Though a Sansum Clinic–sponsored event to discuss vaccination rates was not nearly as contentious as two recent jam-packed State Senate committee hearings on mandating vaccines for school children, a panel of area doctors addressed controversial elements of the issue at the Lobero Theatre on Thursday evening.
“Parents want to do the best for their children,” said Santa Barbara County public health officer Dr. Charity Dean, who has three sons of her own. Lately, debates about the issue in social media have been quite “heated,” Dean said, causing people to close their ears. She encouraged discussions to occur in smaller settings, calling for people to “recognize that we all have good intentions for our kids.”
Debates about vaccines were reignited after a measles outbreak that originated at Disneyland late last year. As of April 10, 159 people from 18 states were reported to have measles, a disease that had been considered eradicated in the U.S. as of the year 2000. According to Dean, 80 percent of them did not have the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Of the 20 percent who were immunized, Dean said, some had just one of two required doses. On Friday morning, state public health officials declared the recent measles outbreak over, as no new related cases had been detected in the last 42 days.