In his recent opinion piece John Balentine wrote “parents – not the state – should determine whether their children are vaccinated.” He further adds “no one should want the government telling parents what they must do with their children …”

This flies in the face of the preservation of public health and responsibilities given to governments by the Constitution. The federal government has responsibility for dealing with diseases impacting public health that come from foreign countries or interactions between states. Individual states, and their local governments, have jurisdiction over medical threats to their citizens.

The federal government stepped in during the smallpox epidemic with mandatory vaccinations and it was eliminated in the country by 1952. Polio infected 60,000 children that same year and killed 3,000. Starting in 1955, the U.S. began a massive education and vaccination program, and polio was eliminated here by 1979. Of course, in those days, the opinions of former Playboy bunnies were not given equal weight to the evidence of research scientists and recommendations of medical doctors. The current era of misinformation, combined with the rejection of evidence-based medicine and willfully ignorant people, leaves us with little protection other than government intervention.

The notion that parents can do anything they want with their children will be news to the Department of Human Services; guess they can all retire now. If parents choose to not vaccinate their children for HPV, there is little potential it will cause a mass outbreak, so it remains a parental choice. Refusing to immunize children against highly contagious preventable diseases impacts the public at large. These parents do not have the right to risk the health of the others. One person’s rights do not trump another’s.

Susan Chichetto
Bath