Stories, More Than Statistics, Help Convince Scared Parents to Immunize Their Children
From Arkansas Medical News, AUTHOR Becky Gillette
The failure of parents to vaccinate their children can be caused by concern that the vaccinations cause autism. Although that link has been thoroughly disproven by dozens of scientific studies, some parents remain scared to vaccinate their children.
Bryan L. Burke, Jr., MD, FAAP, a pediatrician who is a professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), said he can’t comprehend why parents wouldn’t want to get their child immunized on time.
“The sources of information that confuse parents are so unreliable,” Burke said. “Jenny McCarthy has a child with autism. Her experience has led her to speak out on her feeling that autism is linked to vaccines. Although I feel sorry for her experience, being the parent of a child with autism doesn’t make you an expert on the disease, any more than being the parent of a child with an ear infection makes you an expert on ear infections.
“I’m confused by the public trust of celebrities over experts. Why would you choose to believe what Jenny McCarthy says and not believe the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which is the NASA of infectious diseases. If you were planning a flight to the moon, would you rather use the path suggested by NASA or Jenny McCarthy? So why would you trust her for medical advice?”
Burke has found that arguing the science or statistics with parents isn’t the best tactic. Instead, he relies on stories.
“I can tell them stories about children who were not vaccinated who have permanent damage,” Burke said. “They have died, become deaf, had permanent seizure disorders, become brain damaged, required tube feeding or tracheostomy tubes, all for the want of a vaccine. And in my 37 years as a pediatrician, I have never seen a child permanently damaged by a vaccine. I’ve seen arm soreness and fever, but nothing that is going to harm them long term.”
Burke also tells people that if you don’t trust your doctor’s advice on vaccinations, you shouldn’t trust your doctor on anything else.
“We don’t have as much evidence for anything else as we have in favor of immunizations,” Burke said. “If immunizations are not the right thing to do, then water is not wet and the sun is not hot.”
Burke said autism symptoms can appear after a child’s vaccination, thus giving the illusion that the vaccine caused the autism. However, autism symptoms appear frequently during the age that vaccinations are most commonly given – whether a child is vaccinated or not.
“The vaccination does not cause the autism any more than any other new experience for the child – like going into a swimming pool for the first time, or eating a new food – causes the autism,” he said. “No one knows the cause of autism. In areas and countries that have decreased the rate of vaccination administration, there has been no change in the rate of autism. Vaccines don’t cause autism.”
Another story he tells is that when the incidence of smallpox fell to less than one in seven million, and one in seven million receiving the vaccine got smallpox, the decision was made to discontinue vaccinating for smallpox.
“It was safer to avoid that vaccine than to give it,” he said. “Smallpox has been eliminated from the world–one of vaccination’s greatest triumphs.”
One of his earliest memories is of being herded into the school auditorium to get a polio vaccine on a sugar cube. He asked his mother why she was crying. She told him she was crying for joy over the fact her child would never get polio.
“If I had to crawl to the top of Pike’s Peak to get my grandkids vaccinated, I would have bloody knees,” Burke said. “They ought to be begging for the opportunity to get the vaccine.
But it is easier than that.”
Jennifer Dillaha, MD, medical director for immunizations, Arkansas Department of Health, is also concerned about parents who are delaying vaccinations.