HB 1638 and the anti-vaccine movement

I know the parents out on those steps, who are scared and misinformed — I used to be one of them. They love their children fiercely, but social media has weaponized their lack of immunology knowledge against them.

Many have reasons to be distrustful of doctors after being disenfranchised by experiences of sexism and malpractice when seeking medical care. It is incredibly easy to be scared out of taking actions that are already unpleasant for ourselves or our babies. The 1 in 10 moms who experience postpartum anxiety are particularly susceptible to the chorus of people telling them to base parenting decisions on feelings, even if those feelings are from an illness that lies to your brain and distorts the scale of dangers. PPMDs make it become all too easy to become hesitant to the point of doing nothing, even though avoiding preventative medicine like vaccination is a much larger risk to take for our families.

For some things legislation is the appropriate intervention, and vaccination is one of them. No one likes shots, and giving people ways to easily avoid them, as we’ve seen, results in insufficient coverage for preventing outbreaks. Any lawmaker against this who supports car seat laws should be ashamed: The MMR has an even stronger safety profile than car seats, and has been equally important at reducing harm.

We have many laws that keep in check the balance between personal liberty and public endangerment, removing the philosophical exemption to vaccinations in our state should be one of them.