“Ain’t that a shame? My tears fell like rain.” — Fats Domino

And they still do. Years ago I knew a guy who hadn’t been vaccinated. His parents were not part of the recent anti-vaccine movement (antivax). There was no such thing then. They just hadn’t bothered. The result of this particular medical neglect was catastrophic. 

The child wasn’t vaccinated. He contracted a dread disease. The vaccination had been available. It was provided to children at no cost. But his folks hadn’t bothered. Perhaps they would have had to wait in a line. 

The result of this was that the young man, 20 when I knew him, was quadriplegic. He used a motorized wheelchair. He needed assistance in all activities of daily living. A bright guy, he was pursuing a college education.  But he was unhappy about his plight. He couldn’t understand why his parents hadn’t had him vaccinated as a child. He’d gotten ill. The damage was done.  His parents had apologized. They felt awful about it, he said. But he was the one in the chair. 

This wasn’t a matter of fate. It wasn’t the kind of thing that was unpreventable. It was preventable. I’d had the vaccine. My brother and two sisters had had the vaccine. My wife had the vaccine as a young child. The risk of the vaccine was statistically approaching zero. 

This guy wasn’t having the life he thought he’d have had if his arms and legs worked. He loved his parents, but hated the result of their choice not to vaccinate him. He took his own life before he turned 21. Now some parents are choosing not to vaccinate their children. 

“What we are seeing is pockets of intense anti-vaccine activity,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, a pediatrician and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine, in an article published online.

More than a quarter of kindergarteners in Camas County, Idaho, for example, lack at least some vaccinations because their parents have opted for nonmedical exemptions, researchers said Tuesday.

There are pockets of vaccine resistance that Hotez and colleagues found when looking at rates of vaccine refusals around the country. They found an increase in non-medical vaccine exemptions in 12 out of 18 states that allow them.

A small but very vocal anti-vaccine movement has made use of social media and in-person rallies to spread doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines. They encourage state lawmakers to allow parents to opt out of vaccinating their kids not only for legitimate medical reasons, but for religious or “philosophical” reasons.

“Then what happened was the anti-vaccine groups were very strong, well-organized and became well-funded. As a result, now you have got this situation where we have schools where you have 20, 30, 40 percent of kids not vaccinated.”

In California, after an epidemic of measles – a usually mild, but sometimes severe childhood disease – occurred and spread, the law was changed to disallow the “philosophical” opt out. 

That creates pockets where infectious diseases can take hold and spread to the wider community. It happened in Minneapolis, and it’s worrying when it happens in cities where there are major international airports, Hotez and colleagues said.

Some of the reasoning seems to be that if every kid gets vaccinated, that is every other kid, then my child needn’t be. That makes logical sense, if 100% of every other kid gets vaccinated. But what if others choose likewise?