Stat, the Boston Globe’s health/biotech publication, has a distributing story about a continuing increase in pediatricians saying they have encountered parents who don’t want their kids to have vaccines – even though there has been a decline in the percentage who cite that “vaccines cause autism” myth. Increasingly, it seems, parents are misunderstand the risk/benefit equation.
“It’s the paradox of vaccines — they do away with infectious diseases to the point that they no longer seem necessary” is how one person put it.
More and more, doctors don’t want to put up with vaccine refusal. The rate of doctors who reported always dismissing families who refuse vaccinations from their practices nearly doubled between surveys. Their efforts to convince parents to vaccinate their kids are sometimes fruitless — pediatricians reported that they were able to persuade only about one-third of parents who had refused vaccines to change their minds.
You can read the whole story here.
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