At a time when parents are making sure their children meet the vaccine requirements of local schools, Austin Regional Clinic updated its policy July 1 to no longer accept children as pediatric patients if their parents will not permit them to be vaccinated.

Although the decision came following an outbreak of the measles at Disneyland in which four of the 21 people who were affected by the illness contracted it in a pediatrician’s office, ARC doctors had been discussing the policy change for the past couple of years, said Dr. Alison Ziari, a pediatrician in the Four Points ARC office at 11714 Wilson Parke Ave., Ste. 150, Austin.

“We noticed that the number of children who were unvaccinated was creeping up,” she said. “When you have a population that is immunized, that protects those in the group who can’t be immunized.”

Ziari said some patients are immunocompromised and cannot receive vaccines to guard against disease. These patients may include infants, HIV patients, cancer patients undergoing treatment and pregnant women, she said.



“Some folks have lots of reasons [to not vaccinate themselves or their children] that are not based on science,” Ziari said. “When the measles outbreak occurred earlier this year, we were concerned the same thing could happen in this community. That’s what pushed us to move toward this policy.”

She said the feedback has been positive from the July vaccination policy change, and many parents of unvaccinated children have come into ARC offices to discuss their choice with their pediatrician, especially because the new school year is beginning. Some parents have changed their minds as a result of these meetings, and their children have been placed on a “catch-up” vaccination schedule. A few other parents have decided to leave the practice, she said.
However, ARC does not maintain a list of physicians who will treat unvaccinated children, she said.

She said she believed ARC was one of the first two pediatric groups in the Austin area to administer the vaccination policy change.

“Several [pediatric physician] groups have reached out to ARC [since the   July 1 announcement],” Ziari said. “They felt like they wanted to do this for a long time, but this [announcement] made it easier for them.”

She said a grandparent who is the primary caregiver of one of her patients is undergoing treatment for breast cancer.

“If, [without this policy], she got chicken pox from my waiting room, she would die,” Ziari said. “And it would be my fault. These are the risks and benefits we have to weigh.”