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Doctors "Fire" Vaccine Refusers
phantomfive writes "In a study of Connecticut pediatricians published last year, some 30% of 133 doctors said they had asked a family to leave their practice for vaccine refusal. Pediatricians are getting tired of families avoiding vaccines, which puts their children at higher risk of disease. From the article: 'Pediatricians fed up with parents who refuse to vaccinate their children out of concern it can cause autism or other problems increasingly are "firing" such families from their practices, raising questions about a doctor's responsibility to these patients.
Medical associations don't recommend such patient bans, but the practice appears to be growing, according to vaccine researchers.'"
Doctors aren't always right (like anybody in any profession), but this isn't about the doctors themselves. It's about the science.
And the scientific evidence has shown time and time again that there is no link between vaccinations and autism, and that the benefits of eradicating these types of diseases far outweigh the potential mild side effects of taking them.
As such, I have no problem with the idea of doctors who practice said science turning away patients who want to be in denial about it.
I think vaccine deniers are dangerous fools, and I wish I were religious if only for the comfort of believing in a Hell waiting to accept "Dr." Wakefield.
But before we jump on this particular bandwagon, perhaps we ought to ask:
Can a doctor "fire" a patient for continuing to smoke?
For continuing to drink? How are we defining "drink?"
For continuing to overeat?
For continuing to eat lots of red meat? Fried food? Salt?
For not being on the caveman diet?
Perhaps, they think this will help convince the family that the vaccines really are important. They're choosing to make this choice in face of losing long-term profits. That points to a deliberate ethical decision, and not grubbing after a $40 fee.
If pharmacists are allowed to refuse to dispense birth control based on their convictions, and churches can refuse to cover it due to their convictions, doctors should be allowed to refuse to treat idiots based on their convictions. Welcome to the free market, bitches.
A person who thinks a vaccine causes autism is liable to start blaming their doctor for whatever other ailments crop up in their kids life. Which is only no big deal if you don't have a family yourself or reputation.
Why would any doc want that?
> The problem is that vaccines rely on herd immunity.
Yes, this is an important point that not much has been made of in the comments so far. There are people who cannot be vaccinated or in whom the vaccine will not produce the desired immunity. So long as these people don't come in to contact with the disease they'll be fine, but if you don't want to get your child immunised and send them to school with some poor kid with a crappy immune system or on chemo or something then you might end up killing them too.
Are there schools that ban unvaccinated children from attending? I think that'd be a more effective way than kicking them out off the doctors list.
My family doctor will give new patients 6 months to stop smoking or he refers them elsewhere. His line is that his job is to keep patients healthy and that he can't do that if they are smoking. These are caretakers, and they will inevitably come to care about their patients. If they wanted to make money, they would have gone into a specialized field.
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
The problem is a thorny one of liability and ethics. Being forced by law to take responsibility for a patient that specifically refuses to take your medical advice is not a solution.
I have had (dental) patients in the past who give me a list of requirements on their first visit - no x-rays, no fluoride, no amalgam, etc. Those patients are gently shown the door. I may not necessarily disagree with their reasoning but the trust necessary for an effective doctor-patient clearly does not exist from the start.
And who knows what cockamamie lawsuits they'll file? I've actually had patients insinuate that they will sue if treatment doesn't happen exactly as they expect. Buh bye.
Not worth the headaches.
I love my endocrinologist. I have diabetes and she's superbly competent at helping me manage it.
However, her initial speech to patients is fairly straightforward.
"We'll discuss alternatives and your specific circumstances. Then I'll tell you what to do. You'll do it. I'll know if you do what I tell you because you'll bring in your meter and I'll download all the info in it at every checkup. I'll do the blood work. I'll know if you're following my directions. If you don't follow my directions, you won't have to worry about disappointing me. You'll just have to find a new endocrinologist because I'll fire you as my patient."
I appreciated the straightforwardness. I think some patients would be mighty put off but that's why some doctors and some patients are a bad mix and should go their separate ways.
My mom is a nurse, and her best friend was paralyzed from the flu shot. How's that instead of a @#$@ three days of down time?
And for every person paralyzed by the flu shot a greater number have been saved by it. No one is saying vaccines don't have risks, but that the benefits outweigh those risks. There's a reason we look at statistics instead of anecdotes.
It can also be deadly. A friend of mine gave me the Chicken Pox which, within 2 weeks, lead to bacterial endocarditis, spinal meningitis, pneumonia and Reye's syndrome. Note that the US didn't start using the Chicken Pox vaccine until 1995; it hit me in the 1970's. Fortunately my parents found the doctors I needed and I'm alive today.
I wonder how many children die every year because their parents don't want to get them vacinated.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
How old is your son? My son is also highly allergic to eggs (we have to carry the epi pen everwhere we go), and he's had all his age-scheduled shots so far with no problem, and he's almost 2. Which ones does your son need that don't have a non-egg version?
PRIVATE PRACTICE, a tv show about a complementary medical practice in L.A. had an episode about a family of 'non-vaccinators' who returned from a trip overseas (India or Malaysia) with one of their kids very sick. The family sat in the waiting room for 5 minutes as the sick child eventually convulsed and died from measles. The pediatrician in the practice had delivered both of the kids and knew the mom didn't believe to vaccinations. The mom was in full-grief denial mode as only a sudden death can do. Meanwhile the staff is jump around canceling all the appointments for the next 48 hours and contacting all the patients that were in that day to make sure they and their kids were up-to-date for measles vaccine. The big issue of that show was that the mom didn't want to vaccinate the remaining child even though there was a very strong chance he would come down with Measles and it might kill him. Meanwhile these people are carriers and should have been quarantined. Why the LA Health department didn't swoop in and take over is beyond me, but I didn't write the show. The moral issue of the show was "when are the parent's beliefs about what's right for their child get overridden by what's medically advised. In the case of blood transfusion and 7th Day Adventists and other religious cults, the courts will intervene. In this case, the doctor risked their medical license by forcibly vaccinating the remaining child against the mom's wishes. If that case ever came to court, I wonder what a jury would do. The California AMA would probably award the doctor a medal for averting a cluster outbreak of measles. In any case, not having these kinds of patients in your medical practice makes life a lot easier. It's also why lots of doctors don't accept Medicare patients if they don't have to. Billing is a major headache.