Why is the world at war with vaccines?
What you need to know:
- In America, we now have parents who are convinced vaccinations are a bad thing.
- The Taliban are convinced polio is a scheme by the West to make Muslims subservient to a wicked culture.
- Today, polio is only endemic in three countries — Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
When I was a child, polio was a frightening word. I had friends and neighbours come down with the disease. Within days, they were invalids, unable to walk forever.
When my mother heard the slightest whisper about polio, I was not allowed out of the house — even to go to school. We lived for a decade with this fear — from the discovery of the vaccine in 1952 to the start of vaccinations in 1962.
Today, there are too many who never saw the impact of polio. Imagine a child — except for head, legs and arms — living inside a big metal drum called an iron lung. Polio had robbed him of his ability to breathe correctly, sentencing him to live out his days in this contraption.
ERRONEOUS SCIENCE
In America, we now have parents who are convinced vaccinations are a bad thing. They point to erroneous science that attempts to link vaccines with autism and other health issues.
They claim children can develop immunity naturally. They also like to say vaccines are ineffective and point to the flu vaccine in America, which is a scientific hit and miss each year. And finally, they say America’s clean water and waste systems have chased away many diseases.
The movement is strong and dangerous. An unvaccinated woman, travelling through airports, spread measles to over two dozen people in several states. The disease is so contagious that doctors say most who aren’t vaccinated will get it if they come into contact with an infected person.
The anti-vaccine trend is not just an American issue. I have a friend in Pakistan who has two children under five years of age. She had relied on public health nurses, who visit home to home, to administer the polio vaccine. Now, those nurses are not making the rounds because the Taliban are killing them.
WICKED CULTURE
The Taliban are convinced polio is a scheme by the West to make Muslims subservient to a wicked culture.
So my friend must take her children to a far away hospital for the vaccine. Others are not bothered, believing their children will be safe from polio without the medicine.
In India, I heard stories about women who had polio as children. Their families were selling them to men for sex.
Today, polio is only endemic in three countries — Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. There are worries that it will break out again in Syria because of the war.
I fear polio and other diseases may break out in America — just as the measles did this year. There are simply not enough of us alive who have witnessed what can happen.
