Journalistic Intentions Encore

#vaccinateyourchild

         This is a true story re vaccination. The names and dates have not been altered to protect anyone. This ridiculous situation actually occurred and my family survived to speak of it.

         Way back in the nineties, as in the nineteen nineties, hubby and I packed up and relocated to a small village in Northern Ontario, Canada from Southern Ontario . Of course we included our three school aged children. Part of the process involved re-registering said offspring in new-to-them schools.

         We had to provide their vaccination records as proof they were not known carriers of disease and unlikely to trigger some kind of epidemic.Fair enough. I had the requisite cards initialed by their doctors who had provided the innoculations. In Ontario, there is a set course of shots that begin in infancy and include boosters at predetermined ages. Measles vaccine is one such preventative and first administered at one-year of age. When my kids were younger this was the one and only shot. Nowadays children are prescribed a booster, an additional dose of the measles vaccine.As I already stated, they were covered.

          Everything for the relocation played out in orderly fashion. After all, we were starting over in a different area of the province, not a foreign country. Without any fuss, the kids began to attend their new schools. All seemed to be hunky dory.

         Imagine my confusion and annoyance when after a few months I received an official letter stating that two of my children were denied attendance until they could prove they'd been immunized for measles. I immediately contacted the school board representative and they explained that the acceptance hinged upon the undeniable fact that the doctors had ignored accepted protocol. I could only mutter a huh. What could be the issue? The kids were not a danger to anyone nor were they in danger of contacting this illness.

         What was the sticking point? What had not bothered the Southern school board, but brooked disfavour here? Upon examination of the birthdates and the dates of the innoculations it seemed that a full year had not passed between the two. Yes, the shots were given two days before the actual birthdays. I responded with a sarcastic so? Someone decided that this was unacceptable. They took the stance that the wording of their best practises document read a measles shot was to be administered on a child's first birthday NOT before.

         I argued this was ridiculous. Two days did not alter the physiology of a child and render them less able to metabolize a vaccine. Two different doctors had not been concerned about this small discrepancy. My thoughts fell on deaf ears.

         Two options were presented to me. Have the children re-innoculated, prove it with a physician's signature, or declare that I was an objector to such medical interventions on religious grounds. Really? Parents could claim immunizations were unnecessary and then still expect to have those children mix and mingle in any school? That was acceptable, but a two-day time discrepancy was not? Where was the logic? Where was the concern for everyone's well being?

         I objected to the idea and execution of repeat innoculations. The measles vaccine had always been a one-shot thing. I knew of no medical data, at that time, supporting the necessity for more. What could be the potential side affects, downside, to extra vaccine?

         This snafu, this dilemma, forced me to think about something that had not previously worried me. I myself am not immunized. As an infant I had a severe allergic reaction to my first shot. Several doctors conferred and recommended that I forgo any further attempts to boost my immune system. Was it the composition of the shot? Was it the trace amount of diptheria? No one knows and why take chances. To this day, I remain vaccine-free and it has not been detrimental. I can honestly claim to be healthy. My cross to bear is repeated accidents with subsequent injuries, but not illnesses.

         Could my refusal to consider more measles vaccine harm my children, or could agreeing to one more shot harm them? I could just lie and claim to live by a religious code that banned vaccinations. That seemed ridiculous and counter-productive. Firstly I was not a religious zealot, nor did I believe this stance to have merit. Vaccinations serve a purpose. They protect the many. Also, how could I hope to teach my children that honesty was the best policy?

         In the end, I decided to do what I had already done. I bet that my children would not have inherited my strange allergy when I willingly took them for their various immunizations. That risk proved to be to their benefit. They had not suffered from any ill affects and I trusted they would not this time either. I booked an appointment and had the new family doctor administer a second measles preventative.

         My two kids returned to school. No one developed adverse reactions. No one grew extra appendages. No one lost their hair or experienced tooth loss. Oh, and not one of them ever caught measles.          847 words