Bethany's Calendar

When you read the title of this blog, you may have wondered if I was going to suggest that vaccinations cause cancer. That could not be further from the truth.

What I am suggesting is that, with the thousands of cancer patients who have suppressed immune systems (i.e. they can catch any illness that is within breathing distance), folks who choose NOT to vaccinate their children should keep them FAR AWAY from folks with cancer.

In the United States, we are currently undergoing a measles outbreak. It seems so foreign to many, since measles vaccine has been around for decades. Much publicity has been dedicated to the deleterious side effects of vaccines. In fact, there can be bad side effects to immunizations. Are the bad side effects common? No. Do vaccines usually prevent the very illness they are intended to immunize against? Yes.

Many years ago there was a terrible plague called polio. Throughout history, there were instances noted of polio-like illnesses and by 1910, frequent epidemics spread throughout the world. But the worst epidemic peaked in the 1940’s and 1950’s. The disease paralyzed or killed over half a million people worldwide every year.

My older sister was a victim of polio. She did not die, but has lifelong side effects that still impact her health.

In the 1950’s a miracle seemed to occur in medicine with the development of one, then a second more effective, vaccine to battle the polio virus. By 1961, only 161 cases were reported in the United States.

Now we are seeing the rise of another illness that has been previously under tight control with the use of a vaccine. The disease is called measles.

In 2004, there were only 37 cases of measles in this country. Compare that with 644 cases in 2014, and it is cause for concern. In the first 31 days of 2015, 102 people have already been diagnosed with the illness. Statistics are available on the CDC website.

Most of these cases are in children and adults who are either unimmunized for measles or underimmunized, meaning they’ve only had one shot. It takes two injections to provide adequate immunity.

Measles is highly contagious and seems to be spreading. Symptoms are a rash and fever. Victims can be contagious for four days before a rash develops. Measles can also cause pneumonia, brain damage, deafness and death.

So where is the connection with cancer (a topic of interest to me since my own daughter died of that disease)? Imagine a child exposed to measles and possibly carrying the disease, being around someone on chemotherapy or undergoing radiation, whose ability to fight any illness is severely compromised. The thought sends a feeling of dread through me.

In this country, we are free to decide whether or not we immunize our children. But that choice can have deadly consequences for ourselves and others—something to think about when getting the real facts about vaccinations for children. Please be informed.

Sometimes studying history can tell us just how bad epidemics can be.

“Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.” Edmund Burke