Everyone's clutching their pearls at the news of measles outbreaks in the United States, where the disease had been once eradicated due to vaccinations, but this has been happening for years. Mumps, whooping cough and chicken pox are also resurging, and I have heard so many arguments that scare me much worse than the tinfoil theories do. I'm fond of a conspiracy theory as much as the next person, but I know people who don't vaccinate but enter a car every day, which is much deadlier than the risks vaccines pose.
These same people will argue that our immune systems are "meant" to handle these diseases, but I happen to be glad when we can get rid of them and help decrease child mortality, myself. My kid did get chicken pox after being vaccinated, for example, but their experience was much easier than mine. In fact, my kid had such a mild case it was misdiagnosed as something else!
While these memes regarding those against vaccinating might make me chuckle, the freaky reality of parents choosing to not vaccinate remains an unsettling one which threatens everyone. I think in a lot of these cases, if parents understood what it was like to lose a child or to have kids all around you lost to disease, they might take matters more seriously.
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