I’m all for freedom of belief, faith, culture and especially speech. I also believe in not forcing one’s view(s) onto another – I don’t presume to know the reasoning behind your decisions, don’t presume to know mine. But when a decision you make impacts on the health of my children, then we’re in a whole different ballpark, folks.
My fully-vaccinated 10-year-old contracted Whooping Cough from an infectious child in her class. There are two issues here: the infectious child had not been vaccinated; the parents sent their child to school when clearly sick because they couldn’t take time off work. And while the child was promptly sent to the ‘sick-bay’ and subsequently home (the teacher recognised the tell-tale cough), the damage had been done.
Vaccination is a choice. I’m on the ‘pro’ side of this while others are on the ‘con’; but why should my child suffer because of another’s choice? And suffer my daughter did: waking multiple times during the night, her throat closed and unable to draw breath, terror spooking her eyes wide; the constant vomiting after an attack; the steroid-based Ventolin needed to keep her airways open. She was listless, lost weight, and was too scared to go to sleep at night – as were her father and I.
One month, my daughter was off school, but it was another two months before she no longer needed Ventolin. Now, she is prone to chest infections, pneumonia, and more susceptible to viruses and Influenza.
This was what I was hoping to avoid. Vaccination isn’t a fail-safe, I understand that, but it does promote immunity and my choice to immunise my children was in the hope of limiting their vulnerability to the disease. Especially one that can be fatal.
When I asked my GP why my daughter had contracted such a virulent strain of the disease–and yes, there was a lot of anger tingeing that question–his explanation (also tinged with anger) astounded me.
A child’s immunity lowers as they age (that’s a given, hence the term ‘booster shot’), so my daughter’s immunity was sitting at around 80 per cent. However, the area in which we live has an amazingly high rate of parents who do not immunise their children. As a result, this lowers the ‘community immunisation rate’ (or ‘herd immunity’), hence, my daughter’s ‘actual’ immunity was around 40 per cent.
40 per cent. How is that fair? How is that right? What happened to my choice? Was it lost beneath the choice of those against immunisation?
Yes, I am angry. Even a year on, I remain angry. When you’re too scared to go go sleep for fear of your child dying in her sleep, when your child is so deep in distress and there’s nothing you can do to alleviate it, then the rights of those who choose not to immunise have gone from their home and into mine. Their choice has trumped mine.
This isn’t an isolated event either. Just yesterday, a good friend of mine’s daughter contracted Whooping Cough from a child in her class – a child who was not immunised. My friend was told the same thing by his doctor – community immunisation rate drastically reduced his daughter’s immunity.
Like my daughter, his is very sick with a disease he immunised his daughter against. Like me, he is angry that the ‘herd immunity’ brought down his little girl; and like me he will spend many a sleepless night watching over her, afraid for her, because another’s rights trumped his.
In the spiral of my anger last year, ‘segregation’ was more than a sometime thought, but the only person that hurts (and endangers) is the non-immunised child. Immunised children create a certain amount of immunity to those children who are not immunised, but once Whooping Cough is introduced to ‘the herd’, the tables are turned.
Schools, pre-schools, day-care centres are a breeding ground for communicable diseases, I accept that. What I can’t accept is the irresponsibility of some parents who, for their own reasons do not immunise their children then send them to school when they are ill, all without consideration for those in their child’s community.
Whooping Cough is a big deal, a very big deal. It has long-term effects, and in some cases can be fatal. It’s all about responsibility. Yes, it’s your choice to not immunise, but please respect my choice to immunise. When your child is sick, be it a sniffle, the hint of a fever, or an upset stomach – keep them home. For the sake of the ‘community immunisation rate’ that your choice impacts so dramatically upon, keep your child home.
Amanda Spedding is Sydney-based freelance editor, proofreader, copywriter, and published author… and busy Mum of two very cool kids – there’s never enough time in the day.
I have to comment to this post… I know you feel unfair that this child has made your child sick… and NO that child should have not been at school sick… But if vaccination worked and your child is vaccinated then why did your child get it? Also keep in mind that I believe your child is at the age where the vaccination.. if effective and its definatly not always the case should be re administered.. its not a life time immunity. I also wanted to point out that over the years they have done test on children with whooping cough. Its a nasty disease I don’t dispute that BUT 95% of the pathology tests came back with a different strain to whats in the immunization.
