Every time I hear about more middle class, educated parents not vaccinating their children or another outbreak of easily preventable diseases in our schools it makes me angry. Vaccines are fundamental to our way of life.
We in the western world have it lucky. Our health care, hygiene and preventative measures against disease and epidemics has never been better. Smallpox was the first disease to be eradicated completely thanks to Edward Jenner’s vaccine and a world wide program of systematic vaccination. This disease (I use the past tense) used to kill an estimated 400,000 Europeans a year in the 1800s. Considering the population of Europe during this century was under a quarter of what it is today that would mean in today’s figures over 1.5 million deaths a year. Just in Europe. Polio is a disease that is incurable, debilitating and up until the 1970s was still affecting Western populations. Today it is all but eradicated. Without the help of vaccines our lives would be a lot shorter.
There is no denying that vaccines have been the biggest single contributor to our good health and long lives. Having all but eradicated any disease that vaccines exist for. Why then are there parents out there who are refusing to vaccinate their babies? Awareness and myopia are to blame somewhat. Vaccines are voluntary and most parents have grown up free from the horrors of these diseases. They simply don’t know why it is so important to immunise their children. The government needs to spend more on awareness, it’s a simple fix for these people. However, there is another group who cannot be reasoned with it seems. These people are convinced that vaccines are causing autism.
