Pediatricians are refusing to serve families that refuse to vaccinate their kids. It's a practice that's growing around the country with doctors now getting official support from the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Dr. Jean Wagner, M.D., F.A.A.P. says she's been "firing" patients for not vaccinating for nearly a decade where she's a partner at A to Z Pediatrics in Caseyville.
Dr. Wagner says one of the biggest threats to her pediatric patients is parents with bad information - worried about vaccines based on unscientific and recanted claims found on internet message boards.
If parents won't vaccinate their kids, she won't keep them as patients. And, she says, for the first time the American Academy of Pediatrics is backing a doctors decision to deny patients.
Wagner says, "Initially what I try to do is find out why," parents are against vaccinating their children. "Then I try to bring them the science."
Wagner says most "come around" but if they do not she won't take their children as patients and won't help them find a doctor who will.
Wagner also warns against spreading out vaccines over time. She says that's no better than going without vaccines and she'll fire any parents for that, too.
