Parents home-school to avoid vaccinations ... USA TODAY Oct. 21, 2008

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http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-10-21-home-school-vaccinate_N.htm Parents home-school

to avoid vaccinations By Chris

Joyner, USA TODAY Oct. 21, 2008

JACKSON, Miss. — Debra has a

thriving chiropractic practice, a nice home and a family who loves living in

the South, but she said she would leave Mississippi in a heartbeat if health officials tried to force her home-schooled children to

be immunized. is part of a

network of parents whose decision to home-school their children rests on their

belief that mandated vaccinations for public and private schoolchildren are a

dangerous overreach by state governments. While the mainstream

scientific community maintains that childhood vaccines are safe, relies

on the work of some scientists who argue that immunizations can bring on autism

or weaken the natural immunities of children. "If you want to

vaccinate your children, go ahead. But don't force me to vaccinate my children.

These children are entrusted to us," she says. Some public health

officials are concerned that the growing popularity of home schooling has

created gaps in the vaccination safety net, leading to outbreaks of rare

childhood diseases. In August, the Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention reported measles cases had spiked; 131 cases

were reported nationwide for the first seven months of the year, compared with

an average of 63 cases per year since 2000. Of the infected, 91%

were unvaccinated, most because of "philosophical or religious

beliefs," the CDC said. Home-schooled children

accounted for 25 out of 30 cases in an outbreak of measles in suburban

Chicago in May, according

to the CDC. In Grant

County in Washington ,

public health officials tied 11 of 19 measles cases to unvaccinated

home-schooled children. Lance Rodewald, director

of the CDC's Immunization Services Division, says the measles outbreaks show a

problem with state policies allowing home-schooled children to escape vaccines. "One of the

contributors we are seeing has to do with exemption laws," he says.

"Somebody who has taken an exemption from school laws, like a

philosophical or religious exemption, is 35 times more likely to get measles

… and 22 times more likely to get whooping cough." , who is president

of the chapter of the

Mississippi Vaccination Information Center ,

says she wants Mississippi to change the law that allows no exemptions beyond medical necessity. She and

her husband, Curtis, home-school their 9-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son,

and when the times comes, they will home-school their 3-year-old son. "When I came to

Mississippi , I had no

idea there would be a place in the 21st century that would have a mandated

vaccination schedule," she says. "I happen to believe that you

shouldn't inject things into your blood." Some fear that by

allowing parents more choice, pockets of unvaccinated children will be created,

spawning more outbreaks. Last year, Arthur

Caplan, a University of Pennsylvania ethicist,

co-authored an article in the Journal of

Law, Medicine and Ethics advising states to get more serious about

requiring the vaccination of home-schooled students or risk new outbreaks of

formerly rare diseases such as measles or polio. The article has been

passed around among home-school advocates as evidence of a conspiracy to force

mandatory vaccinations. Caplan says it is not

just the children who are put at risk. Vaccines work by providing "herd

immunity," meaning large numbers of vaccinated individuals protect a small

minority of the unvaccinated. That dynamic breaks down if increasing numbers of

people are not vaccinated. "Unvaccinated

children pose not only a risk to themselves, but to their families, other

children they come in contact with and especially older people they might visit

or encounter in a movie theater or mall," he says. The Department of

Education estimated in 2003 that more than 1 million children were

home-schooled, and home-schooling groups such as the National Home Education

Research Institute say the number has grown to around 2 million. "The vast majority

of parents know that vaccination is the best way to protect their

children," Rodewald says. "Certainly, the vaccination is much, much,

much safer than the disease itself." Tracking outbreaks down

to the neighborhood level shows a high correlation between the disease and

families who have filed exemptions to escape vaccinations, Rodewald says. says the parents

in her group are not buying it. "There is so much out there that they

scare us with and belittle the parents with that is so unnecessary. If the

science was there and the safety was there, they wouldn't have a problem with

the numbers (of vaccinations)." Joyner

reports for The Clarion-Ledger in .