Doctors "Fire" Vaccine Refusers 1271
phantomfive writes "In a study of Connecticut pediatricians published last year, some 30% of 133 doctors said they had asked a family to leave their practice for vaccine refusal. Pediatricians are getting tired of families avoiding vaccines, which puts their children at higher risk of disease. From the article: 'Pediatricians fed up with parents who refuse to vaccinate their children out of concern it can cause autism or other problems increasingly are "firing" such families from their practices, raising questions about a doctor's responsibility to these patients.
Medical associations don't recommend such patient bans, but the practice appears to be growing, according to vaccine researchers.'"
Consider me fired. (Score:0, Insightful)
Goodbye useless vaccines.
Seems reasonable.. (Score:5, Insightful)
It is about time (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes,
It is about time the doctors start to throwing the 'hippies' and mercola readers out.
If you want to go alternative DEAL with that. But you want to be a freeloader, and after complain about 'conspiracies' and demand health care.
NO.
If you can't have a scientific discussion with your doctor please do not breed
serves 'em right (Score:4, Insightful)
If some anti-vax moron doesn't want to use the help provided by the doctor, then the doctor doesn't need to keep them cluttering up his clinic.
That's his right.
It's also the right of the anti-vax moron to die faster, so hopefully they'll be weeded out in short order and we can get back to living better with medicine.
No. Really. You anti-vax'rs are morons. Self-indulgent, blinded, murderous morons.
That makes things worse. (Score:2, Insightful)
If they're making an offer that cannot be refused without an adverse threat, such as this one, it's not voluntary. Not only has the doctor done harm by removing them from their practice, they are in a worse situation where the terminated party has fewer and lower quality options (if any).
Re:as well they (Score:5, Insightful)
Tin-foil comes in maroon? Can I get it in purple instead?
On a side note, I agree that it's the doctors' right to see what patients they want (as long as the decision is not based on certain criteria like race/color/religion/gender/etc). Stupidity is not a protected group.
Re:serves 'em right (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:...why? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's more of a Doctor desire to not work with idiots, and to instead save room in the schedule for the parents actually concerned with their kids' health.
There are free vaccine clinics EVERYWHERE due to the fact that there are WAY more than enough vaccines to go around. My family has even used them a number of times. I'm sure the doctors are not concerned with the $10-15 per shot they would get since there are easy ways to vaccinate your kids and not have to pay it anyway.
Like not supporting users not using antivirus (Score:5, Insightful)
New Sign in the Doctors Office... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Seems reasonable.. (Score:5, Insightful)
If it were merely a matter of not taking good advice, I'd be a trifle ambivalent, certainly legal; but seems a bit tasteless. However, the infection risk makes it more like firing a medical assistant who won't wash their hands: it isn't just their health they are risking...
Re:...why? (Score:2, Insightful)
It's more along the lines of a doctor NOT wanting to be blamed for a more serious illness down the road that could have been easily prevented by one of these "useless vaccines." In such a litigious society, it's called "covering one's ass."
"Oh, little Jimmy got sick, even though we were religiously going to the doctor? IT'S HIS FAULT! SUE! SUE! SUE! SUE!
Re:It is about time (Score:4, Insightful)
The unfortunate thing is the kid doesn't and really can't have any say in it.
Once your an adult.. fine.. wanna refuse chemo because you've discovered the healing power of celery colonics, it's your health! The poor kid is at the mercy of the parents, and while the idea of the authorities dictating how a child is raised makes me very uncomfortable.. that's almost what I'd like to see.
Re:Seems reasonable.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The other concerning part is only in TFA though about a child who had a preexisting condition that was exacerbated by vaccines, and was still refused by several doctors without even discussing the issue.
Re:That makes things worse. (Score:5, Insightful)
US-Europe cultural difference ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe it's the difference between the US and Europe, but here in Europe, not all doctors recommend all available vaccines. I wouldn't trust my doctor if he would recommend that I (or my children) get a vaccine against flue for example.
I try to avoid drugs as much as possible because I think most non-severe illness (headache, flue, etc...) can just be cured by getting some rest and trusting your body. From my experience, the people I know that take the most drugs are the ones that are the most ill (and I'm talking non-server illness here, of course I'd take drugs if I had a cancer). I don't now if there is a causality, but I would tend to think so.
So yeah, I have kind of the same approach to vaccination : I take vaccine for sever illness, but I would never vaccine against flue before I'm 90 years old.
Now, I've lived in the US for some time and I've been shocked by the amount of drugs people take everytime they feel somewhat bad. I think there is a middleground between the "listen to your body, it will cure cancer by itself" bullshit and the "omg, I have a headache, let's eat these 3 pills". Same for vaccine.
If they don't trust vaccines... (Score:5, Insightful)
If somebody doesn't trust vaccines, why are they going to a doctor in the first place?
