The recent outbreak of measles in California, which has now spread to other American states, and the simultaneous finding of cases in Toronto is a stark reminder of the inherent risk to our children of the ill-informed anti-vaccine movement. 

Canada last year witnessed an enormous outbreak of measles with hundreds of cases primarily, but not exclusively, in Western Canada, with the majority occurring in non-immunized children. The current outbreak in the United States is also mainly among  non-immunized or under-immunized young children (those who did not complete the recommended course of immunizations, which is a two-step process). The regimen according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is as follows: “To prevent measles, children (and some adults) should be vaccinated with the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Two doses of this vaccine are needed for complete protection. Children should be given the first dose of MMR vaccine at 12 to 15 months of age. The second dose can be given four weeks later, but is usually given before the start of kindergarten at four to six years of age.” Some adults may need a booster as well, because immunity may eventually wane.

Grandparents can be an important source of historical perspective on the compelling need for vaccination: they’re often the only ones who have a living memory of what life was like and what the effects of childhood infectious disease was prior to the introduction of vaccination programs. I am a physician and a grandparent who recalls vividly the period prior to the advent, for example, of the polio vaccine. For most North Americans, polio is a distant memory, and parents who reject their children getting such a vaccine, as well as other commonly used and recommended vaccines, have no historical personal perspective on the effects of childhood infectious diseases.

I recall the polio outbreak that affected America in the early 1950s, when I was a young adolescent. In 1952, there were 59,000 cases of paralytic polio in the United States. Serious outbreaks occurred in all of the 48 states, as well as the territories of Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.  A similar picture existed in Canada, where the disease peaked in 1953 with nearly 9,000 cases and 500 deaths.

I recall what it was like during those few years when parents worried about their children contracting the dreaded disease. There were newsreels in the movies showing vast wards with primarily children in iron lung machines, the only way to keep a child alive with severe paralysis until, with luck, there was some natural recovery from the disease. I still see elderly patients who were afflicted with polio and survived, but were left with life-long paralysis and often develop what is called post-polio syndrome in later years, which interferes seriously with normal function and may compromise life expectancy. 

Our parents forbade us from swimming in public swimming pools, which for me, living in Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, N.Y., was a serious prohibition. Many children wore a slab of camphor tied to a string around their necks to ward off the disease. Of course, there was no evidence that this actually worked. Then in 1955, with the discovery of the Salk vaccine and massive population immunization, this scourge of childhood disease ended. It should be a thing of the past, but for those who reject such childhood vaccination for misguided reasons.

Grandparents are the only ones who can talk with authority and experience about the real face of childhood infectious outbreaks. It’s incumbent upon our generation of seniors to use our influence and hopefully intrinsic respect to convince the vaccine naysayers of their misguided and potentially life-threatening anti-vaccine position and errant understanding of the science in contrast to their dangerous beliefs.