A father has revealed his desperate concern for his child's health after his wife refused to allow their daughter to get vaccinated - and now he's even considering getting the inoculations done in secret.
The worried dad, who lives in Florida, explained his problem on the Reddit page r/legaladvice and his post has now been upvoted more than 25,000 times.
"My wife has fallen for the anti-vax nonsense and refuses to vaccinate our child!" he wrote. "I'm growing very worried."
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The Redditor, who's been married to his wife for three years, said his partner has always been in favour of 'against-the-grain thinking' but he's now worried that his child's health could be put in serious danger.
"Shortly after birth, our child received her Vitamin K shot and the Hep-B vaccine," he said. "However, now [my wife is] refusing to give our child any of the other vaccines.
"I know that in her mind, she's coming from a place of love for our child but as you can imagine, this has caused a considerable amount of strain and we've had a number of arguments already.
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"She won't budge and hasn't budged for weeks now. Our arguments are devolving into the same tired routine over and over again and I'm worried that the only thing which will wake her up is our child being afflicted by some horrible disease like measles which could've been easily avoided."
Replying to the post, one commenter offered: "You can get the kid vaccinated on your own authority. This is going to become an issue when it's time to send your child to school, and you have to provide a vax record or try to get an exception."
Other posters backed up this argument, including one person who said: "You have full rights to take your children to medical appointments and get them vaccinated.
"Right now you're married and both have equal say in your child's care. That also means there is absolutely nothing preventing you from taking your child to a doctor and having her vaccinated."
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Indeed, according to the Florida Department of Health: "All children who attend Florida schools (public or private) are required to be immunized in order to protect themselves and other children from potentially harmful and even fatal, vaccine-preventable diseases."
In the UK, meanwhile, while the NHS recommends childhood vaccinations to protect against diseases, there are no laws requiring that school children receive vaccinations.
There are concerns among medical professionals, however, that the anti-vaccine movement in the US and Europe could lead to even more severe outbreaks of diseases in the future.
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"What we're seeing in Europe right now - with horrific measles outbreaks - could also begin in the US as well," Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine scientist who has studied the link between the anti vaccine movement and disease outbreaks, told CNN last year.
You can find out the full list and timetable of recommended childhood vaccines here.
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