Who’s Afraid of Vaccines?

Lately, I’ve been encouraging some of my friends — especially those who work with kids — to get the H1N1 vaccine.  It shouldn’t be a tough sell: the disease is wide-spread and particularly nasty for kids, while the vaccine is free and readily available.  But a sizable handful of my educated, professional friends are nervous about vaccines.  I don’t know, they say. I’ve heard they’re dangerous.

What’s this all about?  On the whole, Americans aren’t squeamish about medical care — we get more tests and procedures than our international counterparts.  We clamor for procedures of even dubious efficacy.  But when it comes to shots, we get nervous.  We start to dream of conspiracies (the FDA often emerges as a villain).  We start fretting over whether scientists have really done their homework on adjuvants and thimerosal (they have).  We worry over risks much smaller than those we often undergo in the doctor’s office.

I thought at first that this was connected with a post-Nixon mistrust of government.  Or perhaps it was a reaction to the abuses of Tuskegee.  But according to the Smithsonian, this is nothing new:

A 1853 law required all infants be vaccinated in the first three months of life and threatened parents who did not vaccinate their children with a fine or imprisonment. Riots soon broke out in several towns. In London, an Anti-Vaccination League was founded. In 1867, after the law was extended to children up to age 14, the Anti-Compulsory Vaccination League was founded. Opposition now focused on the law’s threat to personal liberty. (“As parliament, instead of guarding the liberty of the subject, has invaded this liberty by rendering good health a crime…parliament is deserving of public condemnation.”)

In the late 19th century, anti-vaccination movements spread across Europe and into the United States, where they succeeded in repealing compulsory vaccination laws in several western and Midwest states.

Despite a far more educated populace, despite the near-eradication of terrible childhood diseases by vaccines, this fear is very much still with us.  I worry about the consequences.