Taking the cure

I got a flu shot this week. Mostly because I went to town with my parents, and they believe it is vital. I never want to insult them, but I don't expect them to be so familiar with the science and epidemiology associated with flu epidemics and the theory behind public immunization.

Some people are very sensitive about this issue. I discovered, inadvertently, that our next-door neighbor does not get immunization for his children. They school the children at home,too, so they avoid problems with public health bureaucracy.  Medical studies have resolved this issue, but people still have doubts.

I am afraid I touched on sensitive feelings, spouting off about immunization and the irresponsible parents who fail to participate in public immunization programs.  He came back on the defensive. with some arguments about mercury and autism, and I was taken aback, because it surprised me to realize that he was one of the parents I was talking about.

Suffice it to say that not all who hold their children out of immunization are ignorant simpletons.  There are real issues of concern about immunization safety and problems that may result as side-effects of the vaccine.  Parents are responsible for making this decision about whether or not the children will be exposed to the risk of disease form the shots, or from childhood disease. The threat of widespread epidemic is so much reduced by public immunization, there may be a higher risk for isolated individuals who participate than those who don't.

On the other hand, I understand that some of the reduced risk factor depends on large populations being vaccinated.  Those who don't participate are protected from disease by those around them, who are vaccinated. They benefit from the risk-taking that others are exposed to. That doesn't necessarily paint a very complementary picture of the non-participants. We have to weigh in the realization that in reality, there are no non-participants, and the immunized children protect the others from disease.

I am concerned, too, that today's younger parents do not have the perspective of knowing first-hand the horrifying death and devastating disease that swept through the population, striking so many at random. They have never seen someone with misshapen limbs twisted by childhood polio, for example, or seen their friend locked in an iron lung, struggling just for a free breath. They don't realize what an amazingly effective job public immunization has done of eliminating childhood diseases from our population.

I witness, somewhat bemused at the huge public outrage against Chinese baby milk, contaminated with melamine, and imagine the millions who would have been wiped out without a chance, but for widespread immunizations that have made so many public epidemics a thing of the past -- perhaps a past forgotten too soon. I hope we don't have to re-learn the lessons of epidemics and scourges long-past. Our ancestors paid far too dearly to learn that lesson the first time.

In a long-past time, I remember all the children at the grade school, lining up at the school cafeteria for their shots. I recall how frightened I was at the time. No one bothered to explain to us about the horrible disease they were fighting. At the time, we only knew that the syringe was painful and threatening. Some of the children were sobbing in fear before the vaccine was even injected. But most of us endured the fright, and were thus protected from childhood disease.