More Alaskans "hesitant" about vaccines for children
Published: April 22, 2013
— mtheriault@adn.com
— mtheriault@adn.com
More Alaska parents are choosing not to vaccinate their children, according to a study released Monday by state epidemiologists.
According to the Alaska Childhood Understanding Behaviors Survey, the percentage of mothers who said they had delayed or refused shots for their children increased nearly 10 percent between 2009 and 2011, from 23.8 percent to 33.2 percent.
It's a trajectory that worries public health officials.
"Our immunization rates are going down," said Margaret Young, a state public health specialist who helped to design the survey. "The state is trying to find out why."
Alaska ranked 39th in the nation for immunization coverage among toddler-aged children, according to the 2011 National Immunization Survey.
The study illuminates who isn't vaccinating in Alaska and why.
It was designed to ask a random sampling of mothers of 3-year-old Alaska children whether they had "ever delayed or decided not to get vaccine shots or immunizations."
Parents who said yes were termed "vaccine hesitant."
In the year 2011, more than half of the respondents who answered that they were “vaccine hesitant” said they thought too many shots were given at once. Of the vaccine hesitant respondents from that year, 43.8 percent said shots were given too early and 28 percent said they worried shots would do more harm than good.
Other respondents cited religious beliefs, not knowing it was time to vaccinate and concerns about ingredients in vaccines or a history of bad reactions to them.
The study wasn't designed to tell whether any of the vaccine-hesitant parents ever did eventually immunize their children or what specific vaccines they objected to, Young said.
The study also found that mothers who said their doctor knew their child well were more likely to vaccinate.
Vaccines are a hotly controversial issue nationwide, Young said. Health organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, say they have been exhaustively studied and are essential for protecting infants and children from a host of preventable diseases that can hospitalize or kill. Critics have questioned their safety and effectiveness.
Anchorage pediatrician Dr. Monique Karaganis said that about 95 percent of patients at her solo practice, Polar Pediatrics, vaccinate. Karaganis said she believes that vaccination is safe and effective but not all of her parents agree, at least initially.
"(To be my patient) you don't have to vaccinate your child but you have to be willing to read my information," she said. "You have to be willing to talk to me about vaccines."
The study, which analyzed data from 2009-2011, found that white, college-educated mothers over the age of 35 were most likely to report that they had delayed or skipped immunizations for their children. There's no consensus as to why that is the case, Young said.
The highest rates of vaccine hesitancy were found in the Kenai Peninsula, Kodiak and Prince William Sound region at 42.8 percent and in the Interior, with a rate of 31.6 percent.
In the Anchorage and Mat-Su region, 26.3 percent of respondents reported vaccine hesitancy.
The lowest rate of vaccine hesitancy was in Northern Alaska, with 17.3 percent.
Reach Michelle Theriault Boots at mtheriault@adn.com or 257-4344. SOURCE:http://www.adn.com/2013/04/22/2875131/more-alaskans-hesitant-about-vaccines.html COMMENT: Vaccine hesitant is a nice way of saying vaccine refusal. Alaskan's should study their own state history. It wasn't really that long ago, in the lifetime of some older seniors, that a vaccine preventable (now) infectious disease was sickening and killing children in Alaska.
Shortly after the departure of the Alameda, the last ship of the year, a two-year-old Alaska Native from the nearby village of Holy Cross became the first to display symptoms of diphtheria. Welch diagnosed it as tonsillitis, dismissing diphtheria because no one else in the child's family or village showed signs of the disease, which is extremely contagious and can survive for weeks outside the body. The child died the next morning, and an abnormally large number of cases of tonsillitis were diagnosed through December, including another fatality on December 28, which is rare. The child's mother refused to allow an autopsy. Two more Alaska Native children died, and on January 20 the first case of diphtheria was diagnosed in three-year-old Bill Barnett, who had the characteristic grayish lesions on his throat and in his nasal membranes. Welch did not administer the antitoxin, because he was worried the expired batch might weaken the boy, who died the next day.
On January 21, seven-year-old Bessie Stanley was diagnosed in the late stages of the disease, and was injected with 6,000 units of antitoxin. She died later that day. The same evening, Welch called Mayor George Maynard, and arranged an emergency town council meeting. Welch announced he needed at least one million units to stave off an epidemic. The council immediately implemented a quarantine, and Emily Morgan was appointed Quarantine Nurse.
On January 22, 1925, Welch sent a radio telegram via the Washington-Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph System and alerted all major towns in Alaska including the governor in Juneau of the public health risk. A second to the U.S. Public Health Service in Washington, D.C. read:
By January 24 there were two more fatalities, and Welch and Morgan diagnosed 20 more confirmed cases, and 50 more at risk. The number of people threatened in the area of northwest Alaska centered around Nome was about 10,000, and the expected mortality rate was close to 100 percent without the antitoxin. A previous influenza epidemic (Spanish flu) across the Seward Peninsula in 1918 and 1919 wiped out about 50 percent of the native population of Nome, and 8 percent of the native population of Alaska. More than 1,000 people died in northwest Alaska, and double that across the state, and the majority were Alaska Natives. The Native Americans had no resistance to either of these diseases.[4]READ THE HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF THIS EPIDEMIC AND THE HEROIC EFFORT TO QUELL THE DEATH TOLL.... FROM:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1925_serum_run_to_Nome
According to the Alaska Childhood Understanding Behaviors Survey, the percentage of mothers who said they had delayed or refused shots for their children increased nearly 10 percent between 2009 and 2011, from 23.8 percent to 33.2 percent.
