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Calling the Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines
Winner, 2018 Donald W. Light Award for Applied Medical Sociology, American Sociological Association Medical Sociology Section
Winner, 2018 Distinguished Scholarship Award presented by the Pacific Sociology Association
Honorable Mention, 2017 ESS Mirra Komarovsky Book Award presented by the Eastern Sociological Society
Outstanding Book Award for the Section on Altruism, Morality, and Social Solidarity presented by the American Sociological Association
A rich, multi-faceted examination into the attitudes and beliefs of parents who choose not to immunize their children
The measles outbreak at Disneyland in December 2014 spread to a half-dozen U.S. states and sickened 147 people. It is just one recent incident that the medical community blames on the nation’s falling vaccination rates. Still, many parents continue to claim that the risks that vaccines pose to their children are far greater than their benefits. Given the research and the unanimity of opinion within the medical community, many ask how such parents―who are most likely to be white, college educated, and with a family income over $75,000―could hold such beliefs.
For over a decade, Jennifer Reich has been studying the phenomenon of vaccine refusal from the perspectives of parents who distrust vaccines and the corporations that make them, as well as the health care providers and policy makers who see them as essential to ensuring community health. Reich reveals how parents who opt out of vaccinations see their what they fear, what they hope to control, and what they believe is in their child’s best interest. Based on interviews with parents who fully reject vaccines as well as those who believe in “slow vax,” or altering the number of and time between vaccinations, the author provides a fascinating account of these parents’ points of view.
Placing these stories in dialogue with those of pediatricians who see the devastation that can be caused by vaccine-preventable diseases and the policy makers who aim to create healthy communities, Calling the Shots offers a unique opportunity to understand the points of disagreement on what is best for children, communities, and public health, and the ways in which we can bridge these differences.
Winner, 2018 Distinguished Scholarship Award presented by the Pacific Sociology Association
Honorable Mention, 2017 ESS Mirra Komarovsky Book Award presented by the Eastern Sociological Society
Outstanding Book Award for the Section on Altruism, Morality, and Social Solidarity presented by the American Sociological Association
A rich, multi-faceted examination into the attitudes and beliefs of parents who choose not to immunize their children
The measles outbreak at Disneyland in December 2014 spread to a half-dozen U.S. states and sickened 147 people. It is just one recent incident that the medical community blames on the nation’s falling vaccination rates. Still, many parents continue to claim that the risks that vaccines pose to their children are far greater than their benefits. Given the research and the unanimity of opinion within the medical community, many ask how such parents―who are most likely to be white, college educated, and with a family income over $75,000―could hold such beliefs.
For over a decade, Jennifer Reich has been studying the phenomenon of vaccine refusal from the perspectives of parents who distrust vaccines and the corporations that make them, as well as the health care providers and policy makers who see them as essential to ensuring community health. Reich reveals how parents who opt out of vaccinations see their what they fear, what they hope to control, and what they believe is in their child’s best interest. Based on interviews with parents who fully reject vaccines as well as those who believe in “slow vax,” or altering the number of and time between vaccinations, the author provides a fascinating account of these parents’ points of view.
Placing these stories in dialogue with those of pediatricians who see the devastation that can be caused by vaccine-preventable diseases and the policy makers who aim to create healthy communities, Calling the Shots offers a unique opportunity to understand the points of disagreement on what is best for children, communities, and public health, and the ways in which we can bridge these differences.
336 pages, Hardcover
Published June 21, 2016
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February 9, 2016
I received a copy of Calling the Shots from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Disclaimer: I do not have children. Everything I am about to say is 100% true. All of this is relevant to my review.
I was born in 1985 to a healthy father and a mother that had TB when she was a child. In 1985, genome sequencing and DNA research was in it's infancy and very unknown, although some labs around the world were making strides. My mother and I both died when I was born. She had a phenomenal medical team and 30 years later, we are both still here because they managed to get us both breathing again. It took my parents from 1979-1985 to have a child, and I am an only child. They could never get pregnant again after me.
What none of us knew is that my mom carried a genetic disorder so rare that only she had it - until I was born. In the past 30 years, we have been through doctors worldwide and no one has been found to carry this particular genetic issue that we have. It is a two-of-a-kind mutation, not linked to my mother's TB. I am also a latent carrier of TB. I shouldn't be, but because I am, my medication list is severely limited. TB will only manifest in myself and my mom if we're exposed to it or take medication that can activate it.
I had all of the usual vaccinations. When I was two years old, I started getting severely sick, and went through more medical testing, medications, clinical trials and pain than I can write about here. No one could figure out and it took many years before it was traced to a mutation that can't be treated because no one knows what it really is and they only subjects they have to go on are two related people. A mother-daughter situation complicates it further.
Today, I take medication to stay alive. If I stop, I quickly deteriorate, as does my mom. We found this out the hard way. We have no choice but to take chemotherapy and organ transplant medication (they do a lot more than just cancer fighting and organ help) and a high dose of steroids. Believe me, this is better than the alternative. Because of these medications, I am alive and look mostly like a healthy human being and can have a quality of life that was never thought possible for someone like me. We both hide it very, very well, and that took years of practice.
We rely on herd immunity for preventable diseases. We can't get any vaccines now, not even flu shots. We spend winters inside, only leaving to see doctors or do what is necessary. We do everything possible to help ourselves and our lifestyle is quite different from everyone else. I am lucky to be married to the most understanding and supportive man in the world (aside of my dad) and due to mine and my mom's health, my husband and I live above my parents. We all rely on each other to make it.
I've read and researched this vaccine thing to death. I wanted to know where parents stood on all sides of this, and as Calling the Shots shows, there are more than two sides to this story. What absolutely made me sick was reading the parents saying they shouldn't have to vaccinate their kids to help society - and I've read where parents cite this as their one and only reason.
I understand the toxicity questions very, very deeply, because I've been there and am there still with my medications. As a parent, you want to protect your child and give them the best life possible. I watched my parents fight for my life. I heard my mom cry when she thought I couldn't hear her. I saw my dad back doctors into corners when they wanted to do harmful things to me. When I was 16 years old, I had a staph infection going up my left leg to my heart so fast that I had less than a week to live. They wanted to move me to an antibiotic tent. What does that mean? Well, parents, you watch your child through glass. You are not allowed to be in there with them because your exposure could kill them. With a lot of these preventable diseases, that's how treatment goes if you get sick. I had been in them before that day, and I did something no one else would have done. I looked into my dad's eyes, grabbed his hand, and said, "If I'm going to die, I'm doing it at home. Come on, Daddy. Let's go." We walked out of that hospital. Why did I do something so ridiculous? Because I knew that being in that tent would have killed me and I had better chances at home. I was right, and thanks to my mom's fast phone calls, I had a doctor the next day that did treat me at home. Today, no doctor in their right mind would stick me in a tent - but they would if you come down with one of these preventable diseases. (note: I do not condone walking out of a hospital like I did for any reason at all. I do not recommend it. This is just a part of my review, not advice, so please do not take it that way).
