Calling the Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines

by Jennifer A. Reich

Overview

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 decision: 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781479812790
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	06/21/2016
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Jennifer Reich is Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado, Denver. Her publications include the award-winning books Calling the Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines and Fixing Families: Parents, Power, and the Child Welfare System.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

1 The Public History of Vaccines 23

2 Parents as Experts 67

3 Vaccines as Unnatural Intervention 97

4 The Limits of Trust in Big Pharma 118

5 Who Calls the Shots? 145

6 The Slow Vax Movement 167

7 Finding Natural Solutions 193

8 Vaccine Liberty 209

Conclusion: What Do We Owe Each Other? 235

Appendix A Methods 255

Appendix B Vaccine Schedule 269

Notes 271

References 285

Index 307

About the Author 315

Editorial Reviews

"A timely intervention into recent anti-vaccination controversies, Jennifer Reich’s Calling the Shots unpacks the logics behind vaccine refusal through interviews and ethnographic studies of parents who refuse vaccinations."

Medicine Science

"Calling the Shots treads confidently into the explosive terrain of vaccine refusal. In this must-read exploration of the burdens of modern mothering, Reich takes seriously the desires of mothers to make their own decisions to protect their children from risks. But she also shows how anti-vaccine stances by the privileged few may undermine the social compact and threaten the public good. This is a well-written, important, and very timely book."

Steven Epstein

"In her engaging book,Calling the Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines, Jennifer Reich focuses on this last group of privileged, vocal parents, a group with the potential to disrupt the balance of infectious disease control across the country. This exceptionally timely book also confronts the challenges posed by science skepticism amid a declining sense of public obligation and the increasing dictate that health is each familys personal responsibility."

Contemporary Sociology

"Several recent books have delved into the history and science of vaccines and immunity, and the anxieties that accompany them. Jennifer Reich … brings meticulousness and sensitivity to this emotional issue. … It is Reich’s book that may prove the most convincing to anti-vaxxers."

New York Review of Books

2016-04-06
Despite warnings from the medical community and the outbreak of preventable diseases, some parents refuse to vaccinate their children. Here, a sociologist puts this group into a cultural context to examine their thinking.Reich (Sociology/Univ. of Colorado, Denver; Fixing Families: Parents, Power, and the Child Welfare System, 2005, etc.) interviewed parents and health care providers (primarily in Colorado), as well as researchers, attorneys, and policymakers, and attended meetings of advocates on both sides of the vaccination issue. Individual stories, sometimes including the voices of participants in her study, put a human face on this study. The author found that children who are unvaccinated or undervaccinated are not just from poor families who miss appointments or lack access to health care but also from higher-income families who actively reject vaccination. Her research shows that it is white, college-educated mothers who believe that by not vaccinating, they are protecting their children from harm. Reich notes that these mothers, whom public health officials call free riders, have the time and resources to explore the vaccination issue and that they question both the safety and necessity of vaccination, are suspicious of the link between government regulatory agencies and the pharmaceutical industry, see themselves as experts on their children's health, and are confident of their abilities to make good decisions about them. Reich argues that the children of mothers who place a higher value on individual choice than on community obligation are protected by the large vaccinated population and that they pose a risk to the unvaccinated or undervaccinated children of families with fewer resources. In the final chapter, she focuses on finding a middle ground in the ongoing debate. Recent outbreaks of preventable diseases such as measles and whooping cough are focusing attention on this issue, making Reich's able contribution especially pertinent.

Kirkus Reviews

"In this gripping book, Reich illumines the processes through which (mostly affluent) parents reject vaccines. The book impressively situates these anti-vaccine parents in a broader context. Reich carefully documents how a range of organizations including medical offices, drug companies, and child protective servicesare all players in this social drama. Reichs concept of & individualistic parenting is valuable. Since parents decisions can have dire consequences for other children, the book is not only interesting, but it is of enormous social significance.Highly recommended!"

