Pell City mom talks about her opposition to vaccines

PELL CITY, AL (WBRC) - With word that the measles could spread in Alabama, anti-vaccine activist Lynette Barron is spreading the word about why she doesn’t believe in vaccinations.

"You are told to do a certain thing and you do that. At some point, you have to think for yourself,” Barron said.

Five years ago, Barron says her daughter was sick with thrush. She took her in for treatment and says the doctor wanted to give her six vaccines, one being the measles vaccine.

Barron says her daughter developed a fever for over 20 days and spent 7 weeks in the hospital. She was then diagnosed with a rare bone and blood disorder.

"Her Hematologist told us that her being vaccinated on top of being sick overwhelmed her body and it turned her own system on its own white blood cell count. We ended up having to do injections for her every other day of her life up until I naturally recovered her,” Barron said.

Barron says at the time, she was pregnant with her other daughter and received a Tdap vaccine.

"My fifth child was born with severe autism, global developmental delay, epilepsy, and many other issues,” Barron said.

Barron believes her daughter’s autism is linked to the vaccine. Even though public health experts point to studies showing that’s not the case, Barron is convinced it is. She runs a Facebook awareness page and hosts a weekly radio show talking about her personal experience with vaccines.

"My children are already injured. I can’t change that. All I can do is try to recover them as best as I can. I’m out here fighting so that your child doesn’t have to go through the vaccine injury my child and the millions of others following these children have gone through,” Barron said.

Barron tells us at one point, she was a big believer in vaccines but now believes they do more harm than good. Barron says her goal is not to put pro and anti-vaxxers against each other. She just wants people to do their own research and make the best decision possible for their family.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend to vaccinate your children.

The following information is from the CDC’s website:

The diseases vaccines prevent can be dangerous, or even deadly. Vaccines reduce your child’s risk of infection by working with their body’s natural defenses to help them safely develop immunity to disease.

When germs, such as bacteria or viruses, invade the body, they attack and multiply. This invasion is called an infection, and the infection is what causes illness. The immune system then has to fight the infection. Once it fights off the infection, the body has a supply of cells that help recognize and fight that disease in the future. These supplies of cells are called antibodies.

Vaccines help develop immunity by imitating an infection, but this “imitation” infection does not cause illness. Instead it causes the immune system to develop the same response as it does to a real infection so the body can recognize and fight the vaccine-preventable disease in the future. Sometimes, after getting a vaccine, the imitation infection can cause minor symptoms, such as fever. Such minor symptoms are normal and should be expected as the body builds immunity.

For children younger than 19 years old, the recommended vaccines provide protection from 16 vaccine-preventable diseases, such as whooping cough (pertussis), measles, polio, and bacterial meningitis.

For additional information on vaccines, and for answers to frequently asked questions about vaccines, visit the CDC’s website.

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