There is nothing I can do, besides take medication, to stay alive. Relying on society at the level that I do is something people rarely experience. Nothing wrong with me is due to vaccinations, that was ruled out several times after a lot of testing over the years before we knew it was genetic.
I have very little memory of my life growing up. Today, as a 30 year old married woman, my father and my husband both escort me to doctor appointments. My dad, due to my memory and all the questions and plans, and my husband because it's been 30 years of this and it gets tiring.
What I didn't understand, but do better now, is after watching my parents fight like hell for my life, any parent would willingly reject vaccines to prevent these diseases. I can't even tell you what it's like to hear those things - your parents crying, praying, begging for anything to help their little girl. I do remember that very clearly. Parents, that could be you. Trust me, you don't want that to be you. If something should happen, you will be relying solely on those doctors you don't like to save your child's life. Your child CAN hear you, I promise.
If you study epidemiology, you will see that these diseases still exist in our world. The United States is safe, yes, but we are not immune to disease appearing again. Calling the Shots shows this as well. There is the history of several diseases, epidemics and pandemics included in this book. The history of vaccines is laid out clearly, from all angles.
Ms. Reich states where she stands on the issue, but she does present knowledge and opinions from people from all walks of life. There is repetition here, but I believe it's to drive certain points home.
This reads like a medical publication, which is needed in this aspect. The internet is not the best source for information on vaccines and very few sites actually present all facts. No worries with Calling the Shots on this. Because of my health, I've made a point to educate and certify myself in many medical areas, including epidemiology and disease prevention. The facts are here, in this book, and they are not blow out of proportion or glazed over.
If you are someone like me, who relies on herd immunity or you love someone who does, this is a very, very hard book to read. You're going to get angry, upset and sad. I cried a lot and suspect you will too. I gained understanding for parents' positions (and there are a lot). Online, all you tend to see is a lot of fighting back and forth over the vaccine issue, and that makes it hard to really weed out where people are coming from. If you want to understand it without all of the bickering, Calling the Shots is the perfect book for that.
I honestly fear for the day that a parent finds out a child has a hidden disorder and is no longer qualified for vaccinations that they never got, and now they rely on herd immunity with nothing in their systems protecting them. Mine was hidden until the year 2000 - fifteen years. Medical science has come a long way since then, but there is a lot to be discovered yet. If there is someone out there that is not vaccinated and then something comes up, their life will be more reclusive than mine is, because I did have vaccinations. Remember, mine is genetic, not preventable by any means aside of me not being born and me not passing it on. I told you the extremely short version of my story so you understand what it's like for someone to rely on every single person out there. I would not wish this on anyone, ever. Please, read this book and consider everything before you make this decision for your children.
If you are looking to educate yourself, Calling the Shots is a great place to start. It is a wealth of information and should be read by everyone. There is a lot included in this book beyond the rejection of vaccines, and it's presented in a way that the reader can gather facts from all sides. I suggest that when you're done reading, you do your own thinking on this issue before charging to the web browser or calling everyone you know for their opinions. All that does is cloud your thinking, and this is one issue you really need clear thinking for. Calling the Shots will help with that with the presentation throughout the book.
The choice to vaccinate or not is up to the parents, and with Calling the Shots, you will be helped to make an informed decision, regardless of which side you are on. I highly recommend this to everyone - parent or not.
Disclaimer: I do not have children. Everything I am about to say is 100% true. All of this is relevant to my review.
I was born in 1985 to a healthy father and a mother that had TB when she was a child. In 1985, genome sequencing and DNA research was in it's infancy and very unknown, although some labs around the world were making strides. My mother and I both died when I was born. She had a phenomenal medical team and 30 years later, we are both still here because they managed to get us both breathing again. It took my parents from 1979-1985 to have a child, and I am an only child. They could never get pregnant again after me.
What none of us knew is that my mom carried a genetic disorder so rare that only she had it - until I was born. In the past 30 years, we have been through doctors worldwide and no one has been found to carry this particular genetic issue that we have. It is a two-of-a-kind mutation, not linked to my mother's TB. I am also a latent carrier of TB. I shouldn't be, but because I am, my medication list is severely limited. TB will only manifest in myself and my mom if we're exposed to it or take medication that can activate it.
I had all of the usual vaccinations. When I was two years old, I started getting severely sick, and went through more medical testing, medications, clinical trials and pain than I can write about here. No one could figure out and it took many years before it was traced to a mutation that can't be treated because no one knows what it really is and they only subjects they have to go on are two related people. A mother-daughter situation complicates it further.
Today, I take medication to stay alive. If I stop, I quickly deteriorate, as does my mom. We found this out the hard way. We have no choice but to take chemotherapy and organ transplant medication (they do a lot more than just cancer fighting and organ help) and a high dose of steroids. Believe me, this is better than the alternative. Because of these medications, I am alive and look mostly like a healthy human being and can have a quality of life that was never thought possible for someone like me. We both hide it very, very well, and that took years of practice.
We rely on herd immunity for preventable diseases. We can't get any vaccines now, not even flu shots. We spend winters inside, only leaving to see doctors or do what is necessary. We do everything possible to help ourselves and our lifestyle is quite different from everyone else. I am lucky to be married to the most understanding and supportive man in the world (aside of my dad) and due to mine and my mom's health, my husband and I live above my parents. We all rely on each other to make it.
I've read and researched this vaccine thing to death. I wanted to know where parents stood on all sides of this, and as Calling the Shots shows, there are more than two sides to this story. What absolutely made me sick was reading the parents saying they shouldn't have to vaccinate their kids to help society - and I've read where parents cite this as their one and only reason.
I understand the toxicity questions very, very deeply, because I've been there and am there still with my medications. As a parent, you want to protect your child and give them the best life possible. I watched my parents fight for my life. I heard my mom cry when she thought I couldn't hear her. I saw my dad back doctors into corners when they wanted to do harmful things to me. When I was 16 years old, I had a staph infection going up my left leg to my heart so fast that I had less than a week to live. They wanted to move me to an antibiotic tent. What does that mean? Well, parents, you watch your child through glass. You are not allowed to be in there with them because your exposure could kill them. With a lot of these preventable diseases, that's how treatment goes if you get sick. I had been in them before that day, and I did something no one else would have done. I looked into my dad's eyes, grabbed his hand, and said, "If I'm going to die, I'm doing it at home. Come on, Daddy. Let's go." We walked out of that hospital. Why did I do something so ridiculous? Because I knew that being in that tent would have killed me and I had better chances at home. I was right, and thanks to my mom's fast phone calls, I had a doctor the next day that did treat me at home. Today, no doctor in their right mind would stick me in a tent - but they would if you come down with one of these preventable diseases. (note: I do not condone walking out of a hospital like I did for any reason at all. I do not recommend it. This is just a part of my review, not advice, so please do not take it that way).