The sound science behind vaccinations is by and large the same sound science that doctor is going to be using when he diagnoses you and prescribes a treatment. You can't reject one without rejecting the other.
Good for them (Score:5, Insightful)
I think people today are generally spoiled by good customer service at large retailers like Amazon or Best Buy, where the business writes off 1-2% of asshole customers who consume most of the customer support resources as the cost of doing business.
The problem is, that doesn't extend to small businesses, where one bad customer can quite literally eat up a majority of the proprietor's time and energy, and the business doesn't have the depth to just send the customer free stuff to make them happy. Had that happen with a scout troop I volunteer for a couple times, where one obnoxious parent consumed hundred of hours of volunteer time before they were told to leave.
If I were a physician, I'd certainly trade one marginal (in the economic sense) customer for the freedom from losing sleep at night about whether their child is dying from one of any number of untreatable disastrous diseases. If my patients are going to argue with me about whether vaccines are, in fact, the greatest medical development for humanity in the past two centuries, how on earth am I supposed to be able to get them to consent to any other medical science?
Re:Seems reasonable.. (Score:4, Insightful)
I find it ironic that one of the groups that are dependent on herd immunity (Vaccine Component Allergy) is one of the ones that said doctor will kick out of his practice. My son is highly allergic to eggs, which is in many vaccines. We were informed by our doctor that if we did not allow him to inject our son with something that he is highly allergic to we would no longer be allowed to be a part of his practice.
It isn't that we don't want our son to be immunized, it is just we would rather not give him something that results in violent reactions. Especially at the young age that he is.
Re:Always torn on these cases (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:New Sign in the Doctors Office... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Seems reasonable.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt the doctors in question would throw you out, if the allergy is legitimate. You are not the kind of people being referred to, it's the completely retarded anti-vaccers who are the target of this. It is they who are putting your child at risk. Have a complaint, take it up with the evil fucking monster Andrew Wakefield.
Re:Seems reasonable.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Seems reasonable.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all doctors agree that all vaccines are safe (Score:0, Insightful)
Despite the claims of the pharmaceutical industry, not all medical professionals agree with some of the concoctions being labeled as 'vaccines'. This discussion is sounding like a religious war. People from both sides are ignoring the issues, and resorting to name calling. In this very forum, I've seen somebody accusing their opponents of being morons. The fact is that you can't truthfully describe all vaccines as being beneficial to all people. Vaccines are made in different ways and come with different risks. People are unique and react differently. There is a good reason that the medical industry is called a 'practice'. There are too many variables. The doctors do the best they can with the information that they have.
There is a problem with doctors refusing to see patients who don't believe in vaccines. What if doctors stopped treating people who don't give up smoking? Or maybe they won't see you if you drink alcohol? Perhaps you don't follow their diet recommendations - so they stop allowing you into their offices? Would it be okay if they refused service because you have multiple sexual partners? No. These are individual choices that carry various risks, but the individual has a right to make those choices. The doctor is supposed to give advice, and try to help as much as he can, but it is immoral for him to turn away people who need his help.
Re:Unintended Precedents (Score:2, Insightful)
All of those things are things in which the patient puts only there own life at risk and not the larger communities (sans smoking but if you just smoked alone in your own house it wouldn't affect the larger communities health).
Re:Seems reasonable.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you saying the doctor would risk an anaphylactic shock after you told him your son is allergic to eggs? Bullshit.
He'll either select a vaccine that's made without eggs or one that is known not to cause an allergic reaction in egg protein sensitive patients.
Again, bullshit. Just like all the other antivaxxers.
What about Tamiflu? (Score:2, Insightful)
Should we fire doctors who refuse to be vaccinated with Tamiflu? ... even though it's now been largely shown to have been an engineered media scare to sell a premature drug for which little clinical evidence existed and for which side-effects and complications are now becoming apparent?
I'm not saying people shouldn't get vaccines. But doctors blindly trusting 'current empirical practice' to the extent they're penalising patients for not 'getting on board' makes me a bit sceptical. At the very least they should be attempting to educate their patients in an intelligent (read: not patronizing) way -- and in the process educating themselves with the updated literature. For the most part, I doubt most doctors have read basic research dealing with the ongoing controversy around many vaccines (no, I'm not referring to the autism scare).
I had a mumps vaccine about a year ago, in the form of MMR (I had the two components already, but it turns out mandatory mumps vaccination wasn't policy in australia in my day, and previous vaccination for other two components isn't a contraindication for the combined vaccine). I developed parotitis shortly afterwards, which is a recognised complication of the mumps component. (So is orchitis, btw, carrying a risk for sterility). I then decided to read some of the literature on mumps. Turns out that, while it's not necessarily condemning of the mumps vaccination, there *are* legitimate concerns about risk of complications vs probability of contracting the disease in the first place, and vs severity or even potential *benefits* of contracting the disease naturally compared to vaccination, etc. I would have had the mumps vaccine anyway (not least because the health check for my new job demanded it). But still, I wish people had flagged, and related these facts to me, at the very least so I could know what I should expect and give proper informed consent to my treatment; rather than go with the whole "WHAT? You want to know more about the vaccine!? Why, I bet you're an ignorant redneck! Go find another doctor!"
