The Elm

Americans need to realize how important it is to be vaccinated, not just for themselves, but also for their neighbors.

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In Karachi, Pakistan, we heard a knock on the door, and an armed police officer asked if any children were in the house.

When we told him that there were, a woman that was with him gave my 2-year-old cousin a few drops of something. After I asked what happened, my uncle told me they’d just vaccinated her against polio. But the armed police officer didn’t give her the medication — a community health worker did. I couldn’t help but wonder: Why did the health worker have armed guards with her?

Poliomyelitis is a disease spread from person to person that can cause crippling paralysis. Luckily, humanity was able to stop the further spread of this illness with the creation of two vaccines, one in 1955 by Jonas Salk and another in 1961 by Albert Sabin. Both were effective, and polio was eradicated in the United States in 1979. This raises an important question 40 years later: Why are there still polio outbreaks anywhere in the world in 2019?

I am Pakistani-American, and I am also a medical student. It pains me to see outbreaks of measles in my home state of New Jersey, another disease that’s easily preventable, and I worry about the rise of outbreaks of these preventable diseases. The last three countries that have yet to eradicate polio are Nigeria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and the United States played no small role in leaving the health of the former two behind.

In 2014, there were 306 reported cases of polio in Pakistan; just one year earlier, in 2013, there had only been 93. While polio began ravaging Pakistan again, the United States was celebrating. On May 2, 2014, the CIA had finally tracked down and killed a target they’d been hunting for over a decade: Osama Bin Laden. But the methods they used to achieve this mission left behind an unethical mess. The CIA had used a physician and a fake Hepatitis B vaccine campaign to confirm Bin Laden’s location. They were disingenuous with their intentions, and the surrounding community became wary of all health workers. The distrust sewn into the profession resulted in over 70 health workers’ deaths. Since this time, however, the number of polio cases once more began to drop in Pakistan, with just 12 counted in 2018, thanks to an aggressive — and legitimate — international vaccination campaign. But preventable deaths are still occurring.

As my family’s homeland struggles to battle a vaccine-preventable illness, I’m baffled by the many Americans who are forgoing vaccinating their children. As of today, there are 33 cases of measles originating from Lakewood, N.J., all due to lack of vaccination. Measles does not care about wealth or walls; just like polio, the disease is highly infectious and can be crippling. In fact, prior to vaccination, measles was infecting three to four million children each year. Due to its highly infectious nature, immunization rates of 95 percent or higher are needed to prevent outbreaks of measles. It doesn’t take much for this dip in rates to occur.

Americans today need to realize how important it is to be vaccinated, not just for themselves, but also for their fellow neighbors. As Pakistan works to eliminate polio, despite the setback in 2014, Americans are facing dangerous recurrences of this same disease. While other countries are literally facing death to protect their children, we must ask: Are we doing enough to protect our own?

Specifically, each state needs to look at how lax our rules are for allowing non-medical exemptions for vaccinations. Currently, only three states allow exclusively medical exemptions — the other 47 allow personal or religious exemptions. But vaccines are not a belief system. With the number of these exemptions so high, we are just days away from another outbreak. According to the CDC, the percent of school-aged students requesting exemptions has doubled in the state of Maryland since 2014. And this is higher than in most of the country. However, because we do not know where these exemptions occur, we cannot be certain where the next outbreak will happen.

If parents choose not to vaccinate their children, we need to put in mechanisms that protect all of the vulnerable kids around them. With outbreaks happening in New Jersey, New York, and Washington state, it is up to the medical professional to speak about the good of vaccines and defend them from misinformation. We can start by asking our state legislatures to remove philosophical and religious exemptions from vaccination, like California did in 2016. We also can give our public health departments more resources to ensure all children receive their full series of vaccinations. Vaccinations are one of the greatest advancements of the 20th century, and it is up to us to make sure they continue to protect future generations.

Disclaimer: Elm Voices & Opinions articles reflect the thoughts or opinions of their individual authors, and may not represent the thoughts or values of UMB as an institution.