There is nothing I can do, besides take medication, to stay alive. Relying on society at the level that I do is something people rarely experience. Nothing wrong with me is due to vaccinations, that was ruled out several times after a lot of testing over the years before we knew it was genetic.
I have very little memory of my life growing up. Today, as a 30 year old married woman, my father and my husband both escort me to doctor appointments. My dad, due to my memory and all the questions and plans, and my husband because it's been 30 years of this and it gets tiring.
What I didn't understand, but do better now, is after watching my parents fight like hell for my life, any parent would willingly reject vaccines to prevent these diseases. I can't even tell you what it's like to hear those things - your parents crying, praying, begging for anything to help their little girl. I do remember that very clearly. Parents, that could be you. Trust me, you don't want that to be you. If something should happen, you will be relying solely on those doctors you don't like to save your child's life. Your child CAN hear you, I promise.
If you study epidemiology, you will see that these diseases still exist in our world. The United States is safe, yes, but we are not immune to disease appearing again. Calling the Shots shows this as well. There is the history of several diseases, epidemics and pandemics included in this book. The history of vaccines is laid out clearly, from all angles.
Ms. Reich states where she stands on the issue, but she does present knowledge and opinions from people from all walks of life. There is repetition here, but I believe it's to drive certain points home.
This reads like a medical publication, which is needed in this aspect. The internet is not the best source for information on vaccines and very few sites actually present all facts. No worries with Calling the Shots on this. Because of my health, I've made a point to educate and certify myself in many medical areas, including epidemiology and disease prevention. The facts are here, in this book, and they are not blow out of proportion or glazed over.
If you are someone like me, who relies on herd immunity or you love someone who does, this is a very, very hard book to read. You're going to get angry, upset and sad. I cried a lot and suspect you will too. I gained understanding for parents' positions (and there are a lot). Online, all you tend to see is a lot of fighting back and forth over the vaccine issue, and that makes it hard to really weed out where people are coming from. If you want to understand it without all of the bickering, Calling the Shots is the perfect book for that.
I honestly fear for the day that a parent finds out a child has a hidden disorder and is no longer qualified for vaccinations that they never got, and now they rely on herd immunity with nothing in their systems protecting them. Mine was hidden until the year 2000 - fifteen years. Medical science has come a long way since then, but there is a lot to be discovered yet. If there is someone out there that is not vaccinated and then something comes up, their life will be more reclusive than mine is, because I did have vaccinations. Remember, mine is genetic, not preventable by any means aside of me not being born and me not passing it on. I told you the extremely short version of my story so you understand what it's like for someone to rely on every single person out there. I would not wish this on anyone, ever. Please, read this book and consider everything before you make this decision for your children.
If you are looking to educate yourself, Calling the Shots is a great place to start. It is a wealth of information and should be read by everyone. There is a lot included in this book beyond the rejection of vaccines, and it's presented in a way that the reader can gather facts from all sides. I suggest that when you're done reading, you do your own thinking on this issue before charging to the web browser or calling everyone you know for their opinions. All that does is cloud your thinking, and this is one issue you really need clear thinking for. Calling the Shots will help with that with the presentation throughout the book.
The choice to vaccinate or not is up to the parents, and with Calling the Shots, you will be helped to make an informed decision, regardless of which side you are on. I highly recommend this to everyone - parent or not.
January 8, 2019
Slanted and biased...lacks full disclosure of the truth.
January 15, 2018
Shut Up and Take Your Shots
Calling the Shots is Reich's attempt at a non-judgmental, researched, impartial, and well-rounded book chronicling the why behind American parents’ voluntary vaccine refusal. Reich maintains that public health is at stake due to anti-vaccination sentiment however we shouldn’t alienate this group. Instead, we should attempt to listen patiently to their concerns while working to change their minds.
The book pits those parents who often blindly follow the CDC’s recommended full childhood vaccination schedule (the author herself is included in this group) against vaccine dissenters (partially, in full, or those who opt for their own schedule). Parents who question vaccines are presented as those in higher income brackets with higher levels of education but who subscribe to individualistic type parenting, putting their child’s welfare above the good of community and public health. The slant is very much towards these parents being selfish and looking out only for their own while virtuous doctors and medical experts see with the wider lens of what's best for humanity. Reich believes that vaccine dissenters are threatening the health and welfare of the public.
Her representative sample is not all-inclusive. She chose well-off predominantly white parents, mostly college educated with means to resources that their more economically counterparts would not have access to. All parents interviewed were from her home state of Colorado and confined to a small geographic area, the same area where she herself lives. Although speculation, this may point to a lazy attitude overall in including a more representative sample and may point to a lack of taking the necessary steps to finding more comprehensive research on vaccine history, safety, and efficacy.
She did make herself a presence on online blogs, groups, and chats but only as an observer. She also “sought out the places where vaccines are discussed by “elites” in the name of her research. I cannot help but wonder if her time spent with Paul Offit types clouded her ability to do adequate research into the subject based on actual evidence instead of on unsubstantiated sound bites. She mentions time and again that it is the child with less access to healthcare that we should all be looking out for. This is what the entire childhood vaccination schedule is predicated on. She also is a big believer in herd immunity, a myth that not only has never been proven but was never even intended to be used in conjunction with vaccination. Also, not all vaccines are designed with the theory of herd immunity, some are meant to only protect the individual alone. The concept of herd immunity blows up when you consider that the percentage of vaccine uptake for the population ranges from 85-95% (those numbers are inexact and strangely prone to changing to meet industry needs). Consider the waning immunity of any vaccine (they aren’t effective forever and that’s even if they work at all) and taking into consideration any adult and when they received their last vaccine for whatever disease we are talking about and you will see how incredibly shortsighted the notion of herd immunity is in relation to vaccination.
Reich is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado Denver, a pro-vaccine institution that has an extensive vaccine education community outreach program. She openly admits that she was paid by her employer for writing this book. She also mentions that her husband is a pediatrician who has seen firsthand children admitted to the hospital for vaccine preventable diseases and describes his frustration over those who choose not to vaccinate. No mention is made of how many kids in his practice have been vaccine injured. She denies that there is any proven correlation between vaccines and vaccine related injury and death.
Reich’s lens is colored by the patriarchal medical system and it’s relatively easy to see why when you look at her history. Reich and her husband have fully vaccinated their three children according to schedule. She believes that the information and statistics put forth by the CDC, the IOM, and the NIH are the most credible. She also states that she believes the validity of these sources over other independent studies. It is unclear whether or not she has looked at any independent studies. It appears that the buck stops with her husband who went to medical school and is lauded by many as being the premiere expert on childhood vaccination. Why would Reich bother looking elsewhere? I find this telling. Also, Reich’s husband is the father of her children and therefore would have their best interests at heart so if he believes vaccines offer their best shot at protection from disease then why would Reich ever think negatively about them? I do wonder what she would think about the latest research concerning the Mawson vaccinated vs. the unvaccinated study or vaccine ingredients such as aluminum adjuvants by Exely and Girardi? What does she think about the latest Fluad trials which compared this new flu vaccine against another untested flu vaccine? Is this method of conducting research OK with her? I also wonder how Reich feels about her book and the way she wrote it today in 2018, when much has changed since she ended her research in 2014.
