Lots of things worry me about the current political and social climate in America. Some are head-shakers for their sheer stupidity, like the woman who wanted a religious exemption for her dog not to get a rabies vaccination because he is a Christian. Or the Florida legislature that is entertaining a bill to make discussing being gay against the law in public schools. However, nothing struck me with as much terror as the report on this morning’s Atlanta news. There is a bill circulating in the Georgia legislature to do away with ALL vaccine mandates in public schools. If passed, it will be a death sentence for thousands, maybe millions, of children. What are these people thinking?
Across the United States in 1916, polio took the lives of about 6,000 people, leaving thousands more paralyzed ( https://www.historyofvaccines.org/timeline#EVT_100303). Not a single case of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) was reported this week. There are no cases reported in 2021 (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj-wvqn-1AhVNmGoFHRKTCtEQFnoECAIQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fpolioeradication.org%2Fpolio-today%2Fpolio-now%2Fthis-week%2F&usg=AOvVaw3BdfUEH5m9mNnQ0cm4NrQA).
Why? Why would we want to go backwards?
Vaccines don’t wipe out the disease; they just protect us from becoming infected. I watched my daughter struggle to survive post-mumps encephalitis before the mumps vaccine became readily available. It wasn’t a cute childhood disease!
Carole J. Garrison 