You might love being home full-time. You might judge stay-at-home moms. You might have a family bed, you might think family beds and co-sleeping is a disastrous and idiotic idea. You might be pro-Tiger parenting. You might be anti-Tiger parenting. Hell, you might be pro-swinging, you might be anti-swinging. I will take all of you. Let’s debate.
But if you are anti-vaccinations for kids, then I think you are uneducated, unwilling to listen to reason and totally willing to needlessly put your kid in harm’s way. Certainly there was a loud thank-you ricocheting across the country when the news finally came out a few weeks ago that all that talk about vaccinations leading to autism proved to be a wasted research investment and not a statistically significant study. Let alone: True. Was anyone else wondering why, once again, the media were just sad lemmings, feeding the story, feeding the fear, feeding the hype and never bothering to actively participate in thorough investigative journalism and actually learn the flaws in the research that one with basic statistical understanding would realize?
It was never an issue in our house whether or not we would vaccinate our kids. It was a no brainer. Then when our eldest was almost two, she fell seriously ill, she was hospitalized, and it took the docs many days to determine the cause. As it turned out, she had a bacterial infection in her bloodstream. After the horrible rollercoaster ride of being told her white blood cell count was “not quite leukemia high but go to the ER immediately,” watching them probe her, watching her misery, and listening to the doctors try to determine what to do next, we were so relieved to have her recover. And then the doctor said “Without vaccines, this might have taken her life.”
Since then, I’ve wanted to actually punch in the face anyone who mouths off against childhood vaccinations.
Imagine my pure pleasure when a friend posted the link to the reputable, science-based New England Journal of Medicine piece basically trashing the anti-vaccinationists out there and the fear they spew.
Way to go NEJM:
“We believe that antivaccinationists have done significant harm to the public health. Ultimately, society must recognize that science is not a democracy in which the side with the most votes or the loudest voices gets to decide what is right.”
Let’s post this on the listserv!
Listen, the best part about being a parent is to criticize other people’s parenting and I agree, a person who doesn’t vaccinate their children from diseases is a complete and utter fool. No matter how hard these people believe anecdotal evidence (stupid Jenny McCarthy!) science has put the nail in the coffin here!