One in five pediatricians dismiss family after refusing child vaccination.
According to a new study published in Pediatrics magazine, pediatricians drop families who refuse vaccination. Statistics say that about 20 percent of pediatricians and family physicians are likely to drop families from their care if one or both parents refuse to vaccinate their child.
The same study also focused on the incidence of some of these cases. It seems that doctors from the South and Northwest are more likely to dismiss families. In order to establish some rigorous research parameters for this hypothesis, the author of the study among with his research team set up a survey.
The survey took into account over 800 pediatricians and family physicians and it starter in 2012. Upon sending the request to complete the survey, over 60 percent of the physicians participated.
Here are some of the numbers from the survey. All pediatricians and physicians stated that the cases where a parent would refuse vaccination for his child are very rare. Over a month’s course, circa 1 percent of the patients refuse the medication for their child. This fact was reported by approximately 83 percent of the doctors interviewed.
So, what is the doctor’s general reaction when a parent says that he vehemently refuses to vaccinate his child? Most pediatricians and family physicians have no reaction to this statement. But approximately 21 percent pediatricians and almost 4 percent of family physicians chose the other way around. When asked about the frequency of family dismissal, the specialists split into two groups. Some of them admitted that they do this very often, while the other lot said that they always use have this reaction.
When studying the cases in which pediatricians drop families who refuse vaccination, researchers even took into account the demographical area and the working area. According to numbers, it seems that doctors who dismiss families on a regular basis are most likely in private practice. Furthermore, it seems that these doctors are four times more likely to be from the conservative South.
Leaving the numbers behind, we should say a few words about vaccinations. Specialists warned families that refuse to vaccinate their children about the dangers that the little ones are exposed to. Apart from protecting them from a myriad of disease that are usually deadly in the first years of life, the vaccine’s prime role is to boost the response of the immune system.
Lately there have been a lot of cases of parents refusing vaccination because they believe that vaccines are the prime cause of autism. There are a lot of papers on the matter, each trying to establish if there is a link between immunization and autism. There is no conclusive evidence out there that vaccination leads to autism.
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