Are Parents who Refuse to Vaccinate their Children Selfish?

According the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2000, the United States declared victory in eliminating measles from the U.S. Since then, the annual number of people reported to have measles ranged from a low of 37 people in 2004 to a high of 644 people in 2014, due in part because of communities with pockets of unvaccinated people allowing measles to spread. The CDC estimates that before the measles vaccination program started in 1963, about 3 to 4 million people got measles each year in the United States. Of those people, 400 to 500 died, 48,000 were hospitalized, and 4,000 developed encephalitis (brain swelling) from measles.

With over 100 people including children in 14 states now infected with the measles, the debate over whether parents should be allowed to decline to have their children vaccinated is in the news. Nineteen (19) states allow parents to decline to have their children vaccinated based upon religious or personal beliefs. Many feel that the government should eliminate these personal belief exceptions because they unfairly put the public at risk, especially children who cannot be immunized because they are too young or have weakened immune systems. Measles outbreaks also created a major cost for public health agencies who must engage in outbreak response programs to prevent further spread of measles.

Are these parents simply being “selfish” as Kiara Imani Willimas who blogs for the Huffington Post wrote yesterday?  After reading the letter from Tim Jacks  to the Parent of the Unvaccinated Child Who Exposed My Family to Measles, I think there is a good argument to be made that they are just that, selfish.