Please get your kids vaccinated
Just…please.
Anti-vaccination fervor on my local parenting list has reached panic levels, and so far there have been a grand total of TWO posts begging people to not drink the Kool-Aid. And one of them was written by me.
Vaccines save lives. End of story. To everyone who says that it’s “a complicated issue,” I would like to ask you - do you want your kid to die of polio? If the answer is NO, then get them vaccinated. There, I just uncomplicated it for you. Now go read what Science-Based Medicine has to say on the issue, because those guys are smart.
March 26th, 2008 at 8:05 am
Thank you for saying this.
No one wants to put their child at risk. But there it is: don’t put children at risk. Saying “there’s no measles/mumps/whatever in our area, so why risk it?” is a very shortsighted view.
It is good to ask questions, but - seriously? - measles, whooping cough, and more making a comeback in this country in the 21st century is ridiculous.
March 27th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
In this month’s Brain, Child Magazine, vaccination was the cover story. A sort of leaning one way perspective, but also some balance.
I think it’s very telling that all of the NICU docs and PICU docs I’ve encountered have been hugely pro-vaccines. These folks are much less worried about herd immunity and more worried about the health of my critters since they spent so much time making sure that my critters would survive. They all said, ‘Yeah there are risks, but there are bigger risks the other direction and your critter is a fragile enough creature that [insert disease] would be terrible.”