A Shot In The Arm Aggressive Immunization Program Lifts Idaho From Bottom Of National Rankings
In the eyes of the state of Idaho, Sierra Rynearson has some serious catching up to do.
The Rathdrum 4-year-old with long blond hair and glittery plastic sandals spent several tear-filled minutes last week at the Panhandle Health District, getting shots in both arms to help bring her up-to-date on her immunizations.
And she’ll have to come back next month to get a couple more.
“Last time, they yelled at us,” said Rynearson’s mom, Jennifer, who decided not to start giving Sierra shots until she was 2, because she worried about the vaccines’ side-effects. “That’s probably why it took so long to come back.”
Idaho, once on the bottom rung of immunization rates in the nation, is waging an all-out assault to meet its goal of immunizing 90 percent of 2-year-olds by 2000.
So far, the state is winning the battle.
Immunization rates for 2-year-olds have climbed from 61.2 percent in 1995 to 79 percent in 1998.
The Legislature just approved a voluntary statewide immunization registry to track what vaccines each child has received. Doctors are stepping up their efforts to make sure kids get their shots even if they visit the office for another reason.
And Regence BlueShield of Idaho, the state’s largest health insurer, announced this week it would provide free immunizations to nearly all of its 330,000 members. Blue Cross of Idaho has made the same promise, which means more than half the state’s population is fully covered for immunizations, said Jim Hawkins, the governor’s newly appointed immunization czar.
“No one thing is going to move us up,” said Hawkins, a former state commerce director and Coeur d’Alene businessman. “It’s a combination of all of these things.”
But winning Idaho’s immunization war is more complex.
“We as a medical community can do absolutely everything we can to promote immunizations,” said Coeur d’Alene pediatrician Dr. Terence Neff, who serves on an immunization committee for the Panhandle Health District. “However, it still relies upon the parents to bring their children in for immunizations.”
In the last decade, the recommended schedule of immunizations has gone from a simple grid to a confusing crossword puzzle of seven vaccines, many of which must be administered in several separate doses. Scientists in recent years have cooked up new vaccines for chicken pox and rotavirus, which causes potentially dangerous diarrhea. And a federal health panel voted recently to add hepatitis A to the list in states with high infection rates, including Idaho and Washington.
Because of the nation’s success with vaccinations, there aren’t many people around with polio or the measles to serve as a living reminder for immunization.
“Unfortunately, our society has forgotten about these epidemics,” said the legislature’s only physician, Sen. Jack Riggs, R-Coeur d’Alene, who sponsored the bill to create the immunization registry.
The Panhandle got a vivid reminder of the importance of immunizations in spring 1997, when a pertussis outbreak sickened about 90 residents and killed an infant. But a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study later found that 80 percent of those victims were fully immunized.
Although immunization rates are improving, Idaho health officials will never win over some parents. A small but vocal group refuse to immunize their children for religious or personal reasons.
Christian Science, for example, teaches that immunity from disease lies in understanding and trusting God’s laws. Other people distrust vaccines and believe that with breast-feeding, good nutrition and natural foods healthy kids can be raised without shots.
Statewide, 1.5 percent of parents have filed exemptions to allow their children to enter school without vaccinations. In Bonner County, 3.9 percent of children are exempt from immunizations - the highest in North Idaho and second-highest in the state, according to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.
A couple of dozen North Idaho parents formed Vaccination Liberation last year, a group dedicated to educating people about the dangers of shots and how to protect their right to abstain from them.
Judy Reeves, the group’s secretary, said she has no plans to immunize her 10-month-old son, Runner.
“I’m very leery of things not naturally occurring,” said Reeves, who lives in Bonners Ferry. “It’s not the actual disease I worry about. What scares me more is the people who don’t understand that way of thinking, that when my child becomes sick I’m going to have to deal with them, … (they’ll think) I’m a bad parent.”
Reeves worries that the state’s immunization registry will be just one more way to coerce parents into vaccinating their kids by singling out those that haven’t had their shots.
“It’s pretty slick. It’s really sly,” she said. “It’s going to come to a big fester. I don’t like it at all. There’s not a lot of people that aren’t vaccinated.”
Doctors say side-effects from shots are rare, while the potential harm from catching a disease is great.
Hawkins, who is charged with creating the registry, said there is plenty of room in the state’s 90 percent immunization goal to allow for a small group of parents to opt out.
“You stop the spread of a disease at 90 percent, at 95 percent you eradicate a disease,” Hawkins said. “This is all voluntary. This is not mandatory.”
He met with software providers this week and hopes to have the registry set up by the end of the year to show legislators during the next session.
Creating the registry will be just one step in battling Idaho’s immunization problems, said Phyllis Albee, immunization coordinator for the Panhandle Health District.
“Nothing that is going to last happens overnight,” Albee said. “New babies are born every day, and it isn’t something where you can just get up to 90 percent and say, `We’re there now. We can quit.”’
This sidebar appeared with the story: NUMBERS Bonner County lags Percentage of parents filing exemptions from immunizations: Statewide 1.5 percent Bonner County* 3.9 percent *Second highest in state