Sure, I read the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal every day. I also visit a number of online newspapers from the Washington Post to the Haitian Time to Kenya's Daily Nation. But my one guilty pleasure remains the New York Post.
Politically, the Post is about a million miles to the right of where I am. And it's true that the paper's ink rubs off on your fingers as quickly as the "gold" from a dime store engagement ring. But the one thing the Post has that the others don't is Liz Smith. With everything that's happening in our world today, why in the world would someone buy a paper (that just doubled its price, by the way, to half a buck) just to read a gossip columnist?
Well, she hails from my neck of the woods, for starters. Her Texas twang isn't so different from my Oklahoma twang. She's also a great writer. And she supports some very worthy causes. And, because I just like her.
One day this week I picked up Post and, after reading Liz' column, I spotted a little article I'd not seen in any of the other papers. This article, buried near the sports section, indicated a steep rise in measles cases in New York. In fact, the city Department of Health reports that by May 1 there were five times more cases of measles reported than were found in all of 2007.
While measles might not be the threat it once was, it's still a serious disease. How is it spreading? Why are the number of cases increasing? Seems there is a growing sentiment among parents against vaccinating their children.
Since I have only a pit bull as a "daughter," I won't pretend to understand why parents would opt to not vaccinate their kids against preventable diseases.
In my relatively short tenure with CMMB I have seen children in Kenya, Zambia, and Haiti who are dying from preventable diseases. The numbers of such deaths worldwide are staggering. According to Jean-Pierre Habicht, a professor of epidemiology and nutritional sciences at Cornell University, 11 million children die every year from diseases that are preventable.
In developing nations, where medicines and healthcare workers are scarce, I can understand how this might happen. It is horrifying to me, but I can at least get my head around it. But in the United States? How is this possible? Don't schools require children to be immunized before they are enrolled? Cost can't be an issue because virtually every insurance plan including Medicaid pays for immunizations.
Organizations like CMMB work day in and day out to lower the death rate of children around the world. Why, then, would a parent in the U.S. choose not to protect a child? I have no answer to that question, but I sure hope someone else will offer one that will help me understand.
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5 comments:
Clearly you don't have school age children. If you did--and if you were enlightened at all- you would know the dangers that are present for imonizing the kids. You should stick with what you know
Yes, there are dangers from preventative immunizations. I just received an email from a family member who gave birth to a healthy little boy. At 13 months of age, he was active, aware of his surroundings, and even spoke 10 or so words. At that age, he was given his MRR shot the same day as he was given one for chicken-pox. From that point on, everything change. He no longer recognize his mother, ceased to be active and lost the ability to speak the words he had learned. After the family's long struggle, he was diagnosed as having autism.
I understand this is not an isolated case, but is happening throughout the country.
Parent's really do have a reason to avoid letting their children become immunized.
Elaine
I'm grateful for the comments on this posting. I, too, have read about autism being potentially linked to childhood immunizations. The evidence, though, is still quite vague. I'm not a parent, but I believe I would still make certain my child had his shots rather than risk infection from a preventable disease. While measles, for example, might not seem to be a huge health threat, infection can cause substantial problems both individually and globally.
I'm grateful for the comments on this posting. I, too, have read about autism being potentially linked to childhood immunizations. The evidence, though, is still quite vague. I'm not a parent, but I believe I would still make certain my child had his shots rather than risk infection from a preventable disease. While measles, for example, might not seem to be a huge health threat, infection can cause substantial problems both individually and globally.
It doesn't seem that vague, Scott, when you see parents of a child with autism after receiving their immunization shots.
The mother had written to me and didn't say NOT to get the vaccinations, but not to necessarily listen to the AMA guidelines; instead, spread the various shots out.
She has spent the last 5 years (the little guy is now 6) researching autism - and she still holds this was the cause.
She also read the statistics of autistic children: 20 years ago 1 in 10,000 had autism. Currently, it's 1 in 150! If this is the case, we must be doing something terribly wrong!!
Elaine
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