EDITORIAL (1/2)

It is disturbing that Arkansas is among the areas where there are increasing numbers of parents defying medical evidence and logic to refuse to vaccinate their children against preventable diseases such as mumps, measles and polio.

A recent article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that, despite a state law requiring children to receive vaccines for such diseases by the time they reach certain ages or before they start school, a growing number of children in the state aren’t getting vaccinated against what are often-considered childhood diseases, according to the Arkansas Department of Health. Parents get around the law because they can file for exemptions with the Health Department, citing medical, religious or philosophical objections. Whatever the reasons, growing numbers of Arkansas parents are putting their children’s health, even lives, at risk by not vaccinating them.

The number of exemptions statewide increased about 25 percent in the past five years, from 6,397 exemptions to 8,016, according to Health Department data reported in the Democrat-Gazette article. About 2 percent of the more than 8,000 exemptions in Arkansas for the 2018-19 school year were for medical reasons, the Health Department reports. About 32 percent were for religious reasons, while 66 percent were for philosophical reasons.

Dr. Gary Wheeler, chief medical officer at the Health Department, said in the article that he grew up seeing people disabled and suffer the aftereffects of diseases that are largely preventable with vaccines. He highly recommends that parents vaccinate their children. “The consequences are too severe,” he said.

Complications from measles can range from ear infections and hearing loss to brain swelling, pneumonia and even death, the Centers for Disease Control website says. Children under age 5 and adults older than 20 are more likely to suffer complications from the disease. For every 1,000 children who get measles, one or two will die from it, the website says.

So why are parents willing to endanger their children? Among the reasons is a false one spread by the Internet that vaccinations cause autism, something that has repeatedly been debunked. One reason listed in the Democrat-Gazette article was a claim by a mother who opposed vaccinations because she believes they contain cells from aborted fetuses. Wheeler, however, said “there have been no new fetal aborted cells collected since the 1960s.”

We hope the trend against vaccinations in Arkansas reverses itself so that thousands of children are not needlessly put in danger of suffering diseases that could affect them for the rest of their lives or possibly kill them.

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