Yes, Reich is biased and her bias shows up throughout the entire book. I actually believe that a non-biased stance is overrated and is also impossible to achieve. I was biased when reading the book. With the exception of the most rigorous scientific method, this being the randomized double blind placebo control study, bias seeps into most other scientific inquiry. I still believe what I believe, therefore I do not believe this book or others like it will ever succeed in moving the conversation forward in a way that yields any positive result for anyone.
I do believe that Reich tried to be thoughtful throughout the process of interviewing those parents who chose for various reasons not to follow the CDC schedule. She also interviewed several medical professionals and even compared several pediatric practices to show how they deal with those who do not want to vaccinate or want to delay. She tried unsuccessfully to illustrate why all parents should care enough about community health to roll up the sleeves of their child and “take one for the team”. Honestly, would you sacrifice your child in the name of other children if you knew for certain that the vaccine your child would receive would cause severe injury or death? Please find me one single parent who would agree to that. It is a ridiculous notion. She alludes to the idea that parents are expected to sacrifice their own children for the good of all but if that child should become injured or killed by a vaccine, that parent is strictly on their own so why should this ever be factor in parental decision-making? She states that she understands this however the expectation is still there.
The most obvious issues I have with this book is that much of Reich’s vaccine belief system has never been proven so what she says sits on a shaky-at-best foundation. Vaccine safety has not been done and individual vaccine efficacy is downright laughable in the context of belief that vaccines work. Vaccine injury is grossly underreported with VAERS capturing only between 1-10% of all vaccine injuries due to its being a voluntary, non-mandated reporting system. Injury doesn’t seem all that rare in light of this, does it? Yet, Reich states that parents are “dramatically” overstating the risk of vaccines. It seems ludicrous to expect any parent to put their child upon a sacrificial alter when those very institutions that she holds in such high regard flat out refuse to do the studies that parents like the ones she interviewed have been begging for. She makes no mention of the lies, collusion, and the outright cover-ups of the CDC like in the MMR-Thompson study. She describes the conflict of interest and revolving door policies of industry and government as something that has always been present and is just the price of doing business. I found her attitude on a number of topics to be disturbing and lacking in humanity. She seems to have no problem outing parents who practice individualistic parenting as irresponsible, selfish, and undeserving of public services like attending public school or playing in parks. If that is the case then I should be able to police any parent’s choices regarding nutrition and other lifestyle practices. Don’t you dare send your kid to school after feeding him Oreos and Doritos because his lowered immunity from poor nutrition makes him a threat to my child? Perhaps feeding your child crap food makes you an irresponsible, selfish, and bad parent who is undeserving of public resources. Have we gone too far here folks?
Pediatricians are put forth in the book as experts on vaccines and parents, irrespective of the amount of reading they have done on the subject can never know enough compared to their doctors. The physicians put forth in the book view themselves, not parents, as the experts. What is the contextual definition of “expert” here? They are also cited as experts due to their clinical experience except for Dr. Bob Sears who was lambasted for having designed a customized schedule for certain children in his practice based on nothing more than wishful thinking and financial gain. Apparently, his clinical experience is unscientific and does not count. Though the current CDC schedule has never been tested for efficacy and safety, those pediatricians proposing an alternate vaccine schedule such as Dr. Sears are, according to this book, unscientific, unfounded, and downright dangerous. The reasons for Dr. Sears being singled out becomes clearly apparent after reading the book.
It is my understanding that pediatricians get virtually no vaccine education in medical school other than being told that they are safe and effective, and given the ACIP/CDC recommended schedule and told to sell parents on vaccine along with how to convince the unconvinced. Dr. Dan Neides the former head of the Cleveland Clinic’s Wellness Center in Ohio recently reiterated this once again. I have heard this from doctor after doctor, nurse after nurse. Reich is married to a pediatrician, how does she not know this? She also stated that financial incentives for doctors to push vaccines is a myth. The book states that no doctor receives a financial incentive on a fully vaccinated child in their practice. It is my understanding that this is no myth, doctors are financially incentivized and there are a growing number of pediatricians openly admitting this. There is also no mention in the book of pediatricians kicking parents out of their practice for refusal to vaccinate or fully vaccinate. Perhaps this is because the doctors interviewed for the book were all not guilty of this but it could also be because these doctors were not forthcoming in how they run their practices. All of the pediatricians interviewed in the book were said to have only their patients’ best interest at heart. This seems disingenuous. Reich quotes one physician who said that vaccines don’t affect the body in the same way drugs do, meaning that there are no negative side effects and that we are thinking about them all wrong. It was a true WTF moment for this reviewer. I guess those toxins and proteins just slide right on out and never bio accumulate. I suppose the side effects listed on the package inserts are simply made up. BTW, Reich doesn’t mention those inserts, not even once. Parents are forced to do their own investigation into the safety and efficacy of vaccines when their doctors are woefully ignorant of true vaccine education and tend to not keep abreast of the research in their field.
Stories of the unvaccinated spreading disease in doctor waiting rooms (pertussis spread by unvaccinated children in doctor’s waiting room pg. 188) are offered with no stories of the vaccinated shedding and spreading disease to the general population to counterbalance her claims. The CDC acknowledges that the unvaccinated are NOT the primary cause of recently reported pertussis outbreaks. That leaves the vaccinated on the chopping block. Reich’s stories serve, in my opinion, to spread the exact same fear that Dr. Sears is being accused of spreading by offering parents an alternate schedule and informing them of vaccine risks. There is no mention of the failed efficacy of the pertussis vaccine and how those who get it still carry and spread infection and are far more dangerous to the general population because they spread the disease while they remain asymptomatic (vaccinated grandparents who don’t know they are sick exposed to that vulnerable new born is a recipe for disaster). We can thank the vaccine for that. Nowhere is Reich’s book does this come up and I want to know why.
Her rationale for the dramatically increased rate of autism is absurd and completely false. She cites better diagnosis (yes, she goes there). She should read Mark Blaxill and Dan Olmstead’s book: Denial. Reich doesn’t believe that vaccines cause the serious illnesses that parents report because, again, those institutions that she holds dear say that they don’t and that’s good enough for her. She mentions several hospitalizations due to vaccine preventable diseases such as Rotavirus and Polio but there is absolutely no proof that her examples weren’t caused by the vaccines themselves. She makes no mention of viral shedding from the live virus vaccines while pointing the finger at the unvaccinated child as a living vector of disease spreading. The one-sided and erroneous nature of her statements can make a reader nuts. She whitewashes the danger of vaccines and overstates their usefulness. You might think of her as an institution educated zombie. I can’t disagree. She did not delve into true vaccine history and she relies heavily on pro-vaccine sound bites. I will not even go into what she has to say about Dr. Andrew Wakefield because you have most likely heard it all before (yawn). Yes, she gets his history wrong too.
