Vexing Anti-Vaxxers

"He had heard about the current [measles] outbreak and had spoken to a number of reliable sources and he had come in to further that discussion."
"When people are in a small community, when they're being exposed to an echo chamber and they're being bombarded by fear-based propaganda, then it's easy to understand why they would choose something that is not in the best interests of their children."
Dr. Eric Cadesky, family physician, president, Doctors of British Columbia

"From an ethical and legal perspective, if they are a competent teenager, then they are the ones you should be having the conversation with."
"The teen's consent is both necessary and sufficient."
"I would say there is an obligation to revisit this topic [of vaccinations] with a patient who has become competent."
"I think it's entirely possible a 13-, 14- or 15-year-old would be competent on their own to consent [to the inoculation shots against disease]."
Timothy Caulfield, professor of health law and policy, University of Alberta

"[Adolescents] all have to rebel in one way or another, and it would be pretty cool if they chose to rebel by getting immunized."
"I guess the question that's being asked is, should we put the idea into their heads?"
"A sad story about a child who appeared to be normal and now they have some horrible problem, that is way more convincing than reading about medical evidence."
Dr. Joan Robinson, pediatric infectious disease specialist, University of Alberta

luriiSokolov / iStock / Thinkstock

The issue of vaccination-unconvinced parents withholding inoculations to protect their children from a whole host of infectious diseases becomes more heated with each new incident where someone has been diagnosed with measles or mumps or whooping cough or even polio, and health authorities send out notices to those who may have been in close proximity to warn them they may need a check-up, brings to the fore an issue currently plaguing modern society.

Where celebrities, alternate health providers and social media contacts go to the other extreme, warning parents that inoculations themselves are the cause of disease and infection. Dr. Cadesky described a 12-year-old boy surreptitiously enquiring of him whether he might get the shots his parents had refused to allow for him as a baby, as anti-vaxx propagandists. Minors below the age of 18 deemed able to make a decision to be immunized beyond a parents' knowledge or consent do so lawfully in British Columbia.



Professor Caulfield posited a scenario during an interview: "As a thought experiment, you could imagine a teen saying, 'You knew I wasn't vaccinated. You knew I was competent to make that decision. How come you didn't tell me about it?" Medical groups have advised doctors how to work with vaccine-hesitant parents representing a swelling segment of the population recently identified by the World Health Organization as one of the top ten threats to public health on a global scale.

"I grew up understanding my mother's beliefs that vaccines are dangerous", testified Ethan Lindenberger before a U.S. Senate hearing struck to examine the upsurge in measles. Approaching his mother with an article in hand from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that confirmed vaccines are not the cause of autism, his mother responded "That's what they want you to think". Lindenberger has become something of a standard-bearer of young people questioning their anti-vaxxing parents' decision making.

Ethan Lindenberger of Norwalk, Ohio, told senators "the information in defense of vaccines outweighed the concerns heavily."   Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

In most Canadian provinces mature minors are permitted to make such decisions in respect to their own care as long as they are able to appreciate the "reasonably foreseeable consequences" of a decision they approach. A minor may be held competent to make decisions with respect to vaccines, but needless to say, not with regard to more 'serious' medical applications, say, for example, surgical procedures.