by We do not live in a time of plagues. Our children are healthy. We — as a world of nations — came together in a herculean, unselfish, effort to successfully eradicate Smallpox from the face of the earth through mandatory vaccinations even though, at times, those vaccinations caused death and illness in those who got shot or inadvertently exposed.
With wild success comes the failure of logical memory over the convenience of current emotional guessing where immediate individual needs take precedence over the greater goodness of the group. For those who know the perils of history and its infectious diseases that can wipe out a culture and condemn thousands of people to death by perishing — we cannot hold our eyes open long enough to keep them from weeping for the misguided parents that today claim childhood vaccines are bad for their kids and should be abolished:
SAN DIEGO — In a highly unusual outbreak of measles here last month, 12 children fell ill; nine of them had not been inoculated against the virus because their parents objected, and the other three were too young to receive vaccines. The parents who objected to their children being inoculated are among a small but growing number of vaccine skeptics in California and other states who take advantage of exemptions to laws requiring vaccinations for school-age children.
The exemptions have been growing since the early 1990s at a rate that many epidemiologists, public health officials and physicians find disturbing. Children who are not vaccinated are unnecessarily susceptible to serious illnesses, they say, but also present a danger to children who have had their shots — the measles vaccine, for instance, is only 95 percent effective — and to those children too young to receive certain vaccines. Measles, almost wholly eradicated in the United States through vaccines, can cause pneumonia and brain swelling, which in rare cases can lead to death. The measles outbreak here alarmed public health officials, sickened babies and sent one child to the hospital.
Parents must not be allowed to pick-and-choose which vaccines their children will get or not — all children must be equally inoculated as mandated by a National Public Health policy — or the entire realm of childhood becomes susceptible to deadly consequences at the hands of a few misinformed, and many immoral, and malformed, parents:
“I refuse to sacrifice my children for the greater good,” said Sybil Carlson, whose 6-year-old son goes to school with several of the children hit by the measles outbreak here. The boy is immunized against some diseases but not measles, Ms. Carlson said, while his 3-year-old brother has had just one shot, protecting him against meningitis. “When I began to read about vaccines and how they work,” she said, “I saw medical studies, not given to use by the mainstream media, connecting them with neurological disorders, asthma and immunology.”
There you have it in a horrifying nutshell — the entire problem with the modern world today is mothers who think they know more than medical doctors because of their self-study and their pedestrian internet education that predictably leads them to their dangerous diagnosis of — “My child first.” “My child is exempted.” “My child is special.” “My child will not be sacrificed.”
The hard reality is children are sacrificed for the greater good every single day — and that is a sad fact that protects the rest of us. You should not have a child unless you are unfailingly willing to sacrifice its life for the well-being of the group. We are not one. We are the whole. Society cannot harbor selfish parents — and then be expected to protect their non-immunized children. To deny a child standard vaccinations is tantamount to child abuse. You aren’t protecting your child by denying a vaccine — you’re killing all the other children around your selfish kid.
We only need to turn our, unblinking, and dry, educated, eye to the current AIDS epidemic infecting the world — and bear uncomfortable witness for the ongoing fight to create a vaccine that heals instead of kills to see how vitally important mandatory vaccinations are to the public welfare:
The two-decade search for an AIDS vaccine is in crisis after two field tests of the most promising contender not only did not protect people from the virus but may actually have put them at increased risk of becoming infected. The results of the trials, which enrolled volunteers on four continents, have spurred intense scientific inquiry and unprecedented soul-searching as researchers try to make sense of what happened and assess whether they should have seen it coming.
Both field tests were halted last September, and seven other trials of similarly designed AIDS vaccines have either been stopped or put off indefinitely. Some may be modified and others canceled outright.
We live in a dangerous, effluent, virus-infecting universe of filth and unmitigated selfishness — and the gift of socialized medicine and its mandatory, national, program of a legally-enforced Public Health policy — is the jewel of our evolutionary progression towards the light and into a more vibrant citizenry that can concentrate on moving the whole of humanity forward into the horizon instead of backwards into a forlorn shoveling of dirt into mass graves.
so what if one or two kids don’t get a shot because all the other ones have it
arin —
Vaccines are not cures. Vaccines are made with attenuated or dead virus cells to temper the body to exposure.
Some vaccines require booster shots. Some people may not be as fully inoculated as others due to body chemistry or ill health.
When you introduce a purposefully non-inoculated person into the ecosystem, you provide them carrier status and they are an imminent danger because they could then infect the elderly or the weak or those who may be able to handle a vaccine — but not a full-on live infection.
Then you have an Outbreak. Then you better look out!
It only takes one person to break the vaccine chain and infect someone else… and so on… and so on…
why not have all kids get a shot because the mothers are scared?
Some mothers claim the mercury in some vaccines causes Autism and other affectations.
Millions and millions of children and infants have been inoculated and yes, some have a bad reaction, but that does not mean we are not morally and medically required to vaccinate everyone anyway. That’s the chance you take when you decide to have a child.
why is mercury in the shots
As I understand it, arin, “metals” in vaccines linger in the body, thus helping the effect last longer.
There used to be a five year rabies vaccine for cats. The five year vaccine used “metal” to stay in the body longer, but the effect on the body was harsher. So, if you were slovenly, you got your cat the 5 year vaccine and prayed it wouldn’t kill your cat — and if you cared about your cat, you got the regular one-year version.
Parents of the world! Pay heed now – your children’s children will suffer if you don’t get them vaccinated. Straight up.
How’s that for a message to parents? 🙂
That’s excellent, Gordon!
The problem is when you have misinformed, famous, mothers like Deirdre Imus — who, because of her husband — is able to set a radical, personal, avenging agenda to demonize childhood vaccines and she purposefully confuses parents.
