At 23, Elisabeth Marnik walked into a doctor's office and asked for something adults almost never request: every childhood vaccine she had missed. She had never received a single one. Her physician did not stock pediatric immunizations, so she worked through the schedule at a travel clinic instead.
Marnik, now 37 and holding a doctorate in immunology, told that story in a STAT profile published this week. It landed two days after federal figures showed school vaccine exemptions climbing to another record, and it makes the argument that runs counter to the instinct of many people who support vaccination: shaming and excluding doubters will not move them.
