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Values and Vaccines
Article

Values and Vaccines

Maggie Koerth-Baker
Aeon, 2016
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Controversial
  • Innovative
  • Eye Opening

Recommendation

Scientists and journalists alike often assume that parents who refuse to vaccinate their children are, at best, uninformed, or, at worst, willfully negligent. But what if there were another side to this story? In this groundbreaking essay, science journalist Maggie Koerth-Baker goes in search of a new, philosophically-based narrative to explain why parents – especially the well-off, and well-educated – reject mandatory vaccination for their children. getAbstract recommends her article to everyone working in public health and to the parents of young children.

Take-Aways

  • Scientists and journalists often treat parents who reject vaccination for their children as ignorant or willfully “antiscience.”
  • Vaccination works both to immunize an individual from disease and to create “herd immunity”: When the majority of people vaccinate, it cuts down on chances that an infection will spread widely if someone contracts the disease.
  • The risk of bad reactions to a vaccine is low, but they do occur – sometimes with serious results. Some parents don’t regard the danger to society as more important than the risk which a given vaccine may pose to their own children.

About the Author

Maggie Koerth-Baker writes the monthly column Eureka for The New York Times Magazine. Her most recent book is Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us.

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