I was dismayed by the article “Vaccine debate heats up in Squamish,” Sept. 3. It is incorrect to say there is a real debate on vaccine safety any more than there is a real debate over the earth being round or flat. Vaccinations have been a boon to humanity and public health over the past century or more.
I grew up in the 1930s and can remember the children in my class in heavy metal leg braces after a polio outbreak, and I remember the lineup to get vaccinated when the polio vaccine became available in the 1950s. In my class at school, two of my classmates died, one from, I think, lockjaw (tetanus) and the other tuberculosis. I also remember the scares when German measles (rubella) were going around and the lengths taken to protect women from exposure due to the horrible birth defects that resulted from rubella. Some children who had measles suffered severe brain damage, and some boys were rendered infertile due to mumps.
I could go on as all these preventable diseases had the potential to be serious.
Every time the media gives credence to nonsense, it sows the seeds of doubt and puts children at risk. It was the media who fuelled the fire by promoting the fraudulent research repeatedly over the past decades. The fallout of this puts our children at risk.
There are a few children who do experience side effects such as anaphylaxis, and while this is tragic, the risk of long-term damage or death from these preventable diseases far outweighs that small number.
Also there are children who due to things like cancer treatment cannot get vaccinated, and some children are too young to receive vaccinations, so whenever a parent makes the choice to put their child at risk, they also put these others at risk. For us to protect all our children, we need to have vaccination rates higher than we presently do to assure immunity.
Dennis Stubley
Squamish
