Steven Abbott

There is a reason very few people alive today have not seen a child die from whooping cough, seen birth defects caused by pregnant mothers contracting rubella, or seen polio sufferers in an iron lung. Vaccinations. From a public health standpoint, vaccinations work best when roughly 95 - 98% of a given population are vaccinated. This gives herd immunity to those who for whatever reason, cannot be vaccinated. Below those thresholds, herd immunity does not function nearly as well. Another aspect of effective vaccination efficacy is timing. Vaccine schedules have been the subject of countless hours of study by many brilliant minds for decades. Eliminating some vaccines or moving the dose dates of others can expose children and some adults to increased risk of contracting preventable contagions. HB 1811 puts not just NH's children and their families at risk, but all who they come in contact with (think family vacations). Decades of work done to control several serious diseases would be lost. The cost of a single outbreak far outweighs the current costs of NH's entire vaccine program. This bill is being penny-wise and life-foolish.