Voices: Our children are at risk and here's why

It's been a rough few weeks for America's children.

First, children are being hospitalized with a disease that was eliminated from the United States in 2000: measles. As of Feb. 27, 170 people in 17 states had been infected with the virus. Most hadn't been immunized. At this rate, about a thousand children will be infected by the end of the year. When we reach a few thousand cases, children will again die from the disease.

It's unconscionable.

Parents have chosen not to immunize their children for several reasons: 1. They don't fear the disease (even though measles killed about 500 people a year before the vaccine was introduced in 1963). 2. They fear that the vaccine might cause unwanted side effects such as developmental delays or autism (even though scientific studies have clearly shown that these fears are unfounded). 3. Many doctors are acquiescing to parents' demands for an "alternative" vaccine schedule that either delays or eliminates measles-containing vaccine.

According to a paper published in the journal Pediatrics this week, more than 90% of physicians reported that in a typical month, at least some parents would ask to delay or spread out vaccines.

Although 87% of physicians thought that this choice was putting their patients at risk, 82% acquiesced to the parents' demands, stating that it was important to "build trust with the families."

Presumably, these same physicians wouldn't let parents' walk out of their offices refusing to treat a bacterial pneumonia with antibiotics. But every year in the United States, children die of preventable forms of meningitis and pneumonia because their parents chose not to immunize them. And in about 20 years, thousands more will die from cancers caused by human papillomavirus for the same reason.

The second piece of bad news came from New York City. Since 2000, 17 babies of Orthodox Jewish parents developed severe herpes simplex virus infections; some died or were left with permanent brain damage. All of these cases could be traced back to an ancient circumcision practice in which the mohel (the person who performs the ritual circumcision) uses his mouth to clean off the open wound.

Previously, then-mayor Michael Bloomberg had instituted a law whereby mohels had to educate parents about herpes and obtain a consent form. However, a few weeks ago, Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration began negotiating with Orthodox Jewish leaders to eliminate the requirement, claiming a desire to "increase trust" in the community. Now, if a child contracts herpes from the procedure — and the mohel is found to be the source — the mohel will no longer be able to perform the ritual. In other words, mohels who perform this dangerous ritual are allowed to infect, and possibly kill, at least one child without consequence. Again, in the name of "trust," children lose.

The third piece of bad news came from Rand Paul, the Republican senator from Kentucky and presidential hopeful. Although not meaning to, Paul explained why we are afraid to confront parents who put their children at unnecessary risk. Regarding a parent's decision not to vaccinate, Paul said, "The state doesn't own your children, parents own their children, and it is an issue of freedom."

Actually, parents don't own their children. Parents have a responsibility to care for their children; if they don't, then the state has the right to step in. But Paul had hit on a fundamental American concept; We have always been fiercely protective of our autonomy, particularly in the family realm. Probably the best evidence for this was the reaction by the United States government to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In 1989, the United Nations drafted a document outlining the rights of the world's children. The convention stated that all children had a right to life, a right to be protected from abuse and exploitation, a right to be exempt from capital punishment and a right to be protected from cruel or degrading forms of corporal punishment. More than 190 countries signed this document. Only two refused: Somalia and the United States, where opposition came primarily from political and religious conservatives.

The Heritage Foundation claimed that the document threatened federal control of domestic policy, and the Home School Legal Defense Foundation argued that it threatened a parent's right to home school. But most observers believe that the United States didn't sign the document because its citizens don't like to be told how to raise their children.

Even when that means putting those children — and sometimes others with whom they come in contact — at grave risk.

Offit is a doctor and a professor of pediatrics in the division of infectious diseases at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and author of Bad Faith: When Religious Belief Undermines Modern Medicine.