About this time last year, there was a mumps outbreak in Wisconsin. This year, doctors are seeing more cases of whooping cough. Now some are asking, could parents who don't vaccinate their kids be to blame?
Joe Farkas considers it a blessing that his daughters, 12-year-old Anna and 7-year-old Joy... are happy and healthy. And he's counting on divine intervention to keep them that way: The devout Christian Scientist and his wife refuse to have their girls vaccinated. "And when we had kids I decided, what is the most effective, direct way I can provide health care for them. And that was relying on Christian Science."
Farkas is one of a small but growing number of parents around the country who claim religious exemption to vaccination. That's legal in 28 states, including Wisconsin. Only a few thousand of the nearly four million kids who enter kindergarten every year are not vaccinated. But health officials say that's all it takes to cause an outbreak.
Dr. Richard Olds is the Chief of Medicine for the Medical College of Wisconsin. He says, "That's one of the reasons why we have whooping cough in the community now. It's because too many people have chosen for whatever reason not to get the vaccine. And now that's becoming a public health problem."
It isn't just people with religious objections who won't vaccinate their kids. For years, there has been intense debate about the link between vaccines and autism. Hollywood celebrities like Jenny McCarthy and Holly Robinson Peete have been very vocal about their children's struggles with the disease. But Dr. Olds says there is just not enough evidence to link autism to vaccines. He says: "You have to ask yourself if there is scientific evidence to suggest that that's a valid reason not to receive a vaccination."
According to the national vaccine information center, there are plenty. The anti-vaccination group claims more than two-thousand kids in Wisconsin had bad reactions to vaccines between 1990 and 2007.
43 died.
But doctors say those deaths weren't definitively linked to the vaccine... And urge parents not to have irrational fears.
Dr. Olds is urging parents to resist irrational fear. "I think the problem is when people make a decision that they don't want to give their child a vaccine because they're afraid of something happening. That's a very rare event."
Farkas insists it isn't fear but faith that helped him make his decision. When asked how he responds to criticism that he is being unfair to his children, Farkas said, "By demonstration. I have two healthy kids who have never taken shots."
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