It's a trajectory that worries public health officials.
"Our immunization rates are going down," said Margaret Young, a state public health specialist who helped to design the survey. "The state is trying to find out why."
Alaska ranked 39th in the nation for immunization coverage among toddler-aged children, according to the 2011 National Immunization Survey.
The study illuminates who isn't vaccinating in Alaska and why.
It was designed to ask a random sampling of mothers of 3-year-old Alaska children whether they had "ever delayed or decided not to get vaccine shots or immunizations."
Parents who said yes were termed "vaccine hesitant."
In the year 2011, more than half of the respondents who answered that they were “vaccine hesitant” said they thought too many shots were given at once. Of the vaccine hesitant respondents from that year, 43.8 percent said shots were given too early and 28 percent said they worried shots would do more harm than good.
Other respondents cited religious beliefs, not knowing it was time to vaccinate and concerns about ingredients in vaccines or a history of bad reactions to them.
The study wasn't designed to tell whether any of the vaccine-hesitant parents ever did eventually immunize their children or what specific vaccines they objected to, Young said.
The study also found that mothers who said their doctor knew their child well were more likely to vaccinate.
Vaccines are a hotly controversial issue nationwide, Young said. Health organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, say they have been exhaustively studied and are essential for protecting infants and children from a host of preventable diseases that can hospitalize or kill. Critics have questioned their safety and effectiveness.
Anchorage pediatrician Dr. Monique Karaganis said that about 95 percent of patients at her solo practice, Polar Pediatrics, vaccinate. Karaganis said she believes that vaccination is safe and effective but not all of her parents agree, at least initially.
"(To be my patient) you don't have to vaccinate your child but you have to be willing to read my information," she said. "You have to be willing to talk to me about vaccines."
The study, which analyzed data from 2009-2011, found that white, college-educated mothers over the age of 35 were most likely to report that they had delayed or skipped immunizations for their children. There's no consensus as to why that is the case, Young said.
The highest rates of vaccine hesitancy were found in the Kenai Peninsula, Kodiak and Prince William Sound region at 42.8 percent and in the Interior, with a rate of 31.6 percent.
In the Anchorage and Mat-Su region, 26.3 percent of respondents reported vaccine hesitancy.
The lowest rate of vaccine hesitancy was in Northern Alaska, with 17.3 percent.
Reach Michelle Theriault Boots at mtheriault@adn.com or 257-4344. SOURCE:http://www.adn.com/2013/04/22/2875131/more-alaskans-hesitant-about-vaccines.html COMMENT: Vaccine hesitant is a nice way of saying vaccine refusal. Alaskan's should study their own state history. It wasn't really that long ago, in the lifetime of some older seniors, that a vaccine preventable (now) infectious disease was sickening and killing children in Alaska.
Epidemic
The only doctor in Nome and the surrounding communities was Curtis Welch, who was supported by four nurses at the 24-bed Maynard Columbus Hospital. In the summer of 1924, his supply of 80,000 units of diphtheria antitoxin (from 1918) expired, but the order he placed with the health commissioner in Juneau did not arrive before the port closed.Shortly after the departure of the Alameda, the last ship of the year, a two-year-old Alaska Native from the nearby village of Holy Cross became the first to display symptoms of diphtheria. Welch diagnosed it as tonsillitis, dismissing diphtheria because no one else in the child's family or village showed signs of the disease, which is extremely contagious and can survive for weeks outside the body. The child died the next morning, and an abnormally large number of cases of tonsillitis were diagnosed through December, including another fatality on December 28, which is rare. The child's mother refused to allow an autopsy. Two more Alaska Native children died, and on January 20 the first case of diphtheria was diagnosed in three-year-old Bill Barnett, who had the characteristic grayish lesions on his throat and in his nasal membranes. Welch did not administer the antitoxin, because he was worried the expired batch might weaken the boy, who died the next day.
On January 21, seven-year-old Bessie Stanley was diagnosed in the late stages of the disease, and was injected with 6,000 units of antitoxin. She died later that day. The same evening, Welch called Mayor George Maynard, and arranged an emergency town council meeting. Welch announced he needed at least one million units to stave off an epidemic. The council immediately implemented a quarantine, and Emily Morgan was appointed Quarantine Nurse.
On January 22, 1925, Welch sent a radio telegram via the Washington-Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph System and alerted all major towns in Alaska including the governor in Juneau of the public health risk. A second to the U.S. Public Health Service in Washington, D.C. read:
| “ | An epidemic of diphtheria is almost inevitable here STOP I am in urgent need of one million units of diphtheria antitoxin STOP Mail is only form of transportation STOP I have made application to Commissioner of Health of the Territories for antitoxin already STOP There are about 3000 white natives in the district[2][3] | ” |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1925_serum_run_to_Nome
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