After reading these linked articles (Doctors warn parents to keep newborns at home as whooping cough epidemic escalates and Baby died of whooping cough after being sent home from hospital with "a cold") in the Sunday newspaper, I am riled up about immunisation again.
If you read the articles, you can see why I would be spitting mad about it. The epidemic is entirely due to the fact that there is a trend in some suburbs of Sydney not to vaccinate their children, thus endangering not only their child, but other children around them. Probably the thing that offends me the most, is the idea that these people who are choosing not to vaccinate their children are from well off areas, with high levels of education. It makes my brain ache just thinking about that alone.
Okay, so in the past, I have tried to be respectful of parents choosing not to have their children vaccinated, but I am afraid my patience has worn out. Newborn babies who are too young for their parents to get vaccinated are dying from something that could be prevented. As I have said before, the only reason as to why parents should not get their children vaccinated is if the child is deathly allergic to something in the vaccination. I just can no longer comprehend why a person would actually choose not to have their child vaccinated, and provide them with protection from diseases that could kill, or at the least, maim them. To quote something that has been said to me in the past when the topic came up, can you look your child in the eye and say to them, you are so special that I have chosen for you to get this disease; I have chosen for you that your quality of life shall be adversely affected, and that you may possibly die. Could you say that to your child? Chances are, you may get lucky, but that luck diminishes if other people make the same choice not to have their child vaccinated. Then you get epidemics, just like the one happening in Sydney right now.
I have got to the point where I am so stuck in my thinking that I cannot think of a single valid argument (apart from genuine allergy, naturally) for not getting your children vaccinated. Please, if you do have one, can you tell me?
