With measles outbreaks making headlines
across the country, parents are on high alert.
But, here's the big question.
Are unvaccinated kids becoming a public health crisis?
Have a look.
Measles are on the rise again.
As hundreds are being diagnosed
with this contagious disease.
In the year 2000 the US was declared Measles free,
but with this recent outbreak,
it's the largest in nearly 30 years.
Lawmakers say this kind of outbreak
can be prevented by vaccines,
yet many families are choosing not to vaccinate.
With the highly contagious nature of Measles,
should doctors allow non vaccinated kids in their practice?
A national poll from University of Michigan's,
Children's Hospital, reveals that 72% of parents
want their child's doctor to implement restrictions
on unvaccinated children who visit their office.
We actually asked our social media followers,
should unvaccinated children be allowed
in pediatricians offices, without restrictions.
57% said no.
To discus this we have pediatrician Dr. Eric Ball
and pediatrician Dr. Oliver Brooks
joining us today to weigh in.
And I wanna start with you Dr. Ball,
because you do not allow unvaccinated children
in your practice.
Can you talk to us about why
and when you made that decision?
Correct, so, unfortunately my practice was
at the epicenter of the the Measles outbreak in, 2015.
So I practice in a community about 30 miles from Disneyland
and 2015 we saw five of our patients come down with measles
and dozens of exposures of measles in our waiting room.
So measles is incredibly contagious,
it will hang in the air for about two hours,
so anyone who is in the office within
two hours of those patients coming in,
were at risk for contracting measles.
And in a pediatricians office, that means a lot of babies
and babies can't be vaccinated against measles
until they're 12 months old.
So what we started having was,
babies who were at risk of catching measles
in my office and what we had to do was,
call all of those patients and tell them,
that they need to bring their kids back.
We had to give them an injection
of a medicine called an immunoglobulin,
which protects the kids to hopefully prevent them
from getting measles.
Of the kids that got these immunoglobulins in our office,
one child had an anaphylactic reaction to that medicine
and almost died and another,
was one of my patients who had a brand new,
two week old baby who brought their kid
to the pediatrician's office for a diaper rash
and left worrying that their child would die of measles.
So we had to make a decision, are we gonna
allow these patients to come in our office,
to potentially put our other patients at risk,
or are we gonna stand with our families
who vaccinate their kids and protect our babies
and our immunol compromised patients.
And it was an easy decision for us,
so we decided that we would no longer take patients
who did not vaccinate.
(clapping)
Dr. Ball I'm just curious, what was the reception
among patients who didn't necessarily agree
with that stance?
So it's interesting, the reception to our new policy
was incredibly positive.
We had dozens of phone calls, emails,
it was our most popular Facebook post for our practice,
because we were hearing this from our families
who did not want their children to be at risk
from vaccine preventable diseases.
As for the few families who did not immunize their patients,
I was surprised, actually a lot of them actually
ended up getting their vaccines
because we had a relationship with these families
and they wanted to stay in our practice.
There's maybe one percent of our patients
were not vaccinated at all.
Refuse to vaccinate and ended up going to other practices.
And they didn't trust me,
they thought I was some part of
a grand conspiracy to hurt their child.
And if you don't trust me with immunizations,
which is like the hallmark of pediatrics
and of public health,
then how do you trust me with anything else?
Any other medical decision.
So in your opinion,
that was best to break off those relationships,
all be it small.
