With apologies to William Shakespeare, the great question arising in our time appears to be “to vaccinate or not to vaccinate ... that is the question.” To see how many kids were vaccinated in the Chippewa Valley I did some research with the local news media and found that: According to DHS data from the 2017-18 academic year, 93 percent of students in the Eau Claire school district met minimum immunization requirements. The Chippewa Falls school district reported the highest rate with 95 percent, and Menomonie and Altoona sat at 92 and 91 percent, respectively.
At Chippewa Valley Montessori Charter School, just 66.1 percent students are fully vaccinated. That means nearly one of three students was not vaccinated according to state standards, and of those students, 28 percent opted out. The next lowest was Wildlands Charter School of the Augusta school district with 66.2 percent, all according to the Leader-Telegram.
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Time for a story. Being the age I am I got almost everything that used to go around: measles, mumps, chicken pox, German measles, whooping cough — but I avoided diphtheria. I also never completed the vaccination for small pox as I had an immediate reaction to it and spent three weeks in the hospital. Old Dr. Vedder told me to avoid chicken serum/egg based vaccines. So I have followed his advice.
Setting Dr. Vedder aside, when the Salk vaccine for polio came out it was offered by the Marshfield Clinic and the Wood County Health Department at the time by going to the Marshfield Armory and getting it. Later the Marshfield Clinic and the Wood County Health Department offered the Sabin “oral” vaccine which was placed on a sugar cube. When you are little, you remember things differently than when you are an adult; yet I remember the line for both events going out the door and down the street.
People really feared getting polio. Polio killed you, put you in an iron lung, put you in a wheel chair or on crutches for the rest of your life. Our 32nd President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had polio as an adult. It took years for him to appear to “walk” again, for no president of the United States could be a cripple. Yes we needed manly men to run the United States then. No blacks, women, Catholics, Jews or cripples need apply. Funny how times change.
Some folks do not vaccinate their kids for religious exemptions or personal beliefs. What they are I do not have a clue. While I am no scholar of the bible, many modern things we have, including modern medical techniques, are not mentioned in the bible. Some would argue if they are not mentioned than they are not prohibited.
Every so often someone points our the link between autism and vaccines. They cite the widespread a 1997 study published by Andrew Wakefield, a British surgeon. The article was published in The Lancet, a prestigious medical journal, suggesting that the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine was increasing autism in British children.
That paper has since been completely discredited due to huge procedural errors, undisclosed financial conflicts of interest, and ethical violations. Andrew Wakefield lost his medical license and the paper was retracted from The Lancet, according to the New York Times.
As adults we are responsible for our kids. Having gone through all the childhood illnesses and having my tonsils and adenoids out as a kid I would wish that on no child of mine. In our modern world too few current parents have seen what measles, mumps, chicken pox and rubella can do to kids. I have not seen a polio case in my lifetime. There is a reason for that; it is science. If you don’t want to believe me then perhaps Ben Franklin can help:
“In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the small-pox, taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of parents who omit that operation, on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it; my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and that, therefore, the safer should be chosen.”