By Dr. Lisa M. Costello
As a mother and lifelong West Virginian, I am blessed every single day to experience how much we love our children. As a pediatrician who cares for kids in West Virginia hospitals, I also have the honor of being with children and families during some of their most trying times, using everything in my power to help them recover and grow from illness and injury. Sometimes, the worst-case scenario cannot be stopped, even with the most advanced medicine. In the very worst of those cases, a young life can be lost. That is the most heartbreaking day of their families’ lives and a tragedy I carry in my heart forever.
From all of these perspectives, one thing cuts through everything clearly: We West Virginians love our children fiercely. I said it in an opinion piece last year sharing my concerns about changes to our school immunization policies, and I continue to feel deeply the same way today.
Unfortunately, the worst-case scenario just happened in West Texas when a child died of measles – the first death in the ongoing measles outbreak in Texas and New Mexico, and the first death of measles in the U.S. in a decade. This is one example of many reasons why I am deeply concerned about the consequences of changing West Virginia’s longstanding childcare and school immunization policy, such as what our legislators are currently considering with Senate Bill 460. This bill threatens to undo one of West Virginia’s greatest public health achievements: our strong and effective school immunization requirements, which save lives. As deadly and debilitating diseases reemerge across the country, now is not the time to weaken our safeguards – especially not for children and the communities who nurture them.
I implore you, my fellow West Virginians, my fellow parents, caregivers, and friends, to contact your legislators and encourage them to vote NO on SB460. Let all our elected officials know that we want to keep our childcare and school immunization policy the way it is: leading the nation in protecting our kids and communities.
As a result of our top-grade childcare and school immunization policies, our state has some of the best school-age immunization rates in the nation. Changes to our policy could unravel the lifesaving successes we have built to protect our state’s precious children and those around them. Our policy helps keep immunization rates high. Those high rates are what help limit the number of our children who are hospitalized, who experience lifelong disabilities, or who die as a result of diseases that could have been prevented through immunization. Lower rates of immunizations, even if they are lowered by just a little bit, can lead to avoidable disease outbreaks, school closures, and serious health consequences.
Our state allows for medical exemptions to the policy, such as for children who have an allergic reaction to a vaccine component. That type of exemption is important. However, adding non-medical exemptions will result in fewer children receiving the lifesaving protections of routine childhood immunizations, making not only themselves but those around them more likely to suffer preventable disease, hospitalization, and even death.
Sadly, we are seeing in Texas right now the beginnings of what lower immunization rates look like – and it only gets worse as rates decline over time for any reason, including policy changes. That is not sensationalist or fear-mongering; it’s simply the biological nature of infectious diseases. They infect and kill. We need to use the tools we have to disrupt their spread – and our strongest tool is by maintaining high rates of routine childhood immunizations.
As a mom of a toddler in pre-K, I relate to other parents, who are some of the busiest people out there rushing to make magic happen for our families. And as a pediatrician in West Virginia, I know that accessing healthcare is not as easy as we would ideally hope it to be. The overwhelming majority of parents in West Virginia intend to choose immunization for their children. School entry requirements are, for many, what prompts them to act on that intention. If it becomes an option to sign a paper for a non-medical exemption, when compared to scheduling and making it to an appointment to get immunizations, even the most well-intentioned parents may find themselves signing the paper. This, too, will contribute to diminishing immunization rates and weakened protection in our schools and communities.
Although I do not know the child who recently died in Texas of measles nor their family, my heart aches for them. My best hunch is that if they are anything like West Virginians, they were all doing the best they knew with what they believed. There is a lot of conflicting, compelling information out there about immunizations. As someone who has spent the majority of my career learning about and advising on immunizations, I can tell you that they are safe, effective, and save lives. And they work best to protect kids and communities when everyone who is eligible for routine childhood immunizations gets them.
It was inspiring last year to see how we parents, caregivers, health professionals, teachers, and neighbors made a real difference when we worked together to have our voices heard. Last year, House Bill 5105 would have diminished our nation-leading childcare and school immunization policy, but when our communities worked together to ask the governor to veto that bill, we gained one more year keeping our kids safe. Safe from preventable illness and death by maintaining high rates of school-age immunizations. With our policy again threatened this year, now is the time to speak up again. I will always fight to keep kids safe. It’s a personal mission and something I have built my career and life around. And I know I am not alone in loving our kids fiercely. Please join me in doing this work together.
Reach out to our legislators today and let them know to “VOTE NO” on SB460 or any bill that would add non-medical exemptions to our lifesaving childcare and school immunization policy. Even one child is too many to die from a disease that could have been prevented through immunization. Let’s learn from what’s happening in Texas and rise together to help prevent that kind of heartbreak as much as possible here in the Mountain State.
Dr. Lisa M. Costello is a pediatrician who cares for kids and families in West Virginia hospitals. She is past president of the West Virginia State Medical Association and the West Virginia Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, two of the state’s largest professional medical organizations. She and her husband live in West Virginia with their toddler.
