Vaccine fraud must be stopped

A recent post from a parent on a Long Island moms' Facebook group has become all too common.

"Crunchy pediatricians near commack/smithtown," the anonymous poster wrote.

Translation: Seeking a doctor who eschews modern medicine, including the required childhood vaccine schedule.

Unsurprisingly, the poster got multiple suggestions.

"Crunchy" isn't a new term. But it's increasingly being used to describe parents who are anti-vaccine, or doctors who will help parents avoid fulfilling the required childhood vaccines needed for school and other activities. One similar group for "crunchy moms" on Long Island notes that vaccines "are not natural nor recommended upon a more holistic lifestyle ..."

An increasing number of Long Island parents are seeking physicians with a similar mindset, especially since 2019, when New York State banned religious exemptions from vaccination. For each such parent who takes this route, there's a child who is unvaccinated. For each child who hasn't gotten their shots, others are put at risk. These "crunchy" physicians and parents are endangering other children and adults, particularly the very young, the very old, and the immunocompromised.

That's why the extraordinary scope of the investigation involving Amityville-based Wild Child Pediatric Healthcare and its former nurse practitioner Julie DeVuono, who is accused of falsifying children's vaccine records, is so disturbing. DeVuono's patients came from 91 of the 124 school districts on Long Island, along with others who attended schools in New York City and the Hudson Valley. On Long Island, where there is no shortage of pediatricians, they drove from Montauk and Glen Cove to see DeVuono, a nurse practitioner, to get their required vaccine forms completed.

DeVuono's massive reach illustrates just how many parents were looking for someone who would help them avoid doing the right thing. And there's no reason to think such searches for alternatives ended when DeVuono stopped practicing in New York after pleading guilty to selling fake COVID-19 vaccine cards in 2023.

More and more, such anti-vaccine efforts and talk are becoming commonplace. President Donald Trump this week highlighted the increase in autism diagnoses, suggesting there was "something really wrong." Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine critic who refuses to deny a link between vaccination and autism, just cleared a committee vote on his way to potentially heading the Department of Health and Human Services, which controls the nation's public health service.

It's in that context that the state Health Department must ramp up its enforcement efforts, even beyond the DeVuono case. While the focus has been on determining which students and schools were specifically involved in DeVuono's unlawful efforts, state officials and local school district leaders must now find and put out of business other physicians, nurse practitioners, and medical offices that might be taking similar actions.

Long Island has been an epicenter of the still-growing anti-vaccine "movement." The way to combat that is with increased vigilance, attention and enforcement.