In 1962, Roald Dahl, author of the beloved children’s stories “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “Matilda” and “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” lost his 7-year-old daughter to measles encephalitis, a complication of contracting the measles virus. It causes inflammation of the brain, which in turn causes seizures, brain damage and, in this case, death.
Dahl shared his story with the Sandwell Health Authority in Britain, hoping to show the importance of vaccinations. He said, “I was unable to do that for Olivia in 1962 because, in those days, a reliable measles vaccine had not been discovered. Today, a good and safe vaccine is available to every family, and all you have to do is to ask your doctor to administer it.”
If Dahl was aware of this fact in 1988, then there is no justification for the outbreak of measles in California in 2015, almost 30 years later, which occurred simply because measles is highly contagious and parents have decided that vaccinations are somehow unnecessary.
In 2013 alone, there were 145,700 deaths caused by measles globally, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Most of those were children under five years of age. The WHO also reported that measles, caused by a virus, is one of the leading causes of death in small children.
So why wouldn’t parents choose to vaccinate their children against measles when the WHO said 15.6 million deaths were prevented from 2000 to 2013, and the percentage of deaths dropped 75 percent, because of immunizations?
The simple answer is ignorance. The irrational parents who choose not to vaccinate their children and openly oppose vaccinations are “anti-vaxxers.” They ironically believe shots are dangerous to their kids’ health instead of the actual diseases they are proven to prevent. Meanwhile, there is no evidence that supports the claim that the measles vaccine itself is dangerous.
A more complex answer to this question is politics. New Jersey governor Chris Christie believes parents should be able to choose whether or not to vaccinate their children. Because there is a choice, parents who are misinformed and paranoid don’t vaccinate their kids, even when they are healthy enough to receive them and lack a religious exemption.
Kentucky senator Rand Paul also supports this concept of choice, and he stated it’s a matter of “freedom.” Paul is an ophthalmologist. Given his expertise, albeit strictly optical, in the medical field, one would think he would endorse vaccinations and help educate people about the benefits of vaccinating; but, instead, he’s jumped on the bandwagon of ignorance. Let’s not forget that one’s liberty and freedom shouldn’t infringe on the liberty and freedom of others, which choosing not to vaccinate clearly violates.
Politicians aren’t doctors, with the exception of Paul, so technically they shouldn’t have anything to say against the science of vaccines, especially when they’re just plain wrong.
President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both agree that vaccinations are safe and very necessary. Obama stated in an interview with NBC, “There is every reason to get vaccinated — there aren’t reasons to not. The science is pretty indisputable.” Clinton tweeted, “The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork. Let’s protect all our kids. #GrandmothersKnowBest.”
Parents who don’t vaccinate their children are inconsiderate. Society is put at risk when anti-vaxxers’ kids get sick with something like measles because they put a bull’s-eye on the ones who are vulnerable: infants and young children, those who already suffer from an illness and the elderly. Those who choose not to vaccinate also endanger individuals who don’t even have a choice because they can’t get vaccinated: infants and those with certain auto-immune diseases.
When Ana Jacks, a pediatrician and mother of two, took her 10-month-old baby to Phoenix Children’s Hospital clinic, she probably wasn’t expecting to have to quarantine her baby because he was exposed to the measles virus. The baby, too young to receive vaccines, shows signs of the virus and puts his vulnerable older sister, who has leukemia, in danger.
Jacks wrote in a letter to the anti-vaxxer parent who endangered her family, “Towards you, I feel anger and frustration at your choices. We get to watch for measles symptoms and pray for no fevers (or back to the hospital we go). Thanks for exposing 195 children to an illness considered ‘eliminated’ from the US. Your poor choices don’t just affect your child. They affect my family and many more like us.”
The claim that vaccines cause issues like mental retardation and autism is both ludicrous and offensive. There’s no evidence that links immunizations with the development of mental retardation. The correlation is an unfounded myth that Rand Paul, the ophthalmologist, supported and then later refuted. The study that connected vaccinations with autism was discredited in 2010, the author stripped of his license to practice medicine. And yet the conspiracy continues.
Teighlor Raelene Fiddler, who is autistic, commented on a Facebook post about blaming vaccines for autism. She said, “It never ceases to amaze me how scared anti-vaxxers are of autism. They rather have dead children than have children like me.” The baseless fear of retardation and autism has no ground in science and is insensitive to those who suffer from them.
We’re not living in the Middle Ages where we’re constantly plagued by epidemics that kill off half our population. Luckily, we don’t live in these kinds of conditions, thanks to science, biology and, ultimately, vaccines. We no longer deal with diseases like polio because we wiped them out — with immunizations. With an immune population, it’s close to impossible for a disease or virus to take root and flourish.
Maybe if anti-vaxxers considered that vaccines are not just for preventing disease in individuals, but also for stopping widespread cases of the disease, they would trust science instead of their imaginations.
Diseases like measles are able to spread so quickly and easily not just because of their virulence, but also because of the people who choose to not protect themselves and their families, and in turn choose not to protect society.
