Hendra Horse Vaccine

[Phoebe]

This is a really interesting article about a different kind of anti-vaccine movement that could have repercussions for human health: the refusal of some Australian horse owners to vaccinate their horses against an extremely deadly virus that can affect both horses and humans. Luckily it is more difficult to spread it, but of course that could change at some point, so the more effective the vaccination program is the better. Here you have individuals weighing what seems like a more important risk to them personally, accidentally harming their horse with the vaccine, against what scientist and veterinarians are telling them about the dangers of not vaccinating both for horses and humans.

The wild twist in this scenario is that the veterinarians themselves are facing life-threatening risks if they should encounter a horse with the virus without having the proper protective gear on. Yet some of them continue to treat sick horses without proof of vaccination. It's pretty incredible. Normally that's not a concern for the doctors when parents don't vaccinate in the US, since the doctors are very unlikely to die of whooping cough or whatever. I would imagine if that were a greater concern, doctors offices would even more likely have policies against taking regular patients when the parents won't vaccinate. Yet doctors would still treat the kids who were ill, just like they treat Ebola patients and people with every other terrible kind of contagious disease.

The point is, doctors are expected to care for people who become sick when other people make bad choices that the doctors themselves have advised against, even when caring for them could be dangerous to the doctors. We shouldn't expect it for horses, yet here we have veterinarians still willing to go to those horses, and pointing out that their willingness to do so under the gravity of the circumstances often makes the difference in persuading people to vaccinate.

When you talk to people about vaccinations against illnesses like whooping cough, sometimes the reasons people don't vaccinate have to do with lack of access to healthcare, but other times it's because they feel like their personal risk is greater than their personal reward, and they don't believe that the collective reward outweighs their personal risk. In most cases they're totally wrong about this, but it can be a great challenge to persuade people. And it's not as if the people who are pro-vaccination are completely divorced from measurements of personal risk; they simply have reason to believe that their personal benefit lies with vaccinations. Very few of them believe that they are taking on any personal risk by promoting vaccination or having their own kids vaccinated. Some of these veterinarians in Australia seem to understand the balance of personal risks that people are weighing, however irrationally, so comparison to this case might be helpful for understanding what works in public health programs outside the specific context of Hendra. As an example, some doctors offices in my area started asking people about vaccinations and recommending the use of face masks, when parents wanted to bring their kids in, which might help drive home the sense that other people are taking on a personal risk when you bring your unvaccinated child around.

[El Jefe]

At least we're all agreed on one thing: Horses are terrifying, awful animals.

[Phoebe]

I do actually find them a bit intimidating. I enjoy riding when we take the kids to ride horses occasionally, and I enjoy meeting the horses because they're clearly very intelligent and interesting animals, but I also feel like I'm not quite on their wavelength and the unpredictability of their behavior can be a little scary. Maybe if one spent a lot of time around them it would be a lot better.