I’ll admit this book is hard to read if you are of the opinion that choice must be left up to the individual without coercion and with full informed consent. However, in order to fully understand this broad issue and all the opinions that surround it, it is important to read books on all sides of the issues to understand what is circulating amongst the public and how opinions are formed, even if they do spread false information. No long term safety and efficacy studies has ever been done on any vaccine or in any combination given in the CDC/ACIP childhood schedule and that serious injury and death can occur from any vaccine at any age. Vaccines are essentially fast tracked without going through necessary gold standard testing which is the randomized double blind placebo control study. You cannot sue a vaccine manufacturer if injury or death occurs to your child as a result of a vaccination. You must sue the government and the burden of proof in on you. Good luck trying to tease out which vaccine caused what when so many combinations are given at once. Some believe this is by design to father shield the manufacturers from blame. If you are a newbie looking for real, unbiased vaccine information with no conflict of interest, please look elsewhere before reading this book, nvic.org is a great place to start.
Reich wrote this book because she felt it important to try to bridge the gap between those who willingly choose not to vaccinate so that vaccine influencers may learn the best way to approach them with the ultimate goal of changing their minds. She states: “we can improve our thinking about vaccine choice, and ultimately public health.” This leaves one with the sense that they are being condescended to and handled. What is this “improvement” she speaks of? It sounds like the end goal is getting more parents to fully vaccinate their children without question or concern. Would she or any of the pro-vaccine people she interviewed be willing to delve into vaccine research and history in order to have their minds changed? This brings me to how upsetting her laisse faire attitude is concerning her certainty that vaccines are safe, effective, and necessary for the overall health and well-being of the population. Science does not support this position. Reich actually believes that medicine in the context of vaccination should not be customized but rather one size fits all. Does this not scream loudly of utilitarianism? Wasn’t that abolished after the Nuremberg Trials? Do we really want to go back there? This also begs the question where does it end? What else should be injected into and forced upon a population against their will and without informed consent? Barbara Loe Fisher who is quoted throughout the book and knowingly has asked the question how many children should be sacrificed for this greater good that Reich constantly references? Reich doesn’t even bother to answer the question. I find myself wondering how Reich could possibly have looked into this issue and not come up with the same information that an ever growing number of us have? The only thing I can come up with is that she did not do the proper research and by research I mean in depth and impartial reading on the subject. Therefore, it is shameful that she wrote a book on this subject in the first place and important that she get called out for spreading dangerous and false information.
The scientific method begins first with observation then asking a question so how parents asking vaccine related questions of their doctors can be construed as unscientific and bothersome, I will never understand? You have a growing group of well-educated, motivated parents who have viable concerns but they are ridiculed as using internet mommy blogs, chats, other mothers, and Jenny McCarthy to fuel their vaccine education. I believe PubMed, Medscape and scientific journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA and The Lancet are available online so why aren’t parents ever credited with using reputable sources? Also, some of these parents are doctors, scientists, and statisticians themselves yet if they question vaccines, they are automatically called crazy and stupid. Does this make sense to you? The reality is that many parents are far more versed in vaccine education than their doctors. Doctors don’t seem to like this very much.
I was sorely disappointed at the amount of misinformation this book puts forth. The lack of proper safety testing and the varying and waning degrees of protection from any vaccine makes the decision to vaccinate our children a dubious choice at best. Through spreading outright lies, manipulation, coercion, and misinformation, medical agents and especially pediatricians have forced parents to fill in the gaps in education themselves in order to make the best decisions for their children. This is not a vote against public health or community immunity as Reich states throughout her book but a necessary part of the parenting process. In addition, Reich makes no mention of the importance of various lifestyle choices such as nutrition, clean water, and stress management in bolstering natural immunity and protection against the diseases she mentions. She also offers no talk about the advantageous aspects of childhood diseases such as measles and chicken pox and the long term health benefits that contracting these diseases at the right developmental stage can offer its recipients, something that vaccination can never hope to mimic. Reich is certainly entitled to her opinion and she has the right to write any book she wants however I hope readers will approach this book with an open mind and their common sense and critical thinking skills fully intact.
Calling the Shots is Reich's attempt at a non-judgmental, researched, impartial, and well-rounded book chronicling the why behind American parents’ voluntary vaccine refusal. Reich maintains that public health is at stake due to anti-vaccination sentiment however we shouldn’t alienate this group. Instead, we should attempt to listen patiently to their concerns while working to change their minds.
The book pits those parents who often blindly follow the CDC’s recommended full childhood vaccination schedule (the author herself is included in this group) against vaccine dissenters (partially, in full, or those who opt for their own schedule). Parents who question vaccines are presented as those in higher income brackets with higher levels of education but who subscribe to individualistic type parenting, putting their child’s welfare above the good of community and public health. The slant is very much towards these parents being selfish and looking out only for their own while virtuous doctors and medical experts see with the wider lens of what's best for humanity. Reich believes that vaccine dissenters are threatening the health and welfare of the public.
Her representative sample is not all-inclusive. She chose well-off predominantly white parents, mostly college educated with means to resources that their more economically counterparts would not have access to. All parents interviewed were from her home state of Colorado and confined to a small geographic area, the same area where she herself lives. Although speculation, this may point to a lazy attitude overall in including a more representative sample and may point to a lack of taking the necessary steps to finding more comprehensive research on vaccine history, safety, and efficacy.
She did make herself a presence on online blogs, groups, and chats but only as an observer. She also “sought out the places where vaccines are discussed by “elites” in the name of her research. I cannot help but wonder if her time spent with Paul Offit types clouded her ability to do adequate research into the subject based on actual evidence instead of on unsubstantiated sound bites. She mentions time and again that it is the child with less access to healthcare that we should all be looking out for. This is what the entire childhood vaccination schedule is predicated on. She also is a big believer in herd immunity, a myth that not only has never been proven but was never even intended to be used in conjunction with vaccination. Also, not all vaccines are designed with the theory of herd immunity, some are meant to only protect the individual alone. The concept of herd immunity blows up when you consider that the percentage of vaccine uptake for the population ranges from 85-95% (those numbers are inexact and strangely prone to changing to meet industry needs). Consider the waning immunity of any vaccine (they aren’t effective forever and that’s even if they work at all) and taking into consideration any adult and when they received their last vaccine for whatever disease we are talking about and you will see how incredibly shortsighted the notion of herd immunity is in relation to vaccination.
