I read the letter to the editor by Warren Goodwin concerning immunizations and I was in shock. First, I am very sorry for the loss of his son and I will never say that there are no reactions to immunizations.
We see mild reactions frequently (local redness and tenderness), minor complications in one in 100 (low fever and malaise for a few days), but severe complications are less than one in a million.
You must be younger and not remember the polio epidemics of the 1950s where parents were afraid to send their children to school for fear of getting the polio virus.
This was the beginning of the March of Dimes, which almost eliminated polio.
Now, Rotary has made a great effort to eliminate polio from every corner of the world, and they are very close.
Immunizations have done more to lengthen our lives than any other medical advance.
Small pox killed 90 per cent of the North and South American native population after European “discovery.” In 1976, small pox was eliminated from the world mostly due to immunization.
For public health reasons, children who are not immunized should not be allowed in school.
If all parents are required to take their school-age children to the health unit for immunization, many children will not be immunized due to this added inconvenience in our busy lives.
Any person who discourages immunization does not realize that the benefit far outweighs the risk.
There are many serious illnesses that are still present in our environment and require us to be immunized.
The only reason we do not see these illnesses frequently is that most people are immunized, so it doesn’t have a chance to spread.
That is named herd immunity.
If you decrease the number of immunized people, then you increase the frequency of the disease in your community.
This is the 21st century and we have made great progress in public health and now we live longer than ever in history.
Steven DeBella
Vernon