I am a nurse.. I will NOT immunize my child anymore. I delayed her immunizations but she became extreemly sick after her 1 year old immunizations. I have many people in my family who react badly and won’t immunize anymore. I was the only one the last few years at work who refused the swine flu injection. I was the ONLY one who was not sick after the immunization AND I was the only one who did not catch something nasty those years. Even with patients coughing and splattering over me. I belive in good nutrition (vit d will do wonders to keep the nasties away) and good hygiene.
Have a look online at what is in vaccinations.. I have a policy .. If I wouldnt put it in my mouth, i’m not injecting it into my body or my familys body.
My last point is that when the whooping cough vaccination was introduced more people became sick from the vaccination than they ever did from the whooping cough.
I could not have said this better myself. This past year I contracted Whopping Cough. All 6 of my non vaccinated children did not. To make it worse my first contact with the infection was from a child who was fully vaccinated and had whopping cough. I am sorry that your child contracted it and suffered from it, but why is it that you are so angry with the parent who does not vaccinate? (besides the fact that they sent there child to school sick which was totally irresponsible) The Whopping Cough infection is affecting people on both ends of the vaccine debate. There is not one side to blame over the other. When one of my children have a cold I don’t try and seek out someone who should be responsible, this stuff happens. Sickness is a part of life. There is no one to blame.
“But if vaccination worked and your child is vaccinated then why did your child get it?”
Immunity to a particular antigen reduces with age. This is specifically stated in the above article. It is a known and measurable fact. It is taught in medical school. This is why we need booster shots to retain immunity to certain diseases – even when we’re adults.
The immune system is not perfect and does not produce antibodies to antigens forever. It needs “reminding” sometimes. Couple that with the fact that there were very low vaccination rates in the area, and that community is a perfect place for the disease to “hang out and have a good time” by infecting people. This is how a vaccinated child can get the disease.
“If I wouldn’t put it in my mouth, I wouldn’t put it in my body”
I wouldn’t drink two pints of blood, but I’d be more than happy for them to inject it into me if I needed it after an accident. Maybe I’m just different.
Sorry, I obviously thought I was clear on the part where I know that you need boosters.. the fact that they are not effective against the majority of strains of whooping cough not included in said booster was my point.
Blood occurs naturally in my body, I don’t have a problem with that If truley needed. I have a problem with cells taken from monkeys, aborted babies, toxic metals that shouldnt be in your body at any level
Which toxic metals would they be? Do you eat fish – ever?
Andi – please don’t use your qualification as a “nurse” to try and justify your position. You are embarrassing all the fantastic, hard working and long suffering RNs I know who you are giving a bad name to.
Please keep your misunderstandings, and illogical policies to yourself. You clearly can not understand the manufacturing process of vaccines is you seriously believe there is aborted babies in vaccines. They are grown on a cell line culture perpetuated from a previously aborted foetus. To say the vaccines contain aborted babies is about as correct as saying apples contain dirt because they are grown on a tree with its roots in dirt.
Thanks for your responses, Andi and Lara. I knew when I wrote this article that it would probably stir up debate. Immunisation is a contentious issue, and we, as parents, make the decision we feel is right for our children and family. Both my husband and I are fully vaccinated (we had booster shots when our children were born) and neither of us contracted the disease when our daughter was so very sick with it. I fully understand that vaccination isn’t a fail-safe (although neither of my children have contracted Chicken Pox or Measles when it has been prevalent at their school), and yes, the strain my daughter was infected with was a virulent one, but my choice to immunise is as right as another family’s choice not to.
Neither of my children got sick following their vaccinations, and both rarely caught colds, which, I believe, is due to a healthy lifestyle: nutrition, sport (exercise), good hygiene and vaccinations. Why did she catch Whooping Cough? The virus was coughed directly onto her.
‘Herd Immunity’ *is* lowered by non-immunised children, and I don’t advocate segregation, I advocate responsibility. Someone was responsible for my daughter getting sick: the parents of the child who sat next to her in class. Had that child not been at school, my daughter would not have contracted the disease.
