This week my son had his MMR vaccine, stressing us all. No one likes injections. Except me. I’ve always enjoyed them. I think it’s from watching Ivan Drago in Rocky IV when I was small, which made me think of them as power-ups. Each childhood needle-sting thrilled me a little. It was like I felt some ominous Soviet liquid coursing through my veins, allowing me to dish out, and eventually receive, a beating so hard it ended communism. I thought everyone felt this way at first but quickly learned that of the millions of people who watched that movie, I alone took home a feelgood message about needles, and how sweet it must feel to receive a Cold War dose of performance-enhancing drugs.
Even if you don’t share my fondness for the actual injections, I hope I can spread my enthusiasm for vaccines. I’ve been writing this column for a year, and have never proscribed any practice. There are a million other organs willing to make you feel bad about your parenting choices. But vaccines aren’t one of those choices, and I refuse to be anything but strident.
The UK ranks third in high-income countries for the number of children unvaccinated for measles, and global rates of that disease – vaccined against since before Teletext was invented – have doubled since 2017. For its part, the government could do more to spread awareness of their efficacy and, with the NHS, make it easier for parents to book return appointments. But from my experience it’s also true that parents are subject to worrying levels of anti-vax propaganda spread by charlatans and frauds. It is not hyperbole to say this is killing children.
Otherwise reasonable parents, people who balk at flat earthers or 9/11 truthers, have somehow bought into scare stories about vaccines’ harmful metal content or links to disease. Never mind that we harmlessly consume much more than a vaccine’s worth of aluminium every single day, or that no reputable study has demonstrated a link to autoimmune disorders, nor autism. As UK citizens, they’re also probably vaccinated themselves, meaning they’re denying their child the same inoculation they enjoy. It is this same inoculation that will leave those parents healthy to grieve over their child should a measles outbreak come his or her way.
There are also people who can never be vaccinated for health reasons, and they depend on our herd immunity to keep them safe and well. They’re like people so sure the Kennedy assassination was staged, they’re willing to fire a rifle into a crowded plaza to prove it.
My son hasn’t yet seen Rocky IV, and didn’t much care for the injections. But I’m delighted this is the extent of his suffering and I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise. There’s no easy way to tell someone they’re endangering children’s lives, but this is a hill on which I’m willing to die. I’m just not willing for your child to.
Follow Séamas on Twitter @shockproofbeats