Reich is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado Denver, a pro-vaccine institution that has an extensive vaccine education community outreach program. She openly admits that she was paid by her employer for writing this book. She also mentions that her husband is a pediatrician who has seen firsthand children admitted to the hospital for vaccine preventable diseases and describes his frustration over those who choose not to vaccinate. No mention is made of how many kids in his practice have been vaccine injured. She denies that there is any proven correlation between vaccines and vaccine related injury and death.
Reich’s lens is colored by the patriarchal medical system and it’s relatively easy to see why when you look at her history. Reich and her husband have fully vaccinated their three children according to schedule. She believes that the information and statistics put forth by the CDC, the IOM, and the NIH are the most credible. She also states that she believes the validity of these sources over other independent studies. It is unclear whether or not she has looked at any independent studies. It appears that the buck stops with her husband who went to medical school and is lauded by many as being the premiere expert on childhood vaccination. Why would Reich bother looking elsewhere? I find this telling. Also, Reich’s husband is the father of her children and therefore would have their best interests at heart so if he believes vaccines offer their best shot at protection from disease then why would Reich ever think negatively about them? I do wonder what she would think about the latest research concerning the Mawson vaccinated vs. the unvaccinated study or vaccine ingredients such as aluminum adjuvants by Exely and Girardi? What does she think about the latest Fluad trials which compared this new flu vaccine against another untested flu vaccine? Is this method of conducting research OK with her? I also wonder how Reich feels about her book and the way she wrote it today in 2018, when much has changed since she ended her research in 2014.
Yes, Reich is biased and her bias shows up throughout the entire book. I actually believe that a non-biased stance is overrated and is also impossible to achieve. I was biased when reading the book. With the exception of the most rigorous scientific method, this being the randomized double blind placebo control study, bias seeps into most other scientific inquiry. I still believe what I believe, therefore I do not believe this book or others like it will ever succeed in moving the conversation forward in a way that yields any positive result for anyone.
I do believe that Reich tried to be thoughtful throughout the process of interviewing those parents who chose for various reasons not to follow the CDC schedule. She also interviewed several medical professionals and even compared several pediatric practices to show how they deal with those who do not want to vaccinate or want to delay. She tried unsuccessfully to illustrate why all parents should care enough about community health to roll up the sleeves of their child and “take one for the team”. Honestly, would you sacrifice your child in the name of other children if you knew for certain that the vaccine your child would receive would cause severe injury or death? Please find me one single parent who would agree to that. It is a ridiculous notion. She alludes to the idea that parents are expected to sacrifice their own children for the good of all but if that child should become injured or killed by a vaccine, that parent is strictly on their own so why should this ever be factor in parental decision-making? She states that she understands this however the expectation is still there.
The most obvious issues I have with this book is that much of Reich’s vaccine belief system has never been proven so what she says sits on a shaky-at-best foundation. Vaccine safety has not been done and individual vaccine efficacy is downright laughable in the context of belief that vaccines work. Vaccine injury is grossly underreported with VAERS capturing only between 1-10% of all vaccine injuries due to its being a voluntary, non-mandated reporting system. Injury doesn’t seem all that rare in light of this, does it? Yet, Reich states that parents are “dramatically” overstating the risk of vaccines. It seems ludicrous to expect any parent to put their child upon a sacrificial alter when those very institutions that she holds in such high regard flat out refuse to do the studies that parents like the ones she interviewed have been begging for. She makes no mention of the lies, collusion, and the outright cover-ups of the CDC like in the MMR-Thompson study. She describes the conflict of interest and revolving door policies of industry and government as something that has always been present and is just the price of doing business. I found her attitude on a number of topics to be disturbing and lacking in humanity. She seems to have no problem outing parents who practice individualistic parenting as irresponsible, selfish, and undeserving of public services like attending public school or playing in parks. If that is the case then I should be able to police any parent’s choices regarding nutrition and other lifestyle practices. Don’t you dare send your kid to school after feeding him Oreos and Doritos because his lowered immunity from poor nutrition makes him a threat to my child? Perhaps feeding your child crap food makes you an irresponsible, selfish, and bad parent who is undeserving of public resources. Have we gone too far here folks?
Pediatricians are put forth in the book as experts on vaccines and parents, irrespective of the amount of reading they have done on the subject can never know enough compared to their doctors. The physicians put forth in the book view themselves, not parents, as the experts. What is the contextual definition of “expert” here? They are also cited as experts due to their clinical experience except for Dr. Bob Sears who was lambasted for having designed a customized schedule for certain children in his practice based on nothing more than wishful thinking and financial gain. Apparently, his clinical experience is unscientific and does not count. Though the current CDC schedule has never been tested for efficacy and safety, those pediatricians proposing an alternate vaccine schedule such as Dr. Sears are, according to this book, unscientific, unfounded, and downright dangerous. The reasons for Dr. Sears being singled out becomes clearly apparent after reading the book.
It is my understanding that pediatricians get virtually no vaccine education in medical school other than being told that they are safe and effective, and given the ACIP/CDC recommended schedule and told to sell parents on vaccine along with how to convince the unconvinced. Dr. Dan Neides the former head of the Cleveland Clinic’s Wellness Center in Ohio recently reiterated this once again. I have heard this from doctor after doctor, nurse after nurse. Reich is married to a pediatrician, how does she not know this? She also stated that financial incentives for doctors to push vaccines is a myth. The book states that no doctor receives a financial incentive on a fully vaccinated child in their practice. It is my understanding that this is no myth, doctors are financially incentivized and there are a growing number of pediatricians openly admitting this. There is also no mention in the book of pediatricians kicking parents out of their practice for refusal to vaccinate or fully vaccinate. Perhaps this is because the doctors interviewed for the book were all not guilty of this but it could also be because these doctors were not forthcoming in how they run their practices. All of the pediatricians interviewed in the book were said to have only their patients’ best interest at heart. This seems disingenuous. Reich quotes one physician who said that vaccines don’t affect the body in the same way drugs do, meaning that there are no negative side effects and that we are thinking about them all wrong. It was a true WTF moment for this reviewer. I guess those toxins and proteins just slide right on out and never bio accumulate. I suppose the side effects listed on the package inserts are simply made up. BTW, Reich doesn’t mention those inserts, not even once. Parents are forced to do their own investigation into the safety and efficacy of vaccines when their doctors are woefully ignorant of true vaccine education and tend to not keep abreast of the research in their field.
Stories of the unvaccinated spreading disease in doctor waiting rooms (pertussis spread by unvaccinated children in doctor’s waiting room pg. 188) are offered with no stories of the vaccinated shedding and spreading disease to the general population to counterbalance her claims. The CDC acknowledges that the unvaccinated are NOT the primary cause of recently reported pertussis outbreaks. That leaves the vaccinated on the chopping block. Reich’s stories serve, in my opinion, to spread the exact same fear that Dr. Sears is being accused of spreading by offering parents an alternate schedule and informing them of vaccine risks. There is no mention of the failed efficacy of the pertussis vaccine and how those who get it still carry and spread infection and are far more dangerous to the general population because they spread the disease while they remain asymptomatic (vaccinated grandparents who don’t know they are sick exposed to that vulnerable new born is a recipe for disaster). We can thank the vaccine for that. Nowhere is Reich’s book does this come up and I want to know why.