There will always be two sides to this debate, there will always be those who are pro-vaccination and those who are anti-vaccination, we live in a country where choice and freedom of belief, faith, culture and speech is our right. Responsibility goes hand-in-hand with that.
I can so relate to your post. I am very angry also. I am at the beginning of another sleepless night. My daughter is twelve years old and has been suffering with whooping cough for over a month. She had her booster vaccine 11 months ago. She is a competitive swimmer and used to swim two hours a night. In December she had acieved Junior Olympic time status and now she can not leave the bed. For pertussis cases in which vaccination histories are known, between 44 and 83 percent were of people who had been immunized, according to data from nine California counties with high infection rates. In San Diego County, more than two thirds of the people in this group were up to date on their immunizations. Food for thought. I believe everyone should be vaccinated , obviously, since I had my daughter vaccinated but the ineffectiveness of the vaccine has to be looked into. It is obviously not working. I had my vaccine over 30 years ago and still have the right amount of antibodies to protect me from infection. I had a blood test . I was returning to Graduate School and they needed titer counts from my childhood immunizations. Why did my daughter receive her booster 11 months ago and not have protection? Odd don’t you think?
Could easily have been your daughter giving it to the non vaccinated child. Whooping Cough vaccine is the least effective of the vaccines with the most side effects. I stopped immunizing my children after my middle child became deaf as a result of the measles/mumps vaccine.
Except this child had been diagnosed with Whooping Cough the week before and their parents sent them to school anyway — the Health Department explained to me there was a clear “chain of infection”.
Healthy debate on vaccination is always welcome, however, responsibility is a major factor in regards to the spreading of communicable diseases.
Responsibility of the parent…interesting thought as a lot of the focus these days seems to be on individual rights.
I personally, think the responsibility of the parents was to their child – not to their job. If your child is sick & has been diagnosed with something like whooping cough it is your parental responsibility to keep that child – they are sick, they don’t want to be at school, they don’t want to be responsible for another child getting just as sick.
So, even if the debate ignores the ‘my right’ argument, it needs to factor in the ‘parental responsibility/best interest of the child’ argument.
Consider how your child is feeling & sacrifice your holidays so they can recover quickly – no job is worth it & I can say that as a mum who has sacrificed 2yrs of working to get a diagnosis for her child so he can live life to the fullest.
As for your daughter Amanda, I hope she has fully recovered & all the parents have learnt a little more about respecting viruses & their ability to change lives.
Amanda I’m sorry for you and other parents who have feared for their child with whooping cough, no child should be sent to school sick for everyone’s sake. I haven’t gone through that as a parent and can’t imagine what that’s like to watch your child struggle for breath. That said, I am a parent of 3 unvaccinated children and I have some concerns with your GP’s information. “40% actual immunity rate” is calculated on what basis? The same basis as the glib “1 in a million” chance of your child having permanent and devastating disability following vaccination gone wrong?
I do not vaccinate because so many fully vaccinated people become ill, and because adverse reactions are not regularly recorded (who wants to accept liability?) – I am not satisified there is sufficient research into predicting who is more susceptible to react badly (who would fund that?). My choice has not won me popularity contests and was not the easy road. Vaccination is a lucrative enterprise, protected by fear – of parents wanting to do what they’re told is the right thing, of doctors wanting to be accepted by peers (I believe there used to be kickbacks for each vaccine administered?), of courts hesitating to award damages because the floodgates would then open for all those told “it couldn’t possibly be the vaccine” when a child’s health suddenly and irreversibly changes. Plus as stated in an above post, often the strain used in vaccination is different to the one cultured from ill people, just like a flu shot will be based on last winter’s strain (viruses mutate many times in a year).
Finally, unless the formula has changed, my understanding is that the whooping cough vaccine uses a live virus, which may shed for up to 90 days following vaccination. Who protects my children’s rights not to be exposed to that? Who protects newborns when everyone from siblings to grandparents are encouraged to be vaccinated, then all go and shed near the baby?! And who says the vaccinated are not carriers as well? They’ve certainly been exposed. Why are my children vilified as working germ laboratories? They have enjoyed robust health. I was not able to rejoin the nursing workforce after my youngest went to school, because it is now mandatory for all health care workers and I won’t do it. The rights of the drug company shareholders evidently trump my right to employment.
