I
had a bit show up in my news feed again about the anti-vaccination folks, the vaxxers.
I
gather that most of these people are younger than me, and I was fortunate, polio
had been all but eradicated around the time I was born. But just barely.
My
sister was one of the early recipients of the first polio vaccines, she is just
a few years older than I am. People today don't know the terror of a disease that
could strike your child and cripple or kill him. The March of Dimes was founded
to help families affected by polio and to try and prevent the disease. You may have
heard of them. Franklin Roosevelt was stricken with polio and it left him unable
to walk, Forrest Gump was likely a polio survivor too.
As
I said, I was lucky.
Today
many childhood diseases have been largely eradicated because of advances in medicine,
mainly vaccinations.
When
I was a kid, almost everyone had a scar on their shoulder from getting a vaccine.
I didn't have one, I was a baby when I got my shot and it healed very nicely. I
can remember like lining up for our shots in school, everyone took home a letter
that we were to have our shots and everyone brought back the signed slip... And
everyone got their shots.
Back
then rubella, the German measles was the big one. They weren't so worried about
us, but if you came in contact with a pregnant woman her unborn child was at risk
of birth defects.
We
suffered through the then normal childhood diseases, chicken pox, measles, mumps,
and so on. Some people even went so far as to host parties when their kids were
sick so all the neighbourhood kids would get it too... And parents sent their kids
willingly, a way to control when your child got sick and to make sure they did get
the childhood diseases while still kids. These things can be more dangerous if you contract
them as an adult.
And yes,
big pharma makes money from vaccines, they also make money from Aspirin and Tylenol
too.
The
thing that they seem to forget is that these childhood diseases aren't always just
icky-sicky for a week things. The mumps can cause sterility, other diseases can
cause deafness or blindness or death. In the developing world these diseases are
a huge problem with mortality rates of over 20%, and these are preventable deaths
from preventable diseases.
As
I write this there is an outbreak of measles in the UK that is nearing epidemic
proportions. People there didn't bother to vaccinate their children apparently thinking
there was no need. Now they are scrambling to get the shots before their kids get
sick.
When
I was little a measles outbreak would affect one grade in the school, chances are
that the older kids had their bout with it when they were in that grade as well.
Imagine a whole school where few if any of the kids have been exposed to the measles,
we're not looking at a handful of kids anymore, but of potentially hundreds sick
at the same time.
I
guess it depends on your priorities.
But
if your child comes down with one of the childhood diseases and you have to wait
because a few hundred other kids are in line at the Emerge or the doctor's office,
don't complain to me. You have the opportunity to prevent these diseases from affecting
your child, and if you don't, it is your fault.
If
you want to get your information from the Internet, be my guest, but talk to your
health care provider first. After all, they are in the business of keeping you healthy,
aren't they?
Thankfully
the number of children here in Canada who suffer complications from these diseases
is very small. Part of this is that vaccinations have made these diseases fairly
rare. Keep in mind that it's a numbers game, if there are 1,000 cases across Canada,
chances are you won't know the few that develop complications. If there is an outbreak
in your community affecting 1,000 you very well could know some of the families
that end up dealing with the complications.
Many
people today have never heard someone suffer from whooping cough and their only
experience with polio is pictures or film clips from the 1950s and earlier. Vaccinations
have removed these diseases from our part of the world and vaccinations keep them
at bay. Wouldn't it be nice to put all preventable diseases on the shelf with them
so the worst thing most parents would have to deal with is a skinned knee?
Cheers!
BC