Her rationale for the dramatically increased rate of autism is absurd and completely false. She cites better diagnosis (yes, she goes there). She should read Mark Blaxill and Dan Olmstead’s book: Denial. Reich doesn’t believe that vaccines cause the serious illnesses that parents report because, again, those institutions that she holds dear say that they don’t and that’s good enough for her. She mentions several hospitalizations due to vaccine preventable diseases such as Rotavirus and Polio but there is absolutely no proof that her examples weren’t caused by the vaccines themselves. She makes no mention of viral shedding from the live virus vaccines while pointing the finger at the unvaccinated child as a living vector of disease spreading. The one-sided and erroneous nature of her statements can make a reader nuts. She whitewashes the danger of vaccines and overstates their usefulness. You might think of her as an institution educated zombie. I can’t disagree. She did not delve into true vaccine history and she relies heavily on pro-vaccine sound bites. I will not even go into what she has to say about Dr. Andrew Wakefield because you have most likely heard it all before (yawn). Yes, she gets his history wrong too.
I’ll admit this book is hard to read if you are of the opinion that choice must be left up to the individual without coercion and with full informed consent. However, in order to fully understand this broad issue and all the opinions that surround it, it is important to read books on all sides of the issues to understand what is circulating amongst the public and how opinions are formed, even if they do spread false information. No long term safety and efficacy studies has ever been done on any vaccine or in any combination given in the CDC/ACIP childhood schedule and that serious injury and death can occur from any vaccine at any age. Vaccines are essentially fast tracked without going through necessary gold standard testing which is the randomized double blind placebo control study. You cannot sue a vaccine manufacturer if injury or death occurs to your child as a result of a vaccination. You must sue the government and the burden of proof in on you. Good luck trying to tease out which vaccine caused what when so many combinations are given at once. Some believe this is by design to father shield the manufacturers from blame. If you are a newbie looking for real, unbiased vaccine information with no conflict of interest, please look elsewhere before reading this book, nvic.org is a great place to start.
Reich wrote this book because she felt it important to try to bridge the gap between those who willingly choose not to vaccinate so that vaccine influencers may learn the best way to approach them with the ultimate goal of changing their minds. She states: “we can improve our thinking about vaccine choice, and ultimately public health.” This leaves one with the sense that they are being condescended to and handled. What is this “improvement” she speaks of? It sounds like the end goal is getting more parents to fully vaccinate their children without question or concern. Would she or any of the pro-vaccine people she interviewed be willing to delve into vaccine research and history in order to have their minds changed? This brings me to how upsetting her laisse faire attitude is concerning her certainty that vaccines are safe, effective, and necessary for the overall health and well-being of the population. Science does not support this position. Reich actually believes that medicine in the context of vaccination should not be customized but rather one size fits all. Does this not scream loudly of utilitarianism? Wasn’t that abolished after the Nuremberg Trials? Do we really want to go back there? This also begs the question where does it end? What else should be injected into and forced upon a population against their will and without informed consent? Barbara Loe Fisher who is quoted throughout the book and knowingly has asked the question how many children should be sacrificed for this greater good that Reich constantly references? Reich doesn’t even bother to answer the question. I find myself wondering how Reich could possibly have looked into this issue and not come up with the same information that an ever growing number of us have? The only thing I can come up with is that she did not do the proper research and by research I mean in depth and impartial reading on the subject. Therefore, it is shameful that she wrote a book on this subject in the first place and important that she get called out for spreading dangerous and false information.
The scientific method begins first with observation then asking a question so how parents asking vaccine related questions of their doctors can be construed as unscientific and bothersome, I will never understand? You have a growing group of well-educated, motivated parents who have viable concerns but they are ridiculed as using internet mommy blogs, chats, other mothers, and Jenny McCarthy to fuel their vaccine education. I believe PubMed, Medscape and scientific journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA and The Lancet are available online so why aren’t parents ever credited with using reputable sources? Also, some of these parents are doctors, scientists, and statisticians themselves yet if they question vaccines, they are automatically called crazy and stupid. Does this make sense to you? The reality is that many parents are far more versed in vaccine education than their doctors. Doctors don’t seem to like this very much.
I was sorely disappointed at the amount of misinformation this book puts forth. The lack of proper safety testing and the varying and waning degrees of protection from any vaccine makes the decision to vaccinate our children a dubious choice at best. Through spreading outright lies, manipulation, coercion, and misinformation, medical agents and especially pediatricians have forced parents to fill in the gaps in education themselves in order to make the best decisions for their children. This is not a vote against public health or community immunity as Reich states throughout her book but a necessary part of the parenting process. In addition, Reich makes no mention of the importance of various lifestyle choices such as nutrition, clean water, and stress management in bolstering natural immunity and protection against the diseases she mentions. She also offers no talk about the advantageous aspects of childhood diseases such as measles and chicken pox and the long term health benefits that contracting these diseases at the right developmental stage can offer its recipients, something that vaccination can never hope to mimic. Reich is certainly entitled to her opinion and she has the right to write any book she wants however I hope readers will approach this book with an open mind and their common sense and critical thinking skills fully intact.
March 18, 2023
This book explored the sociology of why some parents choose to not vaccinate their children. I thought this book provided many insights on both sides of the vaccination debate. I enjoyed the inclusion of interviews with 34 parents and anecdotes about their experiences with vaccines. Although written before the Covid-19 pandemic, this book is still extremely relevant today as debates over vaccination remain a hot topic.
April 23, 2024
This book was a little difficult to read just because it’s so dense but I’m genuinely so happy I had to read it for school. It’s interesting to hear the thoughts and facts behind why parents don’t vaccinate their kids. It’s eye opening to the privilege people have and all of the ways they can us it such as not having to vaccinate.
Read
November 22, 2024Some points were interesting but the book wasn't as inclusive as it could have been. All parents interviewed were upper-middle class white American citizens living in Colorado, which isn't representative of all vaccine hesistant parents. There were a lot of scientific facts about each vaccine, which could be interesting to some readers, but ultimately detracted from the author's overall argument.
October 4, 2019
If you believe that there is a potential adverse risk for vaccinations, then you’re riding off the fact that everyone else is exposing their kids to those adverse effects... So your kid no longer is really at risk.
September 18, 2016
I really wish I'd had the time to give this one the thoroughness it deserves.
