I feel like the problem is that too many never experienced or witnessed the horror that these diseases caused and take for granted the huge scientific advances we have made to eradicate them.
I agree.
I am so thankful that we have science that helps us prevent these horrible diseases and will never understand anyone who believes the quacks out there.
I want to first say that my own DS had all his childhood vaccines on time except, as someone else mentioned, Gardasil - which he got late because it was so new.
But when he was little, I
do remember being scared, and I think I
can understand why people make what I ultimately considered to be the wrong decision. - I think what's running through their heads is that if you don't vaccinate, and your kid gets sick, you missed an opportunity to prevent it, but there's an element of bad luck (or fate, or whatever you believe in) in there as well. Something bad happened
to your child. You could have tried to prevent it (which
probably would have worked) but you didn't directly
do it. On the other hand, if you vaccinate, and your kid is one of the
very rare cases that has a dangerous reaction, it's something
you directly did to them.
And our society blames parents for
everything, in ways it never used to. There's so much pressure - as if every little decision you make has the potential to screw up your child for life. I think people are more afraid of feeling guilty than they are of the diseases themselves (see quote above - because they haven't actually
seen what those diseases can do). Add to that the fact they we are inundated with conflicting information (way more than our own parents - most of whom left the research to their family doctors and just trusted them) and it's no wonder people get confused.
the suffering it can cause is epic. There's a new two-stage vaccine available for older adults that is apparently safer and much more effective than the previous one. I've got an appointment to be vaccinated later this month.
