Letter to the Editor: Why I choose to vaccinate

Editor:

With recent anti-vaccine articles and presentations taking place in our community, I wanted to take this time to step forward, as a mother of two, and express why I choose to protect my family through vaccination.

I grew up with a mother who made sure I was up-to-date on all of my immunizations. I never questioned why because it was simple in my eyes, my mother wants what’s best for me, so this must be it. In college I chose to get my degree in health promotion, which focuses on the importance of prevention. Prevention of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, motor vehicle deaths, vaccine preventable diseases, and basically anything else you can think of. It is through this schooling that I first began to understand exactly how immunizations work, and why they are recognized as the number one achievement in public health.

I now have two children of my own, and they are both fully vaccinated with every recommended immunization, including the flu shot every year. I fully intend to vaccinate them against HPV and meningitis when they are old enough to receive those shots, and they will continue to get a yearly flu shot. I have seen the science, I have read a lot of the research that has been done, and that is why I feel confident and comfortable giving my children these vaccines. I know the risks of vaccinating, and that they are well outweighed by the benefits. I cannot justify exposing my child to potentially deadly diseases which are so easily prevented.

There are people in our community who are not able to receive these vaccines, because of treatments they are receiving or because of an illness they have. I feel proud to say that my family will be helping them stay healthy by us being immunized. This vulnerable population that cannot protect themselves by way of vaccination need our help, and that is why we must strive to make sure our community has high immunization rates.

I whole-heartedly believe that as a parent you need to ask questions and fully understand what immunizations are doing for your child, don’t just take the doctors’ word for it. You should ask questions if you do not understand, or if you have concerns, but the studies have been done, and duplicated to ensure us that vaccines are the most effective way to protect our communities from vaccine preventable diseases. If you are interested in looking into the studies and reading up on them, I recommend going to the CDC’s website on vaccine safety, http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/index.html.

“Vaccines save lives; fear endangers them. It’s a simple message parents need to keep hearing.” — Jeffrey Kluger

Kim Larson

Havre