Dear Editor,
Creative how you used the measles vaccination topic to encapsulate many environmental protest issues and again cunningly managed to bash Harper and the Conservatives [Anti-vaxxers holding back extinction, Feb. 10 Odd Thoughts, Langley Advance].
If you support anything environmental, you must therefore be hippy-branded anti-Harper? One or the other?
Odd Thoughts didn’t mention astrology, but the twilight zone came to mind.
I don’t know how you exaggerate the issue by connecting anti-vaxxers to species extinction contributors. The planet has more than seven billion people, and most still have never heard of vaccinations.
I tend to believe vaccinations do more good than harm, but I like to hear both sides of the story without degrading mothers who have contrary opinions.
In my childhood the vast majority of us had measles, mumps, and a few other contagious diseases before vaccinations became available.
There are plenty of good reasons to be skeptical, as nobody is right all the time. Also the medical profession and pharmaceutical industry have made many blunders along the way, such as Thalidomide and many others.
Did you ever wonder why big-pharma is exempt from lawsuits against vaccines?
The story goes that measles were almost eradicated in North America, although I have my doubts about Mexico. If that’s the case, why in past years risk injections on infants for such a remote problem?
Is it the resident anti-vaxxers who reintroduced the measles, and if so, how did they contact it if it was eradicated? Tourism from other countries probably re-introduced it. Note that the small pocket incident cases arose in the tourist destination Disneyland.
The media is bandwagon promoting the pro-vaccination side with smug assertions and attempting to demean and socially stigmatize young mothers who are anti-vax skeptics.
Rightly or otherwise, those mothers should be given some respect as they sincerely believe they are protecting their infants from big pharma injecting them with chemical drugs and many disease viruses that could harm them.
A public health campaign to dispel questionable myths is a more appropriate way to handle it, while maintaining parents autonomy of their children.
Roland Seguin, Fernridge