As for the people who are too eager and quick to assume the majority of these parents are simply ignorant rednecks who don't give a shit about their children's health, I'd tell you to get out of your self-righteous hole and re-examine the situation. Many spokesmen are either educated people, who have legitimate reasons to be concerned, or people who have been disappointed by the slapdash nature of healthcare services once or twice before and wish to be less passive in their health management. While that doesn't automatically put them in the right, it doesn't mean they should be automatically humiliated, vilified and punished either.
Re:Unintended Precedents (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Turnabout is fair play (Score:5, Insightful)
I love it when these parents say "well my kid has no vaccines and has never gotten ". Yeah no shit Sherlock, it's because the rest of us are not spreading it around thanks to our vaccines. The day there's a new strain that flies around killing the un-vaccinated they'll say "Why didn't someone do something or warn us?!?"
Re:US-Europe cultural difference ? (Score:4, Insightful)
non-severe illness (headache, flue, etc...)
The 50-100 million people that died from the Spanish Flu may have a slight issue with your definition of "serious".
Re:Consider me fired. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:as well they (Score:5, Insightful)
It's also arguable that the antivaxxers are goddamn assholes, and I believe it's perfectly acceptable to refuse service to those you find to be goddamn assholes.
The doctor is a highly trained expert providing a service. When faced with people who refuse to acknowledge that expertise (whether it's refusing vaccines or blood transfusions or whatever) I think they're perfectly within their rights to say "you're a pushy asshole, and if you won't let me do my job properly then GTFO."
Re:as well they (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Seems reasonable.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because there exist people that can't get vaccinated for various reasons, such as allergy or compromised immune system. Every person that buys into the anti-vaccine propaganda bullshit and doesn't have their children vaccinated weakens herd immunity. This means that the people with no other protection but herd immunity are being compromised by utter stupidity.
Ask most people that could have their children vaccinated but chose not to: "Would you allow your child to travel to a place where there is no herd immunity without vaccinating them first?" I have (I have several extended family members who are anti-vaccination fools) and almost every time they respond "Hell, no!" A few even wear their hypocrisy like a badge of honor..."I refuse to put my children through any risk of complication whatsoever since I know everyone else will risk their own children and my child will be safe anyway." They fully realize how herd immunity works, and that it's a shared risk, but they totally don't give a shit and are perfectly happy being selfish little fuckwits.
It's ridiculous how ignorant people are of history that we're going to end up having to suffer another major epidemic to squash this stupid anti-vaccination bullshit.
Re:as well they (Score:5, Insightful)
Tin-foil comes in maroon? Can I get it in purple instead?
On a side note, I agree that it's the doctors' right to see what patients they want (as long as the decision is not based on certain criteria like race/color/religion/gender/etc). Stupidity is not a protected group.
No less, it's reasonable for a doctor to be able to refuse to treat a patient who continuously refuses treatment. At that point, the doctor is simply saying, well, if you don't want me to treat you, then I won't treat you.
Re:Seems reasonable.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest joke of it all is this: Even of vaccines do cause the things people guess that they might, you're still better off getting vaccinated.
With Autism rates up around the 5.5 in 1,000 range (that's under half a percentage), even if every single autism case is caused by vaccines, you're still better off getting vaccinated and taking a tiny chance of autism over order-of-magnitude greater odds of dying in an epidemic when once hits your area thanks to the loss of herd immunity that generally keeps us protected.
This ignores the fact that autism rates for those who are vs are not vaccinated seem to work out to be the same, and that no study has actually managed to link vaccines with autism.
Re:It is about time (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, this is a liberal problem isn't it?
http://blogs.plos.org/thepanicvirus/2011/05/10/and-the-winner-is-fox-news/ [plos.org]
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1206813,00.html [time.com]
Or perhaps you missed many conservatives like Michele Bachmann rail on and on against HPV and other vaccines.
No, this a religious problem. Every motivation for the vac-fraks stems from it, and it's desire to abolish science.
Re:...why? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can see this as nothing but a good thing for a doctor.
I've always wondered why dentists give away toothbrushes. You'd think they would hand out candy after the visit.
Re:Always torn on these cases (Score:5, Insightful)
What the fuck? "they're causing many narcolepsy cases" - [citation needed] to the max. I don't even know of any mechanism by which a vaccine could have anything to do with narcolepsy.
