Throwback Thursday from 2/5/2015

I Got Your Measles Right Here

Boy, there is a real hoo-haw going on about whether or not kids should be immunized against a number of diseases.

It appears to me that the bulk of the screaming and pontificating about “freedom” is coming from the arugula and quinoa crowd, aka the parents who were themselves immunized as children, but who now think that risking their children is a good way of showing the world their Haight-Ashbury free-spiritedness while thumbing their nose at “The Man.”

 When I hear someone ranting about the intellectual freedom to refuse immunization I wonder if they also rankle about being “free” to have their kids cross the street while the “don’t walk” sign is flashing or share in daddy’s stash .

I lived in the old Haight-Ashbury neighborhood for 15 years and I heard such twisted logic being espoused every day. That is why this whole vaccination flap sounds so familiar. For some people Stupidity equals Freedom.

Growing up in the 1950s the number of immunizations available for me was limited. Lacking many of the vaccinations available today, I had Measles, Chicken Pox, Mumps, (but only on one side, go figure) and Rubella. These diseases were widespread and killed a frightening number of children.

Whenever the doctor told my parents that I had one of these diseases he also had to notify the Public Health Officer who would then come to our house with a staple gun and attach a sign on the front door saying, “Quarantine.” When that sign went up it meant that no one, and they meant NO ONE was allowed to enter or leave the house until the sickness passed. My father got caught by that several times. My mom would pack him a suitcase and put it on the front porch and he would spend the next week or so at a motel.

Such fun for everybody.

The only good thing that came out of this, beside the fact that I survived, is that I have managed to pick up quite an array of antibodies. My blood should be the thickness of pea soup after having all of those diseases.

And here we are sixty years later and a mismatched set of idiots are saying that protecting their children from deadly diseases is a “freedom issue.”

 What unadulterated BS that is.

I wonder if they are opposed to the polio vaccine as well. Probably. If it makes common sense they are against it.

I suggest that we take those parents, sit them down and force them to watch newsreels from the 1950s about the annual polio outbreaks and what it did to children. Make these fools spend a day trapped inside an Iron Lung (look it up). Make them wear the steel leg braces on their way to the Whole Foods store so they can feel the pain and watch the blood running down their legs.

I know that my blog is usually light-hearted and a bit goofy, but damn it, these people have just pissed me off.

Yes, people do have the right to be stupid, but I think that freedom exists only for them and cannot be foisted onto others.

Refusing to protect your children from diseases that still exist and can kill is proof that these fools are unfit parents. If mommy and daddy let the kiddies play with a loaded pistol, or take meth along with their cookies, those kids would be in foster care before sundown. This is no different.

OK, I’ll get down off of my soapbox now.

Carry on and protect your kids.

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