My advice: read everything you can and make your own mind up. Avoid info from both redneck anti-vaccination groups (you will know those by the emotionally manipulative only-one-way-to-go statements they use) and avoid simplistic glossy government brochures – look for balanced, factual articles such as peer-reviewed medical journals, and also listen to the stories of the parents who struggle everyday to recover their child who one day was meeting their milestones, and the next was chronically ill. I think one day we’ll look back at this part of history and shake our heads.
Stephanie,
Unfortunately, you are wrong about children being risks 90 days after vaccination. The strands are generally benign and usually only cause illness if the child’s immunity was already compromised. Like the fact that I had Asian friends that I lived with meant that I had to get a TB test regularly. I had no problem with this because I know how dangerous that disease is, and how communicable. There is no way to test for the other diseases though, meaning there is no way to know if you contract a disease and, thus, risk the health of others. Being around unimmunized people who are constantly exposed to disease themselves does make you more of a liability to individuals whose immune systems are already weak.
As for the “The rights of the drug company shareholders evidently trump my right to employment.” Nice try. If you knew how the stock market and shares work you would know that is not where they get their money. Also, the government pays crap for immunizations to the companies so, if you get immunizations through school or gov. places etc. you’re not giving anyone much money at all (if you get it at the doctor’s office the doc makes bank though). It is in over the counter and prescription drugs that haven’t gone generic that drug companies make their money.
Also consider this, the fact that you didn’t immunize your children means that their children also more likely to contract disease. I now know two people who unknowingly passed on diseases to their children that could have been immunized against had they known their parents didn’t immunize them.
I don’t deny that there are risks to immunization. But, there are long reaching benefits that, for me, outweigh the risks.
I completely understand your anger. This issue makes me extremely angry too. I am pro-vaccine as well and had believed that if my son was vaccinated that I wouldn’t have to worry about the, IMO, idiots who chose not to vaccinate.
After reading this I’m even angrier and more scared for my son. There are so many myths, lies and rumors about vaccines that people believe. I guess it’s easier to blame vaccines for things when you haven’t seen the diseases they guard against. It’s a ‘boogeyman’ you can see, vs some vague idea of there used to be some nasty diseases years ago that made some people sick and die, and conspiracy theories that you’re ‘in the know’ on are so much more fun.
Then there’s all the anecdotal stuff out there that ‘well, I didn’t get my kids vaccinated, and they’re fine, so I don’t know what the fuss is all about’ which also doesn’t help.
It just makes me so mad that people would put their children at risk, and almost seethingly irrationally mad that these people would put my son at risk.
I really feel for you Amanda and I’m not surprised you are angry. If nobody vaccinated we would have so many sick kids on our hands, it would be beyond tragic – IMO the vaccinated kids protect the non-vaccinated. I hope your little girl has made a full recovery. MMx
I have been reading these comments and just wanted to say I have complete empathy to anyone who had cared for a child with whooping cough. My son caught it (even though immunised) in Dec 11 and is still having side affects. It’s a nasty illness and has caused no end of stress and sleepless nights. My son seemed clear of it for two weeks recently only now for him to have a slight cold and the symptoms are back again. Even he, at now 4 gets scared of having a cough. I also contracted whooping cough at age of 3, now 41 I can say I feel there are long term side effects of bronchitis and chest problems. On the positive I started running, with proper training 9 months ago and this is the first winter I have got through without antibiotics for my constant chest issues. When I started running I could only run for 90 seconds without gasping now I can run for 70 mins. Hoping this is the answer to finally combating constant chest problems after so many years. Sadly though seem to be reliving it through my son. At least I can understand how he is feeling and that he is going through. To anyone who is or has cared for a young child with this horrible horrible illness, I understand it feels like it goes on forever and the sleepless worried nights seem endless. Thankyou for this site and for helping me to feel I’m not the only one going through this.