Measles cases are on the increase with 2011 being the worse year since 1966. With a recent quarantine in Utah, who pays for parents putting their children’s lives at risk? The American public does. But it’s nice to see that pediatricians are turning away families who don’t care for their own.
At the clinical practice level, some doctors are taking a preemptive approach. Physicians Chris Harrison and Tom Tryon of the University of Missouri in Kansas City presented data from a survey of more than 900 pediatricians in nine states showing that 21 percent stopped accepting appointments from families that refused to have their children vaccinated. In Minnesota that rate was only 1 percent, but in Iowa it was closer to 30 percent, Tryon says.