3 million lives a year. They are cost-effective, too. Every U.S. dollar spent on childhood immunization returns up to $44 in benefits, according to the IWG.
But in the United States, outbreaks of measles have recently occurred in hot-spots where parents have refused to vaccinate their children. In response, some U.S. states have reacted by closing “personal belief” loopholes that allowed parents to not immunize a school-aged child.
“The resurgence of potentially life-threatening diseases like measles, which the U.S. Centers for Disease Control declared eliminated in the United States in 2000, undermines the integrity of childhood protections that thousands of dedicated scientists, doctors and public health officials spent the better part of the last century putting in place,” said Lawrence Gostin. He directs the WHO Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law, and is also co-director of the IWG.
“Parents do have rights to make informed decisions about vaccinating their children,” Gostin added, “but they do not have the right to place their children, or other children, at risk of a serious infectious disease. We need to do a far better job of reaching out to vaccine-hesitant parents.”
And the problem is now a global one, the consortium of scientists added in a journal news release. So, more must be
