The anti vaccination movement was born at the beginning of the twentieth century. The movement came about after several failed vaccinations resulting in serious injury and in some cases death have occurred. Most of these fatalities were children, which added to the anger in parents. The Supreme Court ruled on a landmark case Jacobsen vs. Massachusetts in 1905, this ruling mandated parents to vaccinate their children or incur a penalty. Government involvement in the lives of the people was perceived to be intrusive by the opposition groups and became another source of anger for the public. As a result of these events people started to protest against vaccination mandate by the government. This gave rise to the anti vaccination movement and the
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Parents who refuse vaccination for their children can evoke an emotional response from physicians. Physicians in these situations may feel like the days of polio and all other eradicated disease may be coming back in the near future. They may even feel like these parents are undoing the great things that science has done for our society so far. If not preceded carefully the patient/doctor relationship may be destroyed and trust will be out the window. Listening to the parents concern and actually doing research on the issues of concern is a good first step. Physicians are people of influence even to the non-compliant parents and when they respond to the concerns of these parents with a carefully researched study, it may have a positive outcome. It is easy for parents to go on the internet to get answers on these concerns; however most of the information out there on the internet is from the anti vaccination movement and their claims are not backed by reliable scientific studies. Physicians are in a position to really educate these parents and redirect them in the right path and perhaps encourage them to do their own investigation by providing them with studies that have been proven to be reliable and correct. The CDC has good information on their pamphlets for vaccination, however they have also been criticized for the language on the pamphlet being too high level for some parents to read. This is where the physician comes in by assessing the educational background of the parents and taking the time to suggest alternative information source or even explain the context of the pamphlet to them in a way that they understand. Another way the provider can handle this is by changing the way the conversation is had with the parents. Every parent has different concerns so therefore it is not always one size fits all when
Parents who refuse vaccination for their children can evoke an emotional response from physicians. Physicians in these situations may feel like the days of polio and all other eradicated disease may be coming back in the near future. They may even feel like these parents are undoing the great things that science has done for our society so far. If not preceded carefully the patient/doctor relationship may be destroyed and trust will be out the window. Listening to the parents concern and actually doing research on the issues of concern is a good first step. Physicians are people of influence even to the non-compliant parents and when they respond to the concerns of these parents with a carefully researched study, it may have a positive outcome. It is easy for parents to go on the internet to get answers on these concerns; however most of the information out there on the internet is from the anti vaccination movement and their claims are not backed by reliable scientific studies. Physicians are in a position to really educate these parents and redirect them in the right path and perhaps encourage them to do their own investigation by providing them with studies that have been proven to be reliable and correct. The CDC has good information on their pamphlets for vaccination, however they have also been criticized for the language on the pamphlet being too high level for some parents to read. This is where the physician comes in by assessing the educational background of the parents and taking the time to suggest alternative information source or even explain the context of the pamphlet to them in a way that they understand. Another way the provider can handle this is by changing the way the conversation is had with the parents. Every parent has different concerns so therefore it is not always one size fits all when