Here’s a blogger taking her on:
http://google-sina.com/2007/12/24/respectful-insolence-deirdre-imus-gives-everyone-some-stupid-for-christmas/
There is great danger in warning people away from getting their shots.
I feel for these parents who are looking for reasons to explain their child’s disorder. If there was a true link than there would be far more prevalence of autism in the population.
Now if there is sudden onset of autism or autistic-like symptoms, you have to start wondering. I’ve never felt comfortable about receiving multiple vaccines all on the same day either with my child or even for myself.
I’m always suspicious when you start combining drugs. It can’t be a good thing for a child to receive three or four vaccines in one day. That many vaccines in one sitting cannot be safe for a small child and as a mother I would have to question that.
dmtessi —
If you are over 40 — the idea of childhood Autism in your childhood life and in your peers is non-existent — and that is finely curious in light of the MILLIONS upon MILLIONS of multiple dose vaccines given to two generations of children.
How do we explain the sudden rise of Autism and its blaming on vaccines?
You don’t hear the major medical community discussing that connection because they find it wildly preposterous, so the fringe wackos take it up and try to make it real and factual when the connection is not and is unproven.
Is Autism the new Fiobromyalgia is the new pre-Glaucoma is the new un-named ailing in need of medical coverage, pity, and definition?
http://urbansemiotic.com/?s=fibromyalgia
I don’t know if autism is the new fibromyalgia but we are certainly a society focused on finding a diagnosis for every ailment and human weakness. I would argue that that is the reason for the increase in diagnosis of autism and pervasive developmental disorder. And that the continuum used to diagnose autism is of a much broader scope than it used to be. Certainly the professionals would argue that we know more about autism and the research is greatly advanced. But that’s not my specialty area though I once interviewed for a job with North Carolina TEACCH program that does a great deal of research and work with autistic children.
David, in my previous post I was referring to a child that was very normal prior to receiving a slew of vaccines at 18 months and then she suddenly developed autistic symptoms. I can’t recall where I saw this story. But that does concern me anytime you have sudden onset like that. That’s always a red flag. And that warrents investigation and research as to why she had such a sudden and lasting reaction. Certainly it doesn’t look good when she was fine immediately before the vaccines.
And just a side note–I believe lead poisoning can also mimic the symptoms of autism.
But it’s almost impossible to make a connection to vaccines when you’ve got a child with autistic symptoms right from the start. I suspect there’s a genetic link there rather than environmental/medical.
Thank you for the excellent and insightful comment, dmtessi!
Yes! That’s it! Any ailment now “deserves” its own diagnosis niche, insurance code, specialty medication, public sympathy, foundation and coverage under the ADA.
I accept your example — I just think that if that were truly a universal truth many millions of more children would be demonstrating the same aftereffect. They are not. That said, why not be safer and break up the vaccinations a bit? It couldn’t hurt, might help some, and may even remove some of these anecdotal dangers that concern many parents.
In the previous example, the child was somewhat behind on her vaccines. I wish I had more facts here. But it sounded like the doc played “catch up” and the child may have had more vaccines in one sitting than was typical.
I don’t know how common that is. I imagine there are many parents who cannot get to the doctor on a timely basis. As a young mother I was very diligent and on time with that sort of thing. But not all mothers are and there are many reasons why they might be delayed in adhering to the vaccine schedule.
My heart goes out to all these parents and who’s to say what I would do, myself, under such circumstances.
Parents make strange decisions on behalf of their children even with compelling medical evidence to the contrary.
I am now in a position where we need to decide whether the HPV vaccine is something we want our teenage daughter to have. The medical profession is pushing this with the increase in sexual promiscuity and cervical cancer. But I’m not convinced that it’s completely safe.
Sorry so long-winded and off topic!!
here is a sad story indeed. The parents of this child had a trip that came up and had only one month’s notice – and so couldn’t get their child a vaccine for Japanese encephalitis, an extremely rare disease (1 case in the entire United States per year on average) and by a stroke of misfortune the child happened to be bitten by a mosquito and got it. Now they are spending thousands of dollars just to keep him alive in a hospital in Seattle. Very sad.
Arin – mercury is still in the flu vaccine as a preservative. According to some it kills the live virus and according to others it is to give the vaccine a longer shelf life. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find just one answer.
dmtessi —
You’re not off topic at all! 😀 It’s always good when comments go in an expanded direction.
I think it is dangerous to play catch-up with vaccines and your sad story shares that fact in a sad way.
I’m amazed that you are unique in that you were diligent about getting your kids inoculated on the proper schedule! Jinkers!
I would absolutely go for the HPV vaccine. It is important and vital to the longterm health of your daughter.
Gordon —
That terrible story you link makes the whole point of our discussion and I thank you for finding it for us.
If you have to delay a trip by a month to make sure your kid is safely inoculated, you wait. Or the kid doesn’t travel.
The family confesses they gambled and lost the health of their son in the least and the most of him in the forlorn future. What a terrible, selfish, waste of a life.
Children look to their parents for protection and a safe harbor — they don’t expect to have their lives risked for convenience.
Did I find it – or did it find me? 🙂 I was watching the news last night and it just popped on in between other news items. “I must,” I thought, “jump right on the urb and tell everyone!” I couldn’t hyperlink to my television screen so I did the next best thing and found an article online. 🙂
Seems like the parents were playing Russian Roulette – and they lost.
Well said, Gordon!
That article definitely found you. I’m glad you weren’t so busy brewing tea not to notice!
I’m glad you were able to find the article online and I am thrilled the media aired that story!
Russian Roulette is precisely the right description! The parents have no sympathy from me but the poor child has my every good wish.