Anti-vaxxers ignore science

To the editor:

(re: “A lot about vaccines left unsaid,” May 23)

Thank you for printing a letter from an anti-vaxxer opposed to Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz’s bill to eliminate the bogus religious exemption from vaccinating children.

The letter writer never mentioned a religious objection to vaccination, proving yet again that this so-called religious exemption has nothing to do with religion or the First Amendment. Instead, she — like other anti-vaxxers — believes that her judgment is better than that of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and every other important medical organization — all of which urge parents to vaccinate their children.

Not to mention decades of experience proving that vaccinating children is far safer than not vaccinating them. The anti-vaxxers are responsible for the worst outbreak of measles in this country in 25 years.

Children already have been admitted to ICUs, and it is only a matter of time before a child dies in this outbreak. It’s bad enough that the anti-vaxxers put their own children at risk; it’s worse that they have put other children at risk, those too young or medically unable to be vaccinated.

Assemblyman Dinowitz’s bill is being bottled up in the Assembly health committee by its chairman, Richard Gottfried, an anti-vaccination sympathizer. Please email him at gottfriedr@nyassembly.gov, or call his office at (518) 455-4941, and tell him to bring the bill to the floor, where every legislator will have to go on record with his or her position on this vital public health issue.

The anti-vaxxers have already lobbied him. Now it’s time for the rest of us to do that, too.

Bob Bender

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