Schools right to enforce vaccines
A nurse practitioner prepares a vaccination. Credit: AP
Science, sense and our responsibility to others demand that kids be vaccinated. So a state health department immunization audit that left dozens of Long Island students shut out of classrooms in recent days was justified.
The supposed link between vaccinations and autism has been disproved, and the work of British scientist Andrew Wakefield that made the connection has been deemed fraudulent. But some parents, understandably searching for answers about a difficult condition whose ranks are growing, find it hard to let go of the idea.
Vaccinations have saved millions of lives and all but eradicated diseases like smallpox and polio in the Western world. But for them to work, we all, with the exception of those whose health won't permit it, must participate.
Some parents figure if everybody else is vaccinated, their kids don't need to be. That puts those few children who actually can't be vaccinated in danger and undermines the whole system.
The state audit of 150 schools caused 12 students at North Babylon High School to be turned away Monday, and 11 from Selden Middle School were quarantined. It's uncertain whether the kids weren't immunized or hadn't yet provided proof.
The schools did the right thing. A lack of vaccinations can jeopardize public health. hN
