never got any responses. And yet news reports continued to quote falling rates, referencing the Vermont Dept. of Health as their source. Pharma lobbyists were everywhere. We spoke to our lawmakers who seemed equally puzzled. It seems that trusted sources of information were hard to come by on this bill.
#3: Where do we go from here?
Mike Fisher, Chair of the House Healthcare Committee said one day between testimonials that, “The cat is out of the bag.” We were puzzled by this statement at the time, but our current interpretation is that the vaccine bills were a wake-up call to VT citizens to do in-depth research on these pharmaceutical products.
#4: Will the VDH Required Parent Education will improve the rates?
This “Required Parent Education,” had no public review, comes across as coercive and includes very little science. Here is the two-page document so you may read the “educational material” for yourself. Do you think it will work to get the cat back into the bag?
