The Government is pushing more than ever for vaccines. Ad campaigns, websites, harassment, and even complaining that anti-vaccination sites (including neutral, non-vaccine-persuasive sites) are too high in the search engines. States either have mandated vaccines for public schools or are pushing legislation to achieve such. But now pediatricians are dismissing parents who refuse to vaccinate at an astounding rate.
An article on Contemporary Pediatrics claims the Pediatricians are doing their best to “dispel rumors of autism links” and persuading parents to vaccinate via education, Government pamphlets and encouragement; but when that’s met with continued disapproval by the parent, pediatricians are telling parents to find another doctor. They are firing parents.
As a result, some physicians are resorting to dismissing families that refuse vaccinations for their children, even though the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the CDC discourage such policies.
A 2002 report found that 39% reported they would dismiss families for refusing all vaccines. Since that time, says O’Leary, there has been little investigation into the practice of patient dismissal related to vaccination. For his study, O’Leary specifically examined state exemption policies in relation to the practice of dismissing families for vaccination refusal.
Referring patients, particularly in a time of complex health insurance plans, is par for the course: however, “firing” parents is relatively new ground. In some ways, this method is being used to smoke anti-vaccination parents out of their houses. It is a method of intimidation and humiliation which serves to force the parent to get the child vaccinated. I don’t want to dismiss the benefit in all of this, which is a parent being able to move on from a doctor that wasn’t working for their child’s benefit, but I do want to focus on the radical, aggressive nature of the maneuver. A doctor has no real reason to dismiss any child. Doctors are for sick people, so the excuse that the child could harm other children is a fallacy. The maneuver is strictly a move to intimidate parents. Obviously the CDC is polling doctors, which translates into encouraging this behavior (even though it goes against pediatrics in general, as noted below the quote).
In terms of prevalence, 63% of physicians reported 1% to 4% of parents refusing vaccines; 15% said 5% to 9% of parents in their practice refuse vaccines; and 5% of physicians reported 10% of parents refused vaccines. Refusal rates were generally higher in pediatric practices than in family practices, according to the report. Looking at trends, 28% of pediatricians reported a decrease in parental refusals over the prior year, compared with 15% of family practitioners, while 14% of pediatricians and 7% of family practitioners reported an increase. An average of 66% of physicians reported no significant change in vaccination refusal, according to the report.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the CDC “claim” discourage such policies, but i find that very difficult believe. Why would so many pediatricians decide to go rogue against the very academy and Government agency of which they answer to? It makes no sense. It seems to me that the AAP and CDC merely put on a facade of good cop so that it appears that doctors are coming to these frustrations and conclusions on their own.
Photo by EraPhernalia Vintage . . . [”playin’ hook-y”] ;o 