Vaccine refuseniks: immune to evidence.

• Author: Bailey, Ronald
• Position: Citings - Brief article

RESPONDING to scares peddled by anti-vaccine charlatans, thousands of American parents refuse to have their kids immunized. Now frustrated physicians have begun telling vaccine refusers to take a hike.

A survey of 133 Connecticut pediatricians, reported in the July/August 2011 issue of Public Health Reports, found that 30 percent had declined to treat children whose parents refused to vaccinate them. A survey of Midwestern pediatricians the same year found that 21 percent had similar policies.

Vaccine refusers are not just endangering their own kids. In February, The New England Journal of Medicine noted that...