An outbreak of measles in the city of Granada has re-opened the debate over whether vaccinations should be optional or obligatory, where children are concerned.

On the 13th of October the first case of measles was detected in the state junior school, Gómez Moreno in the Albaicín quarter of the city.

By the 11th of November the regional health authorities were threatening to request the intervention of the judicial authorities to force anti-vaccination parents to permit the inoculation of their children, when the number of the infected pupils reached 23.

They carried out their threat on the 19th, as the total had reached 36, twelve of whom needed hospital treatment. On the 26th with a total of 46 infected, the judge ordered all children in the quarter to be vaccinated.

Whose Decision Is It?
There have been two antecedents to this affair; one last year that took place in Órgiva where several children went down with measles from amongst those that had not been vaccinated, owing to the parents’ reluctance to conform to ‘The System.’

And, of course, there was the British Rebellion over the controversial triple jab (Measles, Mumps and German Measles), which was sparked by an article in the Lancet medical publication in 1998, which linked the triple vaccination with autism. Despite widespread criticism of the article from within the medical world because of its lack of investigative discipline, as well as an alleged collusion between the author and a firm of lawyers, whose clients had produced an alternative vaccine, many parents in London refused to allow their children to be vaccinated.

The result was that many unvaccinated children fell sick with the measles and some even died from the illness. Finally, a couple of months ago Lancet withdrew the article from their web page after the author admitted lying.

Perhaps the basic mentality behind the reticence from both the parents in Granada and the ones in London twelve years ago was and is: I won’t risk vaccinating my children because the rest will and mine will be safe from infection. This, of course, besides being incredibly selfish, is highly dangerous because with the immigration fluctuations, more and more ‘hitherto absent’ illnesses are reappearing
Although here in Spain Measles vaccinations made their first appearance in 1978, the concept of inoculating healthy individuals to activate their immune response mechanisms has been around for nearly 200 years. Back in 1978, there were 520 cases for every 1,000 inhabitants, but by 2002 the ratio had fallen to 0.2 cases per 1,000.

But it is not only mistrust of medicines that cause parents to refuse treatment for their offspring; religious attitudes also play their part, especially in the case of Jehovah Witnesses regarding blood transfers during childbirth.

There was a case, according to Minors’ Judge Calatayud, where a husband flatly refused the option of a blood transfusion, should his wife’s childbirth require it. He couldn’t order the doctors to carry out a blood transfer; he merely gave the doctors legal authorisation should they need to administer blood during the process. As for the parents, he made the condition that they should sign themselves out of the hospital if they did not accept this condition, and for the woman to give birth under a bridge, if they preferred. The couple signed and the childbirth went through without the need of a blood transfusion.

The fact is that parents should have full tutorial responsibility over their offspring and that they have the right to adhere to their conscience and beliefs. However, an individual’s rights stop where another individual’s begins; i.e., where contagious infections are concerned, your right to refuse inoculation is overridden by the collective right of society to protect itself.

As for the parents in Granada, now that a judge has taken a hand in the affair, the parents of the 35 unvaccinated children in the Albaicín are beginning to approach their GP’s for information on the vaccine – a first step to letting their children be inoculated. In the meantime, the regional health authorities have announced that babies as young as 6-months old will now be included – previously, the minimum was 15 months.