A Confederate Yankee
By Bill Mayers
(Town of Sullivan, NY – May 2014) A recent issue of USA Today talks about a topic close to the heart; that topic is vaccination against disease. The article talks about killers that don’t have to be, but which are on the comeback across America.
I’m of an age where I recall rubella tea parties. Parents of small children would get together at the home of a child newly diagnosed with rubella to deliberately expose us to the illness in the belief it was better to get it early and get it over with. The medical establishment knew that the older one was when one contracted this, or any of several common diseases of childhood, the greater the risk of serious complications.
And I remember a cool spring morning in Oklahoma when the neighborhood elementary school was shut down for the day and the health department came in. Parents and school-aged children stood in lines as far as I could see – about three blocks – to ensure that we got our polio shots. I recall the mother in front of mine bursting into tears as her little one got the needle. My mother put an arm around the other, who loudly pronounced blessings upon Jonas Salk for removing the dread of polio.
My mother agreed, as did others in that line.
Pouting, I declared “I don’ want no shot!”
Mama’s open palm contacted my posterior rather sharply, and I got the shot anyway.
I’ve related that experience to younger folks and often as not get a blank stare in return. It seems inconceivable to many how those diseases of the past could inspire such terror. But it did, and it’s my opinion that not realizing that fear has led some parents to discount the risks of those illnesses and to decide to forgo immunizations for their children.
As a result, illnesses that should have been wiped off the face of the earth are making a comeback, and that’s tragic. Measles. Chicken pox. Whooping cough. Meningitis. Polio. Even smallpox, for Pete’s sake!
Every one of these illnesses, once so very common, can bring on complications that can be tragic. And it simply does not have to be this way. It is this way because a growing number of parents are choosing not to have their children – or themselves – immunized, and for no good reason. People assume these dreadful things will never happen to them and their families … until it does.
Some people still believe the totally debunked idea that vaccines cause autism. Others distrust the government or pharmaceutical companies. Some also mutter that no vaccine is a 100-percent guarantee against a particular illness, so they decline the vaccination.
Still others point to the exceptionally rare cases where a vaccine has itself brought on serious complications and refuse to subject themselves or their children to that exceptionally small, yet real, risk.
And finally, there are those deluded people who insist the Bible supports their decision.
That last idea – I studied Bible at Northwest Christian College in Eugene, Ore., several years before x-ray school and nursing school, and I say there’s no scripture that tells anybody to avoid vaccinations or any other measure aimed at preventing disease.
Do infectious diseases help children strengthen their bodies? Well, there are diseases that, should a person contract one and survive, will not return because the disease itself confers immunity. Yellow Jack, or Yellow fever, is one such. Bubonic plague is another, and so is smallpox … though the latter two can leave exceedingly ugly, lifelong scarring. I’m not at all sure that sort of thing can be said to “strengthen” the body; indeed, the medical profession is discovering that this sort of approach can actually weaken the immune system and leave the person more vulnerable to future illness.
So what does all this have to do with Madison County in upstate New York? It has everything to do with us. There are adults and children living among us who’re not immunized. A case of meningitis turned a healthy, happy, active boy of 6 into a 10-year-old without hands, feet, ears, parts of his eyelids and part of his jaw. The kid had not been immunized, and an outbreak in his school in Oklahoma had infected him and five others, two of whom died.
How do you suppose his mother feels about having to fit prosthetic arms on the boy every day, dress him – even wipe his bottom after every bowel movement? How do you suppose you’d feel if he were your kid? And how do you suppose your neighbor would feel about you if your kid transmitted a disease like that to her kid?
Diseases can be very contagious even before observable symptoms show up, so, yes, that very thing is, indeed, possible. Tell ya what: if one of my granddaughters came down with one of these illnesses because you failed to have your kid immunized, you and I would meet in court.
Let’s forgo the dreadful possibilities: get your family up-to-date on current immunizations.
William D. “Bill” Mayers RT, RN, of Sullivan is a retired senior U.S. Army Corpsman. A certified healthcare professional since 1964, he holds two professional licenses, including that of Registered Professional Nurse licensed in New York, Alaska, Virginia and Louisiana. He has four children, two stepchildren, three grandchildren and is an avid analyst of current events.