Colorado House Bill 1288 would require that parents who forgo having their child immunized submit to their child's school a document showing that they have received information on the benefits and risks of immunizations. That would be an extension of current Colorado law that requires children entering school be vaccinated against a list of diseases unless the parents have a personal or religious reason for exemption.
The bill is a good idea, and here's why.
Immunization programs in the United States have been hugely effective, so effective that immunizations are optional. A growing number parents now see immunizations as something their children can do without and which are possibly more harmful than helpful.
But that view is shortsighted, because the diseases that have killed or maimed millions of people in previous generations still pose a threat.
Take polio, for example. In the first half of the 20th century, polio struck hundreds of thousands of Americans, killing thousands and leaving survivors with varying degrees of paralysis.
Within a decade of the mass immunizations of the 1950s, the number of polio cases in the United States had fallen to just more than 100. By 1979, the "wild" polio virus had been eradicated in this country.
Yet polio still survives in several Asian and African countries.
The threat from polio and from other communicable diseases wiped out in the developed world appears to be small. In part, that's because the mass immunization of Americans has created a shield around even those who are not immunized. Those who are surrounded by immune neighbors are less likely to be exposed to a disease.
The mass immunization of previous generations has allowed Americans to live in a world free from the fear of childhood communicable disease, thus allowing parents to weigh benefits of immunity against the risks that come with inoculation.
That freedom from disease has allowed Americans to exercise their freedom from government-enforced immunization. House Bill 1288 would not take away that individual freedom; Colorado would remain one of 19 states that do not mandate immunizations.
But parents should be informed enough to make wise decisions.
HB 1288 would not, as one opponent suggested, tell parents that they are idiots or morons. Rather, it would remind parents that this world remains a far more dangerous place than they might think. They should know that as more parents choose not to immunize, their children will have less protection from their immunized friends.
Americans already are winning against or have defeated so many terrible diseases. They should not let down their guard, lest those killers return.