Immunization Debate Continues With 2nd Oakland County Case

FERNDALE, MI — The question of whether parents should have the right not to vaccinate their child continued Monday in an Oakland County courtroom. A week after Ferndale mom Rebecca Bredow was jailed for refusing to honor Circuit Court Judge Karen McDonald’s order, a Walled Lake mother is fighting the same battle in front of the judge.

Like Bredow, Lori Matheson has cited religious and medical reasons for not wanting to vaccinate her 2-year-old daughter, according to multiple media reports. And while a Troy-based non-profit organization is backing both mothers, a local medical expert doesn’t believe there is wide-scale support for the movement.

“It’s small and getting smaller,” said Beaumont Pediatrician Dr. John Dorsey, who has been in practice since 1957. “The trend is toward vaccination.”

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Joel Dorfman, a spokesman for Michigan for Vaccine Choice, said the number of unvaccinated Michigan school-age children fluctuates between 3-5 percent year to year.

“It is irrefutable that immunizations pose risks to their recipients,” Dorfman said in a statement to Patch. “In 1986, the U.S. Congress passed a law prohibiting persons harmed by immunizations to sue the pharmaceutical manufacturer or the doctor who injected the immunization. If no one is harmed, why is this law necessary?”

In Michigan, parents do currently have the legal right not to vaccinate. Parents are required to get a waiver from their local county health department, Dorfman said.

A January 2015 amendment to the law also requires that parents go to an educational session on immunization to get the waiver. Michigan for Vaccine Choice is working with state legislators to get the educational requirement removed, Dorfman said.

“We support our members who have issues with rogue health departments or school districts that seek to impose their own more onerous versions of the law,” he added.

The two Oakland County cases center around disputes between divorced parents. Bredow’s ex-husband, James Horne, was granted temporary custody of his 9-year-old son and by McDonald, who ordered the boy to be properly vaccinated.

In Matheson’s case, ex-husband Michael Schmitt wants their 2-year-old daughter vaccinated, the Detroit Free Press reported. McDonald is being asked to settle the dispute.

In Dorsey’s mind, there isn’t a compelling argument for withholding vaccinations from children. As a young doctor in southeast Michigan, he saw the ravages of polio. The disease, which left victims either paralyzed or dead, was largely eradicated by a vaccine developed by Dr. Jonas Salk.

Dorsey has watched as other diseases have been brought into check with the development of vaccines. He estimates that he has seen 400,000 children over the years and does acknowledge that problems have periodically cropped up with vaccinations.

“It hasn’t been an issue in my practice,” Dorsey said.

While he has been with Beaumont for decades, Dorsey has also run his own private practice, Beverly Hills Pediatrics in Bingham Farms. Because of an outcry from parents, “we decided we wouldn’t take new patients” that aren’t immunized, Dorsey said.

He thinks children with compromised immune systems, such as those being treated for cancer with chemotherapy, legitimately shouldn’t be vaccinated. Otherwise, Dorsey says the debate about vaccination has been settled.

“It’s a public health issue that’s essential,” he said.

Photo by Amy Forliti / AP