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“THEY hang out in pockets,” says Richard Pan, a Sacramento paediatrician and member of California’s legislature. He is referring to parents who, invoking a “philosophical exemption”, opt not to give their children the state-recommended vaccinations. In some pockets, such as the rural foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada, they may belong to the conservative don’t-tread-on-me crowd that distrusts all government recommendations simply because they come from the government. In others, such as the liberal organic-food-and-yoga belt along the coast, parents may forswear vaccines because they see the shots as dangerous, and the diseases they protect against as mild.
“他們常出現(xiàn)在一些比較另類(lèi)的小地方。”說(shuō)這話(huà)的是理查德-潘，他是薩科拉門(mén)托的一名兒科醫(yī)生，也是加州立法機(jī)構(gòu)的成員。他說(shuō)的“他們”是那些援引“哲學(xué)豁免”規(guī)定，不給自己孩子注射州推薦疫苗的父母?jìng)儭Ｓ行┑胤剑热缂又輧?nèi)華達(dá)山脈丘陵地區(qū)的鄉(xiāng)村，那里可能有保守的、以“不要踩我”為信條的民眾，他們不相信所有政府推薦的東西，僅僅因?yàn)槟鞘钦扑]的。在其他地方，比如沿海的“有機(jī)食品和瑜加”地帶，這里的人們包容開(kāi)放，但父母可能也會(huì)不給孩子接種疫苗。他們認(rèn)為注射疫苗很危險(xiǎn)，只能預(yù)防一些頭疼腦熱的小病。
These local concentrations of unvaccinated children pose a growing risk to public health. For the most common shots, vaccination rates for America overall, and even California, are still above 90%, at or near the levels considered necessary to provide “herd immunity” for a population. But in places the rates have been falling for almost a decade. In many counties, towns and nursery schools--within Washington state, Oregon, Vermont and California, especially—vaccination rates are now far below the herd-immunity level.
未接種疫苗的孩子集中在一個(gè)地區(qū)給公共健康造成的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)越來(lái)越大。在美國(guó)，甚至加州，大多數(shù)普通疫苗的總體接種率仍高于90%，達(dá)到或接近公認(rèn)的“群體免疫”所要求的水平。但在有些地方，差不多有10年，接種率一直在下降。現(xiàn)在，許多縣、鎮(zhèn)以及托兒所（特別是華盛頓、俄勒岡、佛蒙特、加利福尼亞等州），接種率遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)低于群體免疫水平。
This trend, predictably, is leading to the resurgence of diseases considered vanquished long ago. In 2010, for example, California had an outbreak of whooping cough, which at its height put 455 babies in hospital and killed ten of them. Elsewhere there have been outbreaks of measles.
可以預(yù)見(jiàn)，任由這種情況發(fā)展下去，人們認(rèn)為早被征服了的一些疾病又會(huì)卷土重來(lái)。比如，2010年，加州百日咳爆發(fā)，最嚴(yán)重時(shí)，有455個(gè)孩子住進(jìn)醫(yī)院，10個(gè)孩子因此喪生。還有的地區(qū)爆發(fā)過(guò)麻疹。
The case for vaccination is clear. First, it makes the vaccinated individual either immune or resistant to a disease. Second, and more important, it interferes with contagion and thus makes the entire community safer, including those members, like newborn babies or the very sick, who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons. The vaccination rate for herd immunity varies by disease, but usually falls between 85% and 95%.
支持疫苗接種的理由比較清楚。首先，它使接種個(gè)體具有免疫力，增強(qiáng)抗病能力；第二，這一點(diǎn)也更重要，它阻止疾病傳播，使整個(gè)社區(qū)更加安全，其中包括那些回醫(yī)療原因不能接種的新生兒和重病者。不同的疾病對(duì)群體免疫接種率的要求不同，但通常應(yīng)在85%到95%之間。
The case against vaccination, by contrast, is not clear. One view seems to be that the diseases in question merely give you a rash and are a nuisance, whereas the vaccines will make your child autistic. That particular myth, still peddled on the internet, originated with Andrew Wakefield, a British doctor, who published a paper in 1998 that suggested a link between the common MMR shot (against measles, mumps and rubella) and autism. The paper has since been entirely discredited, and Dr Wakefield censured.
比較而言，反對(duì)疫苗接種的理由就沒(méi)那么清楚。一種觀點(diǎn)似乎是這樣的：疫苗所能預(yù)防的不過(guò)是些皮疹之類(lèi)的小毛病，而接種會(huì)使你的孩子變得孤僻。仍在網(wǎng)上流傳的這個(gè)荒誕說(shuō)法源自英國(guó)一位名叫安德魯•韋克菲爾德的醫(yī)生，1998年他在一篇文章中提出，常見(jiàn)的MMR接種（預(yù)防麻疹、腮腺炎和風(fēng)疹）和孤獨(dú)癥之間存在關(guān)聯(lián)。從那以后，人們就沒(méi)有相信過(guò)這篇文章的說(shuō)法，韋克菲爾德博士也受到了公開(kāi)譴責(zé)。
