I am not one to write " to the editor" but when I read Molly Pepo Brown's article on vaccination I felt inclined to respond. Vaccination of yourself and your family is a very personal choice. Molly's decision to not vaccinate her family I couldn't care less about, but her declaration of the evils of vaccines I find reckless.
I do not believe Molly is a doctor of modern medicine or of naturalpathic medicine. I am not sure what nutritional credentials she holds. She is very lucky to live in a country where the majority of her neighbors do vaccinate. This makes her decision much easier, the real threat of anyone in her family contracting one of the deadly and debilitating illnesses is going to be slim. However if more choose not to vaccinate then we will see the real threat to life that we did in the 1900-1950's.
I don't believe that vaccines are harmless and would like to see more research in making our medicines safer. There are side effects to many of our medical decisions both modern and natural.
I am an ex-President of Rotary. One of Rotary's missions is to eliminate polio worldwide. The effects of polio on the human race have been staggering. In the United States alone hundreds of thousands of children were paralyzed. In 1977 there were 254,000 crippled Americans that had suffered from polio in their life. That does not count the thousands in the U.S. that died from just one of the illnesses we vaccinate our children for today.
Research your decisions well and be ready for reality if these childhood illnesses come back to our population.
Jennifer Davis
Hailey