Basically, the idea is (as I was able to figure it), that parents are universally put in the position of being the expert regarding everything to do with their children... except in terms of vaccination. The author doesn't let the parents off the hook for the arrogance of assuming that being a parent makes you a doctor where your child is concerned, but does look past that to try to find ways to bridge the gap. Ultimately, that's problem-solving. It's both easy and correct to say that these white yuppie parents from the upper-middle-to-lower-upper class put what they think they know ahead of every other thing, including ultimately their child's safety. But that doesn't win anyone over or solve the problem. The problem must be solved by negotiating such people to reason without making concession. I would recommend anyone interested leaf through it, and I sincerely plan to pick it up again at some point and really dig into it.
Basically, the idea is (as I was able to figure it), that parents are universally put in the position of being the expert regarding everything to do with their children... except in terms of vaccination. The author doesn't let the parents off the hook for the arrogance of assuming that being a parent makes you a doctor where your child is concerned, but does look past that to try to find ways to bridge the gap. Ultimately, that's problem-solving. It's both easy and correct to say that these white yuppie parents from the upper-middle-to-lower-upper class put what they think they know ahead of every other thing, including ultimately their child's safety. But that doesn't win anyone over or solve the problem. The problem must be solved by negotiating such people to reason without making concession. I would recommend anyone interested leaf through it, and I sincerely plan to pick it up again at some point and really dig into it.
April 2, 2021
Calling the Shots is a sociological examination as to why parents reject vaccines. This book is well-researched and well-written. Reich rehashes the history of vaccines and the anti-vaccine movement succinctly and those who felt that Allen's book on vaccines was too detailed will find this book a much better summary of the events. Reich's research brings up a lot of interesting points about the reasons behind anti-vaccine behaviours, but she never lets the parents off the hook for their (quite frankly selfish) behaviours and choices. What stuck with me the most was her point that most anti-vaxx parents (who are largely white and middle class) often only face state intervention in their childrearing when it comes to vaccine legislation (unlike people of colour or those in lower income households) - demonstrating what an exercise of privilege being an anti-vaxxer is.
August 11, 2019
I did not completely read the book cover to cover. I was already familiar with certain contents Reich covered. I was little bit bored on certain parts of the book. I am hoping I will enough time to come back to really absorb it.
Overall, excellent book! I enjoyed what I learned from the book. Reich covered many topics relating to the vaccine issues and why parents would reject vaccines, whether completely or partly. Reich was spotted on the issues and her suggestions. Highly recommend this book if you are unsure if vaccines are safe and you want to know to learn more about vaccines. Reich was understanding of parents who are concern with vaccines, regardless what sides the parents were on.
Overall, excellent book! I enjoyed what I learned from the book. Reich covered many topics relating to the vaccine issues and why parents would reject vaccines, whether completely or partly. Reich was spotted on the issues and her suggestions. Highly recommend this book if you are unsure if vaccines are safe and you want to know to learn more about vaccines. Reich was understanding of parents who are concern with vaccines, regardless what sides the parents were on.
September 10, 2016
Good, empathetic description of how parents make the decision to vaccinate or not. Dissects the way that our marketplace-centric society has resulted in parents making consumer-based, individualistic decisions rather than taking broader societal impacts into account. While parts were a little repetitive (as the author felt the need to restate her thesis after quotes) overall this is an important book, and well worth reading.
August 26, 2018
Very interesting book by a sociologist providing a perspective on a group of parents who choose not to vaccinate their children. Learned a great deal that will help me understand and discuss this issue better when I teach it in my parenting class. A select sample for certain, but provides a nice overview of the issues, even though the author makes clear that her bias is to vaccinate.
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December 11, 2018This book is VERY well written. While there are some biases on the authors side, I personally feel those biases are justified. A super interesting read for anyone (hopefully everyone) interested in the vaccination debate in the U.S. right now.
Currently reading
August 28, 2016After a long debate on social media, I found this book at the library. Very enlightening, very good book so far.
April 17, 2021
Another book I had to read for a college class. This book, although it attempts to remain unbiased, is unsuccessful. Reich interviews parents exclusively from Colorado and seems to only interview affluent parents. I think this creates a skew in the data she aims to represent. This books paints antivaxxers as rich, snobby, “my kid is the only kid that matters” type of parents, and while I generally agree that people who do not vaccinate their children do not care about their community, I am not sure that these characteristics represent ALL antivaxxers. One thing I learned from this book is that Jim Carrey is an antivaxxer which did not know - very disappointing. I think this book also does a good job of explaining that many antivaxxers do not understand the concepts of herd immunity, natural immunity, and wellness protection. Many of the parents in this book believe that their children is at low risk for developing things like measles, mumps, or the chickenpox, but lack the understanding that these diseases were eradicated from the US BECAUSE of vaccines. Therefore, the risk is lower. When people stop vaccinating their children, they are thus putting many people at risk for losing herd immunity. This includes young children, the immune compromised, and the elderly. I think this just goes to show that antivaxxers are selfish and do not consider the consequences of their actions unless it pertains to their own children. I respect their choice to not vaccinate their children, but I disagree with their reasoning and their ability to be inconsiderate of others.
March 11, 2021
This was very well researched and highly informative! As a new mom being flooded with information (and misinformation), this book helped give me a better basis for the decisions I make. I appreciated the approach the author took of providing information from an array of sources, not just trying to convince and condemn those who don't agree. I highly recommend this to all moms, but especially those who are wanting to make informed decisions that will impact their children, their community, and the future.
April 14, 2025
Reich is an incredibly compassionate researcher in her studies. She does an excellent job at balancing the reality of risk that unvaccinated children pose (especially to those unvaccinated due to lack of resources rather than choice), while also trying to understand where vaccine skeptics come from in this regard. Her chapters challenge notions of every anti-vaxx person as solely selfish and greedy individuals while also acknowledging that they are, in fact, neglecting their communities, prioritizing their own family over community. This was a genuinely fascinating read!
June 19, 2025
Reich's book attempts to unite differing views on vaccination but falls short by leaning on contentious assumptions and dismissing valid concerns. While it champions individual freedom and opposes vaccine mandates, its portrayal of vaccines as universally beneficial and harmless, without acknowledging alternative viewpoints, risks misleading readers. Although it encourages open-minded exploration, a critical eye is needed. Ultimately, the book sidesteps crucial conversations about vaccine safety.
December 23, 2022
First off, as a sociologist, I read tons of books on sociological topics and I don’t know I’ve ever read one that was so compassionate to their subjects. It was a fascinating read to understand a bit more about a reasons to deny vaccines even if I completely disagree with the participants. Great read and worth it if you’re curious why some parents reject medical care for their children.
June 10, 2024
Had to read for nursing school but was honestly so fascinated with the topic. I had a clear take on it pre-read but then found myself questioning my original take after i finished. Am i easily influenced or was it just that good?
September 24, 2020
This book tried to present itself as a journalistic approach to vaccines, but it is clear the author's opinion on vaccines, so it's def not unbaised.
September 8, 2025
Informative and well rounded view into perspectives on vaccination. Written like multiple mini-theses though which was an odd style - repeating information.
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