This Will Only Hurt for a Minute

It'

s back-to-school time, and because all states now require proof of student immunization, the anti-vaccine forces are again in full cry. Warnings about the dangers of vaccination abound on the Internet, in the press and in the literature of alternative medicine. Not only are vaccinations unnecessary to ward off epidemics of infectious diseases, the critics charge, but they are also responsible for such scourges as AIDS, sudden-infant-death syndrome and autism.

Preposterous? Sure. But these theories are being taken seriously by parents and politicians. In Europe such claims have led to significantly lower vaccination rates--and new outbreaks of measles and diphtheria. British medical authorities warn that measles could become epidemic if rates of three-in-one MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) shots continue to fall.

In reality, the antivaccine activists demonstrate both medical illiteracy and an appalling ignorance of history. What happened to the quarantine notices that were once routinely posted on houses afflicted by measles, mumps or whooping cough? Or the long rows of iron lungs filled with polio victims unable to breathe on their own? Why do the words diphtheria and scarlet fever draw only blank stares from today's kids? Because of vaccinations, that's why.

Critics insist that these diseases were already being conquered by better nutrition and sanitation before vaccines came along, and that the epidemics would eventually have petered out on their own. Oh, really? Then why hasn't the incidence of common colds declined and the number of chicken-pox cases (for which a vaccine was licensed only five years ago) been reduced? The sharp decline in communicable diseases has coincided, in each case, with the introduction of an appropriate vaccine.

And the dangers? Earlier this month researchers at a medical conference in London torpedoed the widely publicized claim that the AIDS epidemic began in Africa with the application 40 years ago of an oral-polio vaccine made from chimpanzee tissue. Tests of remaining samples of that vaccine revealed no evidence of chimp DNA. In fact, the best hope for combatting AIDS, and perhaps Alzheimer's too, lies in vaccines now under development.

As for autism, experts suspect the cause is genetic and note that even before vaccines were available, symptoms of the disorder appeared around the age at which vaccinations are now given. In other words, any relationship between vaccinations to autism is almost certainly coincidental, not causal.

Still, facts do not deter quacks or fanatics and the parents they dupe. School boards across the country this fall were again pressured to admit unvaccinated students. That would be a disservice not only to these kids, who would be vulnerable to a host of diseases, but to their classmates whose shots didn't take or who were excused from vaccinations for medical or religious reasons.

School boards and wavering legislators should stand fast. Vaccines are one of medicine's proudest achievements, and they have stood the test of time.