One America, Or Two?

I grew up in the '60s and caught absolutely nothing...

I was the beneficiary of a rigorous childhood vaccination program that was administered to me and my schoolmates in elementary school.

I remember the shots by air guns and needles and the oral doses that we all lined up in the school auditorium to recieve.

Although some of my school aged pals would come down with occasional cases of mumps or the measles, others and myself did not.

I've never had any childhood disease. I never knew of a case of a bad reaction from any vaccination either. I was quite willing to take that moment of pain from an airgun or a needle than to have to endure the illness from a disease.

Quite frankly until recently, until the advent of the anti-vax movement, I presumed that my experience at a young age would be consistent with kids today, recieving vaccinations of their own and also protecting them from the same diseases that I completely avoided.

I was wrong, obviously. I'm also incredulous that parents, who have for the most part also benefited from the same childhood vaccination program that protected them, would skip out on those protections for their own kids.

What the hell are these people thinking?

Vaccinations not only protect our kids and ourselves, they protect the community as a whole.

I still have the vaccination scar on my left arm and I wear it as a badge of honor. During my lifetime, I've seen the same mark on the arms of others who were around my age. I considered it mark of protection.

Before me, a lot of other kids didn't have the same form of protection as I, and sickness was quite common. But since the program we've gone a long time without the outbreaks of childhood diseases, that I thought could've been easily avoided.

But we're regressing in that arena, are we not?

Anti-vaxxers are a selfish, illinformed and dangerous lot who are not only putting themselves and their own children in jeopardy but the rest of us as well. Anti-vax philosophy has far ranging consequences beyond the people who've adopted it.

It's practically insane.