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If you don’t want to vaccinate your children, you may find yourself with more than just disapproval from your friends and colleagues.
In fact, a recent survey found that one out of every five pediatricians either drops families who refuse to vaccinate their children, or refuses to take these families on entirely.
Doctors in the Northeast and the South were more likely to do this.
But according to Dr. Sean O’Leary, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Children’s Hospital Colorado in Denver and lead author of the study, said that this practice has just become common among pediatricians, and that they’re under pressure to refuse these unvaccinated families.
He said, “I’m hearing the practice has become more common, particularly in California, following the outbreak,” said O’Leary, referring to the recent measles outbreak at Disneyland. “Parents say, ‘I don’t want to take my child to a clinic with non-vaccinators and expose them to risk,’ so there is parental pressure on some pediatricians.”
However, this is not a popular practice. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the American Academy of Pediatrics, have urged physicians to keep treating these unvaccinated children, in the hopes that the parents will trust them, and eventually understand the need for childhood vaccinations and be convinced to vaccinate their children.
There are other reasons, too, says Dr. H. Dele Davies, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ committee on infectious diseases.
“What I’m hearing [these physicians] say is they strongly feel not immunizing their children is such a great risk that they’re taking a stand. They may be reflecting their sense that, if you don’t want to do this, I don’t want to expose my other patients to potential risk,” he said.
O’ Leary had similar reflections on this. “Pediatricians consider vaccination one of the most important things they do,” he said. “[The threat] convinces a lot of parents to go ahead and get their child vaccinated, because it’s such a strong message about the importance of vaccination,” he said.
Authors of the survey don’t know what happens to these families who are dropped for refusal to vaccinate. Hopefully, as O’Leary speculates, they learn the importance and vaccinate their child.