Annette Lareau

"Calling the Shots is intellectually rigorous and politically engaged scholarship of the highest quality. Jennifer Reich illuminates the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors surrounding childhood immunization, one of the most important and contested public health policy issues of our day. Debates about vaccine refusal have too often been marked by over-simplification and unfounded assumptions, and Reichs thorough, meticulous analysis provides a much-needed corrective.-James Colgrove,author of State of Immunity: The Politics of Vaccination in Twentieth"

Century America

"Risk is one of the operative words central to sociologist Jennifer Reichs remarkably calm book on current vaccination practices in North America. Risk is what parents, paediatricians and policymakers must evaluate in their roles as caregivers, primary-care doctors and advisers The group of parents Reich interviewed over a 10-year period that has informed this book are the university-educated ubermoms who favour organic food and have a tendency to avoid gluten and dairy productsThe doctors Reich interviewed recognise that some vaccination is better than none and that being patronising, bossy or confrontational is not in the best interest of the child or the wider community. It is a stance Reich shares."

Times Higher Education

"Jennifer Reichs new book, Calling the Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines, is an essential contribution to the story of vaccines in contemporary U.S. society that should make it impossible to tell such simple stories about vaccine resisters any longer."

American Journal of Sociology

Risk is one of the operative words central to sociologist Jennifer Reich’s remarkably calm book on current vaccination practices in North America. Risk is what parents, paediatricians and policymakers must evaluate in their roles as caregivers, primary-care doctors and advisers… The group of parents Reich interviewed over a 10-year period that has informed this book are the university-educated ubermoms who favour organic food and have a tendency to avoid gluten and dairy products…The doctors Reich interviewed recognise that some vaccination is better than none and that being patronising, bossy or confrontational is not in the best interest of the child or the wider community. It is a stance Reich shares.”- Times Higher Education

“Jennifer Reich’s new book, Calling the Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines , is an essential contribution to the story of vaccines in contemporary U.S. society that should make it impossible to tell such simple stories about vaccine resisters any longer.”- American Journal of Sociology

“In her engaging book, Calling the Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines, Jennifer Reich focuses on this last group of privileged, vocal parents, a group with the potential to disrupt the balance of infectious disease control across the country. This exceptionally timely book also confronts the challenges posed by science skepticism amid a declining sense of public obligation and the increasing dictate that health is each family’s personal responsibility.”- Contemporary Sociology

“In this gripping book,
Reich illumines the processes through which (mostly affluent) parents reject vaccines. The book impressively situates these anti-vaccine parents in a broader context. Reich carefully documents how a range of organizations – including medical offices, drug companies,
and child protective services–are all players in this social drama. Reich’s concept of ‘individualistic parenting’ is valuable. Since parents’ decisions can have dire consequences for other children, the book is not only interesting, but it is of enormous social significance.Highly recommended!”-Annette Lareau,author of Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life

“ Calling the Shots treads confidently into the explosive terrain of vaccine refusal. In this must-read exploration of the burdens of modern mothering, Reich takes seriously the desires of mothers to make their own decisions to protect their children from risks. But she also shows how anti-vaccine stances by the privileged few may undermine the social compact and threaten the public good. This is a well-written, important, and very timely book.”-Steven Epstein,author of Inclusion: The Politics of Difference in Medical Research

"Recent outbreaks of preventable diseases such as measles and whooping cough are focusing attention on this issue, making Reich's able contribution especially pertinent."- Kirkus Reviews

“ Calling the Shots is intellectually rigorous and politically engaged scholarship of the highest quality. Jennifer Reich illuminates the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors surrounding childhood immunization, one of the most important and contested public health policy issues of our day.
Debates about vaccine refusal have too often been marked by over-simplification and unfounded assumptions, and Reich’s thorough, meticulous analysis provides a much-needed corrective.”-James Colgrove,author of State of Immunity: The Politics of Vaccination in Twentieth-Century America

From the Publisher