Vaccine debate focuses on disclosure in Alberta schools

Misinformation, like an infectious disease, can spread quicklyand the Canadian Medical Association wants to limit the effects of both.

Last week, the organization voted to recommend schools demand proof of their child's vaccination status prior to being enrolled for class.

"We thought that the approach really isn't so much to be coercive as it is to provide an opportunity to have those critical conversations at critical times," said Chris Simpson, the president of the CMA.

Alberta approach

It's an approach that has also been championed in Alberta by Juliet Guichon, an assistant professor at the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary.

Schools are not required to check the vaccine status of students in the province, although some boards "do inviteparents to tell the school administrators the vaccination status of the child," said Guichon.

She would like to see schools mandate vaccine status prior to enrolment in the province as a means to educate.

"That's an opportunity, it's not a threat," she said."It's an opportunity for the parents to reveal that information and then the public health nurse knows and can communicate with the parents about updating the child's vaccination."

Misinformation

The hope is that the public health nurse will be able to convince parents that updating their child's vaccinations is in the interest of the family, the child and the public at large.

"That's not an unreasonable demand because remember, we're talking about infectious disease. So if we're going to bring children into a relatively small space so that they're breathing the same air, whether a child is vaccinated against an infectious disease is relevant to the other children."

She says there's a wide range of reasons for why children aren't vaccinated, from beliefs against certain vaccines or all vaccines, a wish to delay vaccination until later years,as well as newly arrived Canadians who might not have any vaccinations, or are not up to date by Alberta's standards.

"So conversations can address vaccine beliefs that are based on false information and there's a lot of false information that exists on the internet," said Guichon.

"If a public health nurse can talk to the parents and correct false information, then that can help parents have confidence in the vaccine."

Government plans

Alberta's health minister says no decisions have been made, but that she will provide an update, hopefully in the fall.

"Of course our goal is to make sure that children or families are as healthy as possible and there are other regions in Canada that still have choice but are having higher success rates. So we've been looking at some of that research," said Sarah Hoffman, adding she will be discussing the matter with the education minister.