Since the measles outbreak that began
at Disneyland in December (and news is now saying
originated overseas), the virus has spread to several states and Mexico. Recently, unvaccinated high school students in Huntington Beach were
temporarily banned from school. This week,
70 unvaccinated students in Riverside were also temporarily banned from school to prevent the outbreak from spreading. In Marin County, a father
asked an elementary school to ban unvaccinated students from attending to protect his son who is recovering from leukemia and can't be vaccinated.
Now it appears come doctors are beginning to refuse to see patients who will not vaccinate.
With California gripped by a measles outbreak, Dr. Charles Goodman posted a clear notice in his waiting room and on Facebook: His practice will no longer see children whose parents won't get them vaccinated.
"Parents who choose not to give measles shots, they're not just putting their kids at risk, but they're also putting other kids at risk — especially kids in my waiting room," the Los Angeles pediatrician said.
Recently
30 Bay Area babies were put under isolation after being exposed to measles. One Alameda County woman named Jennifer Simon, a mother of one of those isolated babies, voiced her anger to the press about this issue. Her baby was exposed in a waiting room due to an
unvaccinated child who contracted the disease.
Simon said she hopes families who opt not to immunize their children realize the full impact of their decision.
"Their choice endangered my child," she said.
She points out that vaccine refusers rely on other people to protect their children. It's called herd immunity. If the rest of the community is immune to disease, it helps keep the disease from spreading to those who are unvaccinated.
"You're basically relying on society but not giving back," she said.
In Simon's case, a doctor refusing to see unvaccinated patients would have prevented her baby from being exposed to measles. But this practice
raises ethical questions.
Dropping patients who refuse vaccines has become a hot topic of discussion on SERMO, an online doctor hangout. Some doctors are adamant about not accepting patients who don't believe in vaccinations, with some saying they don't want to be responsible for someone's death from an illness that was preventable.
Others warn that refusing treatment to such people will just send them into the arms of quacks.