WASHINGTON, DC – November 4, 2018 – Lately I have been hearing that some parents are reluctant to get their children vaccinated, citing problems like autism as being part of the reason why they don’t want to do this. As the grandmother of a child with autism, and having been diagnosed along with my own son as having ADHD – attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which is now considered to be on the lower end of the autism spectrum – I am fairly convinced that there is a genetic connection and that this has nothing to do with vaccinations.
In the 20th century, polio, measles, smallpox, and whooping cough were feared diseases that were responsible for many deaths of children all over the world. These diseases have almost been eradicated worldwide with the introduction of vaccines. The polio vaccine was discovered by Dr. Jonas Salk in 1954. Testing would be considered very controversial today, as it was done on children who were considered to be mentally retarded. Subsequently, about one million children, now known as the polio vaccine pioneers, were given the new vaccine, and in April 1955 it was pronounced safe. While I am eternally grateful to these children, I’m certain I wouldn’t want my own children to be used as guinea pigs for any kind of medical research.
For those children who were afflicted with the disease, polio left them paralyzed, unable to even breathe for themselves, and destined to spend the rest of their often very short lives encased in an 800lb iron lung machine to force their lungs to keep working. To this day there are still about 39 people who use an iron lung. One of them is Martha Ann Lillard, now 70 years old, who has spent 65 years in an iron lung, at least half a day every day. Another is Paul Alexander, of Texas, who has to spend almost his entire day, every day of his life, in the machine. This is a link to an article about their lives, and the concerns and fears they have. It is worth a read to get an idea of the horrors of living with polio. https://gizmodo.com/the-last-of-the-iron-lungs-1819079169
So, why are some parents so against vaccinations for their children? Apparently there are a variety of reasons, most of them seemingly linked to conspiracy theories, and misinformation. One of the newest ones is that vaccinations are linked to autism, as previously mentioned. However, 30 years of research has come up with no connection at all. Then there is the theory that we are being lied to by the CDC (Centres for Disease Control) and that somehow they are tied to a sinister group of people who are trying to create a New World Order. This would mean that there was a huge global conspiracy afoot, involving all 195 countries on the planet, which really would be hard to pull off, considering that some countries are at war with each other, or have ideologies that don’t agree with others.
Research of over 5,000 people in 24 different countries has shown that the majority of people who are against vaccinations are also more likely to be conspiracy theorists, getting their information from unreliable sources on the internet who convince them that there is little research to support the safety of vaccines. In fact, research has shown that the rate of injury from vaccines is about one in a million. Although the groups of people who are now known as anti-vaxxers are really quite small, they are becoming very vocal, spreading their message around the internet. We live in a world that has all but eradicated diseases that our grandparents feared, and so we do not have any memory of the widespread panic and suffering that smallpox, whooping cough, diphtheria, measles and polio caused.
Martha Ann Lillard is a living testament to the horror of polio, and has expressed her fears that if people stop vaccinating their children it won’t be long before these terrible diseases come back. In the link above she talked about how in Syria polio vaccinations had been stopped about three or four years ago, and already there have been 17 confirmed cases of polio amongst children. The Minnesota Department of Health recently confirmed an outbreak of measles that affected 65 children. All but three of the children had not been vaccinated. It should be understood that vaccination may not totally prevent a person from contracting the disease, but it will have far less impact than if the person was not vaccinated.
In France, vaccination is compulsory; you can go to jail if you do not have your children vaccinated. There are a number of other reasons floated around for not doing it, and one of them is that you cannot sue for injury resulting from vaccinations. This is absolutely not true, but I noted in my research that in the UK and France, the courts are definitely not overwhelmed with lawsuits against companies producing vaccines.
Every year we flock to get our flu shots, knowing that the shot cannot protect us against every strain of flu, but that it will lessen the impact. Every year we hear of children and the elderly dying from the flu, who did not get the vaccine. Last year there were a few deaths involving very healthy young adults. The cost of vaccines compared to the cost of treating the diseases is very small. Losing your life is far too high a price to pay for not getting the protection.
As with anything that is going to have a major impact on our lives, we should make sure that we are well informed before making such an important decision about protecting the lives of our children. I would urge parents to sit down and talk to their medical practitioners and get all the information from them, rather than from obscure web sites that have no medical accreditation. Contrary to what some of those sites say, doctors are not in the pay of big pharma companies that make the vaccines. Compared to the top 20 money making medications, vaccines are not at all costly, but the cost of medical care for the diseases that they protect us from would be astronomical. We should also consider that as this planet goes through climate change, and gets warmer, viruses and bacteria may be spread more easily.
But some people think that is a conspiracy theory too, don’t they?
