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COMMENTARY: Ending anti-vaccine arguments for the sake of our young
Dear anti-vaccine mothers, can you give that to your babies without jeopardizing the health of my children and others too?
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A health official from the Waelengga community health center (Puskesmas) in Watunggene subdistrict, Kota Komba district, East Manggarai regency, Flores, East Nusa Tenggara, prepares a polio vaccine for a baby on the first day of national polio immunization week in March 2016. (thejakartapost.com/Markus Makur)
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s a mother of two lovely and healthy daughters, I don’t really care about how other mothers raise their loved ones. Nor do I care whether they are working moms or stayat-home moms, breastfeeding, or whether they are helicopter moms or tiger moms.
But dealing with anti-vaccination mothers is a different story. I believe they are arrogant and selfish people, who don’t really care that their decision not to vaccinate their children puts other children’s health at risk.
The rise of anti-vaccination movements both abroad and in Indonesia is worrying. Anti-vaxxers’ voices have “been amplified by the human megaphone that is the president of the United States,” a TV host recently said, as Donald Trump has long voiced his convictions of a link between “increasing” cases of autism among children who have been vaccinated in a simultaneous “massive dose,” despite no available scientific evidence that proves it.
In Indonesia, a number of celebrities have also refused to vaccinate their children for various reasons, triggering social media debates.
We should never underestimate the threats resulting from anti-vaccine movements. Recent outbreaks of measles, diphtheria and polio in several provinces prove how these movements have increasingly infiltrated parents’ minds. The results are tragic.
Diseases that should not have existed in the modern era are back from the dead. Cities like Padang in West Sumatra, Malang in East Java, Banjarmasin in South Kalimantan and regencies in Aceh have witnessed the return of measles and diphtheria along with a rise in the number of parents who refuse vaccinations. Statistics show diphtheria cases among children rose significantly to 1,192 in 2012 from 218 in 2008.
No one really knows how the anti-vaccine movements started in Indonesia. A big seminar featuring anti-vaccine activist Jerry D. Gray was held in Yogyakarta in 2012 and was flooded by 800 participants, even though the event was sabotaged later on by provaccine figures providing more balanced views. Since then, nothing was heard about the anti-vaccination movements out in the open in Indonesia. They seem to be expanding under word-ofmouth operations, from social gatherings to social media.