Then you go and revise history. It was a pandemic, even though not everybody got sick (pandemic has a specific definition that was met). And it was on par with the average flu in terms of mortality, but it was affecting the young and able-bodied disproportionately - a characteristic it shared with the 1918 flu epidemic, which was also an H1N1 strain. Young and able-bodied are both more resistant to infection in the first place, and more capable of spreading it, so there was absolutely cause for alarm.
It was probably overhyped (mostly by the media) but it was not "many kids getting their lives ruined". From what I can find, one person died from an anaphylactic reaction, but that says more about the environment in which they were vaccinated because we know how to treat anaphylaxis. About 30 people had temporary problems possibly resulting from the vaccine, but they all recovered.
Re:US-Europe cultural difference ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe it's the difference between the US and Europe, but here in Europe, not all doctors recommend all available vaccines. I wouldn't trust my doctor if he would recommend that I (or my children) get a vaccine against flue for example.
If your doctor recommended a flu shot, he/she thinks you're in an at-risk group. Influenza is not a harmless infection, it kills 250,000 to 500,000 people in a typical (non-pandemic) year.
Now, I've lived in the US for some time and I've been shocked by the amount of drugs people take everytime they feel somewhat bad. I think there is a middleground between the "listen to your body, it will cure cancer by itself" bullshit and the "omg, I have a headache, let's eat these 3 pills". Same for vaccine.
A flu vaccine isn't like antibiotics or painkillers or anti-depressants or other drugs that may be harmful is needlessly prescribed. A vaccine introduces your immune system to a foreign element, which it then remembers so, if introduced to it again (in a live virus), it will be able to attack it more immediately. Getting a flu vaccine needlessly isn't going to weaken you or cause you to be more likely to be sick.
Re:New Sign in the Doctors Office... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:not necessarily autism (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you have any idea how many children and others were killed by these virulent diseases? To put this in perspective, before vaccinations the list of top ten killers in this country was entirely populated by diseases which today have vaccinations. That same list today is comprised of heart disease and cancer instead of measles and mumps. These diseases kill, and when they don't kill they maim severely, or sterilize, or blind, or like polio make you paraplegic including freezing your lungs so that you have to spend the rest of your life in an Iron lung or you die.
Of course there is a higher mortality, some of the side effects of vaccinations are death. You CAN get real polio from the vaccine. But the odds of a side effect or getting the actual disease are incredibly small, in the range of 1 in a million or billion. But the odds of catastrophic results from not getting the vaccine are FAR higher. With all these vaccination avoiders there is going to be an pandemic some day and all those people who didn't vaccinate their kids are going to be burying them. Almost every one of these childhood vaccinations are diseases that kill adults that get the disease. We've already had several major outbreaks of measles that have killed a significant number of people, I vaguely recall one in a nearby state that killed nearly 700 people. If the CDC and state health officials hadn't quarantined people it probably would have went pandemic. Herd immunity is gone at this point, if you are relying on it to protect your kid you have no idea how many people are refusing vaccines.
Re:US-Europe cultural difference ? (Score:5, Insightful)
From my experience, the people I know that take the most drugs are the ones that are the most ill
Selection bias much?
Vaccine refusers generally bad patients anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
They tend to "know better what is right for my child" on many
other issues. Their children come in sicker than others because
of the herbal remedies they try first and fail. "I thought
I'd clear up the pneumonia with elderberry extract"
Re:Frak the doctors.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Are there risks with taking vaccines? Yes, slim risks. Are there risks with refusing vaccines? Yes, BIGGER risks. Less risk = better.
You lament that your kid feels bad for 1-2 days after receiving a vaccine? How do you think she'll feel after developing polio or meningitis?
Re:Seems reasonable.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but I question the accuracy of any quote that involves a doctor requiring that they knowingly inject a vaccine into someone known to be allergic to that vaccine. No doctor would ever require that their patients submit to being killed. So I have no reason to believe the rest of the story.
It seems quite likely to me that many parents make claims of allergies when they really just fear vaccines but don't want to tell their doctor that. Or, in this situation, maybe the doctor's office wasn't actually aware of the allergy, and the parents are tacking on a bit of hyperbole to their story.
Re:Consider me fired. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice straw man.
According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], "On average 41,400 people died each year in the United States between 1979 and 2001 from influenza."
Re:New Sign in the Doctors Office... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes it is life threatening.
Since Non vaccinated people are a vector for mutation,l they put everyone at risk.
Re:New Sign in the Doctors Office... (Score:5, Insightful)
But if you get killed walking to the store, that doesn't put everyone you past that day at risk of being killed while walking. Non vaccinated people kill other people.
And more miles are walked then people get the flu.
Also, that's in vaccinated population. In a non vaccination population the number will be 100s of thousand daed compared to an average of 35000 dead over ten years.
I mean,. think about it " This vaccinated group has less deaths then walking, so clearly that don't need to be vaccinated."
So your comparison is not only wrong, it's really fucking stupid.