Previously, I discussed one of the oldest and most noxious anti-vaccine talking points, “Why should you worry about my unvaccinated child if vaccines work so well?” and linked to an article from 2011 titled Why Worry About the Unvaccinated? that supplied the obvious answer:
When a very high percentage of people are vaccinated there’s very little chance that the vaccine-preventable disease will spread through the community. But if not enough people are vaccinated, then the disease can pass from person to person, increasing the risk for everyone, but especially for those who aren’t (or can’t be) vaccinated.
The article correctly noted that some children are “too young to get vaccinated” while others have “a compromised immune system.” It appropriately noted that these weren’t mere theoretical talking points. Real children had been hurt. It said:
There are children like Maggie, diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (blood cancer), who can’t be vaccinated against diseases like measles. After finishing her last round of chemotherapy, she was discharged from the hospital and went that same afternoon to a clinic for lab work. At the clinic, she was exposed to a patient with measles. After the exposure Maggie was given shots of measles antibodies. She thankfully survived, but it was a scary time for her and her family.
Or take baby Brie. Unlike Maggie, Brie didn’t survive the vaccine-preventable disease she was exposed to. Brie caught pertussis (whooping cough) when she was less than a month old. Her family said goodbye to her on her 52nd day of life, just seven days shy of being eligible for the pertussis vaccine.
Maggie was immunocompromised and Brie was not yet eligible for the pertussis vaccine, but anyone can become seriously sick from disease as well.
Two recent new stories show that these still aren’t theoretical talking points.
The first article was titled Boy, 7, Dies of Brain Condition Caused by Measles — Years Later. It said:
He had contracted measles as a baby of just 7 months old — but fast-forward years later to when he was 6 and experiencing cognitive deterioration and seizures.
Doctors eventually diagnosed him with subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE), a neurological disease that can develop years after a measles infection.
This brain disorder usually starts with subtle personality changes, like memory loss, irritability or mood swings. Over time, it can progress to involuntary muscle spasms, loss of coordination, severe brain damage, coma — and almost always death.
The second article was titled A Teen Girl’s Harrowing Journey With Measles Highlights How Serious the Virus Can be for the Immunocompromised. It said:
When 14-year-old Makayla Skjerva came home from school last month complaining that the side of her neck was hurting, her parents didn’t think she had much more than a mild illness.
However, that symptom soon progressed to body aches, a fever and a noticeable rash. Then came notifications from the health department and Makayla’s school that a measles exposure may have occurred at the school gym.
Soon after, Makayla, from Cavalier, North Dakota, tested positive for measles and her health rapidly declined. She was quickly hospitalized and had to be transferred to another state by air ambulance to receive care…
Her stepmother, Ashley Skjerva, told ABC News that Makayla was vaccinated against measles but, because she is immunocompromised, it left her at high risk for infection and serious complications.
“Makayla is a fighter but the fight’s not over,” Ashley said. “We’re all trying to hold ourselves together and it’s been very difficult. I’m just glad she’s here still. That’s all I keep saying to myself.”
Herd immunity could have prevented this. In both cases, strangers made selfish, uninformed decisions that devastated these children and their families.
However, a third article reveals yet another reason why we should care about the needless suffering of unvaccinated children. The article was titled Mom of 7-Year-Old Hospitalized with Brain Swelling from Measles: ‘I Still Wouldn’t Have Given my Son the Vaccine’. It said:
Six weeks ago, Ethan was like most 7-year-olds — spending the weekend riding his new bike or playing Minecraft on his iPad on a rainy day.
“He just learned how to ride, he got the hang of it right away,” Ethan’s dad, Luis, said proudly. “He wanted to go outside because he wanted to jump on his bike…it was an amazing thing for him.”
Instead, since late January, the schoolboy has been confined to a hospital bed with measles encephalitis, a complication that causes swelling and inflammation in the brain. “He’s pretty much as if he was paralyzed,” his devastated father, 41, told The Independent in a phone interview from his son’s hospital bedside.
Ethan’s parents decided not to immunize him against measles as they did with his three brothers. Three out of four of them contracted measles. Still, despite Ethan’s ordeal, his mom stands by their decision. “We’re not blaming God for this,” said 35-year-old Kristina. “Yes, it hurts, of course, it hurts. But God has chosen Ethan for a reason. God is doing something, and we’re gonna glorify his name regardless.
“And we wouldn’t change it any other way,” the mom continued. “If I knew this could be the outcome, I still wouldn’t have given my son the vaccine.”
“Our biggest reason why we didn’t do it is just with all the unnecessary stuff they add into it,” Kristina added, referring to her beliefs about the vaccine. “With my own eyes, I have seen the damage it does to kids who are perfectly normal, and then once they get it, they’re not the same anymore,” she claimed.
Ethan’s mom is wrong. Her son and other children like him didn’t have to suffer this way. A simple vaccine could have prevented all this, and normal people don’t want any child- even a stranger’s child- to suffer or die because their parents were tricked by anti-vaccine disinformation.
In contrast, the leaders of the movement, those who profit by lying to Ethan’s mom about “unnecessary stuff” in vaccines, don’t care at all.