This is not another post on whether you should vaccinate your children, nor is it about the consequences of increasing numbers of unvaccinated children. At least, it isn’t about the consequences for children as children.

We are all familiar with the controversy and its history. Once upon a time, kids tended to get certain diseases when they were young, the so-called “childhood diseases.” Over the years, we developed vaccines for those diseases and made those vaccines available and, in fact, largely compulsory. The result was a decrease in the incidence of measles, polio, pertussis, mumps, and chickenpox, among others. Recently, some people have become concerned about the risks of the vaccines and are not vaccinating their children. The incidence of those diseases is increasing, but there are still many children who manage to avoid them even without being vaccinated.

What will those children choose to do once they are eighteen and in charge of their own medical decisions?

Measles, mumps, chickenpox, and polio tend to be more severe in adulthood. There’s a lot of focus right now on the risks of these diseases to children–the risks for the very young are particularly high–but not so much being said about the risks to adults. This is probably because most of today’s adults were vaccinated as kids.

Will the unvaccinated young adults reevaluate the risks and decide that it’s time to get vaccinated? After all, they have perhaps another sixty years in which to be exposed to the diseases. If they have unvaccinated kids of their own, exposure is even more likely. And if they manage to avoid the disease during their child-bearing years, then they will be susceptible to them when they become grandparents. I suspect getting measles in one’s sixties is even worse than getting it at age twenty.

To some extent, their reevaluation may depend on why their parents decided not to vaccinate them. If their parents’ main concern was the persistent rumor about vaccines and autism, or concerns about too many vaccines at once, maybe they will decide it’s time to get vaccinated. If their parents had other worries, then even warnings about the increased severity of the disease may not be persuasive.

It will be interesting (that’s one word for it) to see what happens. But there is one group that has an additional reason to consider getting vaccinated upon reaching adulthood. I hope that young women who plan to have children someday will take into account the added risks of getting certain diseases during pregnancy. In particular, I hope they will be open to vaccination for rubella (German measles) while they still have time.

Till next post.