I remember having the measles. I am in bed and the room is always dark because the curtains are closed. In the morning, I cannot open my eyes until my mother cleans off all the sticky goo on my eyelashes. I eat an unappealing diet of flat soda, dry toast, gelatin, and hot or cold consommé. The best part of meal time is the tray with the legs that sits over my lap. A map of the United States covers the tray and it has little magnetized ships, cars, and locomotives to move around the map. I only get to play with this when I am sick.
I don’t remember having chicken pox, whooping cough, or mumps although I had them all, as did my older brother. Measles is the only childhood disease that I recall. It isn’t a particularly bad or good memory; it’s just there.
I also recall standing in line at the local elementary school to receive a polio vaccine. It seems to me that the vaccine was on little cubes of sugar that you ate, not an injection. And if I look carefully, I can find the very old scar from my smallpox vaccination on the back of my arm, where you couldn’t reach to scratch it. My sister’s smallpox scar is on her upper thigh; my mother always worried that it would be a drawback if she decided to enter a beauty pageant.
Currently, the news is filled with talk of the measles epidemic. Last spring it was the mumps. Prior to that there was the call to have your pertussis immunization updated if you were around young children. Being a dutiful grandmother of a certain age, I had a “booster” shot at the local pharmacy. I have also had the pneumococcal pneumonia and shingles vaccines. And I get a flu shot every year as well. I grew up in an age barely removed from iron lungs, rocking beds, and leg braces. Immunization was a no-brainer for my parents and so it became for me.
The number of immunizations given to infants and young children has increased exponentially since my childhood. Parents are considering all the possible ramifications of multiple immunizations using knowledge and experience very different from my own or that of my parents. The “fear factor” of childhood illness has diminished as most have disappeared from our collective memory, at least within the United States. Now the fear is associated with the immunization itself, not the disease it prevents.
To have or not to have…to delay… to separate the immunizations so that the child only has one or two at a time? What about mercury preservatives, post-immunization fevers, seizures, autism, or neuropathies? Does it really matter if my child is immunized? Are there religious, personal, or medical exemptions in my state? What do the schools or daycare facilities require? Don’t adults have the right to determine their health care and the health care of their children? Do I have a responsibility to my neighbors, the community, or public health?
The debate has even entered the ranks of the politicos as evidenced in daily news reports. Does this discussion even belong in the political arena? What scientific or ethical knowledge should be brought to bear?
I bring all this up to offer you a well researched and thoughtful discussion concerning the immunization puzzle from a parent’s perspective. On Immunity: An Inoculation by educator and essayist Eula Biss is a combination of exhaustive research on all the common concerns about vaccines combined with a mother’s concern for her child. Both Eula and her son suffer from multiple sensitivities that add another layer of complexity to the worries regarding vaccine safety. Drawing on such varied works as the myth of Achilles, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Eula Biss takes you through her thoughts on vaccinations and immunity. You may come to agree with Eula’s thoughts, or not, but you will know much more about the field of immunization than you likely did before. I find this book reassuring. I am especially fond of the final sentence of this book:
“Immunity is a shared space-a garden we tend together.”
Biss, E. (2014) On Immunity: An Inoculation. Graywolf Press. Minneapolis, Minnesota. www.graywolfpress.org
The first immunization law in the United States was enacted in Massachusetts in 1809, mandating smallpox vaccination (Salmon, 2003). To the best of my knowledge, no riots or public demonstrations occurred as a result of this vaccination requirement. Subsequent state laws requiring immunization were not always as well-received as the smallpox laws; some states repealed the mandatory aspects of their vaccination laws. By the early 1900’s, the U. S. Supreme Court upheld the right of the states to pass and enforce immunization laws. Compulsory immunization as a prerequisite for public school attendance soon followed (Omer, et al, 2009). Today, every state has at least a modicum of immunization requirements related to school attendance. So too, some colleges have found it necessary to mandate immunization to prevent the spread of life-threatening meningococcal disease. There are immunization requirements or recommendations for training in the health sciences, service in the armed forces, and worldwide travel. Yet, exceptions for reasons of religion, conscience, or medical history have been crafted in many states, allowing a segment of the citizenry to be forgiven the requirement for immunization. Overall, the history of immunization and disease prevention has been a sterling example of how some former scourges of day-to-day existence have been diminished, even unto virtual elimination.
Excerpted from Breathing the Miasma, Ohio Nurses Review, Volume 85, Issue 5
Author Roald Dahl’s daughter (James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), Olivia, died at age seven of measles encephalopathy in 1962. She was not vaccinated.
Winston Churchill’s daughter, Marigold, died just short of her third birthday (1921) from what was thought to be diphtheria.
Remember Mary Ingalls of the Little House books? Mary became blind at age 14 from what was initially believed to be scarlet fever…for which there is no immunization, even today. A more recent review of her symptoms suggests that she suffered from viral meningoencephalitis, usually caused by non-polio enteroviruses. The disease can also develop from mumps, measles, and influenza viruses.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt contracted polio at age 39 and remained paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life.