Okay, a small detour into Things That Annoy Me Greatly.
In yesterday's New York Times, there was an article about a measles outbreak in San Diego earlier this year. Nine of the twelve kids hadn't been vaccinated because their parents didn't believe in it.
Excuse me?
I did a double-take when I read this. Illnesses killed many, many children in the days before vaccines and now that we have vaccines, some parents are choosing to...what? Put their kids and everyone else's at risk? Because...why? Some internet-based fad that says vaccines are responsible for everything from autism to zebra stripes (okay, that last was hyperbole.)
I'm not one of "those" parents who normally goes around pushing my way of doing things on people. Breastfeed or don't, just feed your kid. Co-sleep, or don't---just make sure your kid gets sleep. Cloth diaper or disposable diaper, doesn't matter, just so long as they wear something. :) And so on. But in my mind, vaccines aren't negotiable. And I honestly can't imagine the mentality of a parent that can believe that much in herd immunity, or who is willing to risk the health of their kid and everyone else's kid for some internet fad based on poor science and worse research.
But all of this brings me to my original statement. I wonder if parents who don't vaccinate really comprehend what they're risking. Roisin spent her first five weeks in the NICU, wired to machines and alarms and tubes that kept her alive. Having seen that, there is nothing on this earth that would make us risk seeing her in another ICU, and so, we do all we can to make sure she doesn't end up there.
Common sense can't be dead in America. Can it?
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About Me
- Krista
- Wife, mom of a preemie, follower of the old ways, lover of anything Irish or Celtic, history buff, trivia nut, Star Trek and Ren Faire geek and costuming fiend. Offer me coffee or chocolate and world peace is assured. Or at least I'll try really hard. :) I also believe in deleting spam. So, to the person or persons who keep leaving me comments in Chinese (along with links to what I can clearly tell are Chinese porn sites) stop it. It's bad karma, to say nothing of being really, really rude.
7 comments:
I'm sorry to say but Common Sense has been slowly dying for years. There are a few who are keeping it on life support and trying to bring it back from it's death bed but it's a hard task and it's going to take more of us caring about Common Sense to convince him not to die.
LOL, nice to know he/she's on life support, not dead yet.
To quote Monty Python: "I feel BETTER!!!" :)
Have you ever seen the obit for Common Sense? It's pretty funny.
Hear, hear!
And how about those "Chicken Pox Parties" ??
Hijinks
I was nauseated when I read about those, Victoria. I grew up before the chicken pox vaccine and I remember the gods-awful case of chicken pox I got. I can't fathom deliberately infecting your child with any disease, let alone that one. :-/
Actually I can completely understand chicken pox parties. While having them completely sucked. It's so much worse to possibly get them as an adult. So if there was no vaccine I would probably do that myself when I have kids.
Yeah, but what got me is: there is a vaccine and these parents still decided to expose their children to the wild virus form of the illness. :-O
I could understand it if there wasn't a vaccine, but not if there is.
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