Measles, a Love Letter from Your Neighbor
There’s a measles epidemic sweeping the United States. It’s brought with it the highest number of cases in almost 30 years. In May of 2019, the CDC reported that there had already been 971 measles cases confirmed this year, surpassing the 963 cases in all of 1992. One or two deaths are expected for every thousand cases, and infections can lead to long term consequences in even those who survive, such as deafness, intellectual disabilities, and encephalitis that occurs only years after the initial infection. Delayed encephalitis can be fatal.
The ongoing measles epidemic is the direct result of falling vaccination rates driven primarily by changing parental belief systems, including the belief that vaccines are unsafe. I call it a believe system because that’s what it is. There’s no evidence supporting that vaccines are unsafe or cause autism, yet people believe that they do anyway. It’s an opinion based entirely on faith, no different than a religious refusal of modern medicine. Childhood vaccines have been studied to death, possibly more than any other public health issue. Despite this, the only study to ever indicate that vaccines are unsafe was the long since discredited study by Andrew Wakefield, who not only falsified scientific data for personal profit, but later lost his medical license for abusing the children under his care.
But the anti-vaccine movement is about much more than just the cult of personality of a child abuser. It’s the culmination of a neoliberal paradigm, a paradigm that teaches us that there’s no reason to care about the good of our communities beyond ourselves. Vaccines depend on herd immunity to work most effectively. In other words, it’s the community vaccination rate that matters more than the individual. Some children are unable to get vaccinated for legitimate medical reasons, usually because of a chronic or immune suppressing condition. Therefore, it’s necessary that children who are able to get vaccinated do so. If vaccine rates fall below certain levels then it’s as if the community as a whole isn’t vaccinated any longer, which the CDC says we’re already at risk of. Sick children rely on herd immunity the most, but it’s important for all of us because most vaccines are less than 100% effective.
Neoliberalism is about the privatization of the commons. Privatizing national resources such as land, oil, or diamonds. Other examples include the privatization of public services, such as public transportation or schools. The anti-vaccine movement is as much a privatization of healthcare as privatizing Medicaid or Medicare would be, though it’s more a matter of world view than legislation. It’s based on the conservative ideological belief that we shouldn’t care about our neighbor, that we have no responsibility to support them. It’s an ideology that rewards extreme self-interest. In life or death scenarios such as with measles, it’s really an ideology of psychopathic selfishness. Parent’s have internalized the messages of the neoliberal establishment, which includes almost every Democrat and Republican, as well as almost every mainstream media outlet. As a worldview, it’s become completely ingrained in our culture.
Doctors and epidemiologists have struggled to combat the growing anti-vaccine movement, failing by overly relying on logic and science. Some parents will certainly be moved by their calls to reason, but in general we can’t expect to use logic to break a strongly held belief system. That method hasn’t worked against any ideological system yet, whether it be about government spending or religious traditions.
A benefit of the ongoing measles epidemic is that some communities have been stunned into action, demonstrated by the rising vaccine rates on Vashon Island, WA. But it’s not clear if this trend will be enough to counteract the sensationally loud anti-vaccine community. Instead of continuing to pull out scientific articles on vaccine safety, or waiting for a more severe epidemic of childhood diseases to scare the nation, we need to work on changing the culture of neoliberal selfishness. We need to fight for Medicare for All, raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, take responsibility for climate change, among other socially progressive measures. We need to create a culture of solidarity that rewards people for caring about their neighbors as if they were members of their own family.
In some ways, we’re all responsible for stopping the anti-vaccine movement, because we’re responsible for modeling the type of world we want to live in. It’s our responsibility to live our values. Questioning the neoliberal status quo of psychopathic selfishness is a powerful and daily act of resistance, and it’s something we can all take part in. We can do this through supporting socially progressive legislation, by consuming and supporting alternative media, by living an environmentally responsible lifestyle, and by educating and inspiring others to do so as well, among other things.
“Personal responsibility” has become a conservative dog whistle for attacking social safety net programs like Medicaid and SNAP benefits, but it doesn’t have to be this way. We can reclaim the concept for ourselves. It will be worth it, I guarantee, because taking this type of personal responsibility is profoundly empowering, and it’s something each and every one of us can practice today.
