An Ottawa mother of seven "defected" from the anti-vaccination movement, but then her youngest — a 10-month-old son — contracted whooping cough before she could get all of her children their shots.
Tara Hills told CBC News that since all her children, aged 10 and under, were showing symptoms of the contagious disease, they have been advised to take antibiotics and stay inside their Kanata home for five days.
Her first three children were partially vaccinated, she said. But she decided to stop after the fourth was born because she was suspicious of the medical community.
"I just got scared. I got spooked. I thought, 'There's a lot of smoke, there must be fire.' We stopped vaccinating," she said. Three of Tara Hills's seven children peer out the window of their Kanata home in Ottawa, isolated as they get over whooping cough.
Hills said she had recently started rethinking her position on vaccinations. Before her youngest was diagnosed with whooping cough, she said, she met with her family doctor to put together a "catch-up vaccination schedule" for her children.
"It's very sobering and it's very raw because we had just made a more fully informed decision about vaccinations. We had just defected from the anti-vaccination camp," she said.
"It was too late. It's so ironic and I'm not beating myself up for it. I just hope we can use this very painful experience to encourage other people like us to maybe re-examine the issue."
Whooping Cough is no joke, as this poor woman has learned the hard way:
My youngest three children were coughing so hard they would gag or vomit. I’d never seen anything like this before. Watching our youngest struggle with this choking cough, bringing up clear, stringy mucus – I had heard of this before somewhere. My mom said I had it when I was a kid. I snapped into ‘something is WRONG’ mode.
So thanks to the ignorance of this mother her children are forced to suffer.
Kind of sad that this woman was so slow in realizing that vaccinations are not something evil the medical community inflicts on our children, but rather something positive that they provide to protect all of us from harm.
But that is the result of people spreading false information on places like Facebook and Twitter to an impressionable populace who have been conditioned to panic by media outlets like Fox News.
At least, unlike many flat earthers out there she is owning up to her mistake and trying to make the best of the situation by calling for others to re-examine their distrust of whatever it is that causes people to act this way. It may have taken a two by four upside the head, but at least it is progress.
ReplyDeleteSeven children in that home. Anyone who has experience looking after babies and toddlers and laundry and lunch and supper and dirty floors and crying and crying would wonder how much schooling is happening in that home. She could make another decision that would improve the life of her children.
ReplyDeleteI'm suspicious of the medical community? WTF? Where there's smoke there's got to be fire?? Hey, Minnie Mouse Wannabe, the time to get educated is during those doctor visits and by trying to lift yourself from ignorance. Sorry you bought into the hype, but you're the adult, and can schedule their vaccines over a longer period of time (More than zero and less than their age of majority). There's nothing easy nor pretty about Whooping Cough. It's deadly and preventable.
ReplyDeleteI remember, when pregnant, reading Dr Spock's Book and others, talking to my neonatologist and to my husband. If I find a lump on my body and choose to ignore it, it's my own stupidity if it's cancer and it kills me. These are kids who have no say in the matter.
I had measles, mumps, whooping cough -- and polio -- as a child.
ReplyDeleteIt's impossible for me to imagine any parent who understands these diseases and then willfully subjects his or her child to them.
Vaccines are a modern miracle. Measles can be deadly. Polio, when it doesn't kill, can maim for life. Whooping cough is a nightmarish misery.
There's too much stupidity in this world, and it goes around and around in the echo chamber of the internet.
Whooping cough can last up to a year or more and has long term effects like scarring in the lungs. Many cases also turn to pneumonia, causing more scarring. Once lung tissue is scarred there is no repair and the lung "volume" decrease will affect the person for the rest of their lives. Not just misery, long term effects on the respiratory system.
DeleteI work in a 6th grade classroom. The recent measles outbreak started a discussion about vaccinations and why they are important. That same month, our school's Book of the Month was about Wilma Rudolph and how she overcame polio to become an Olympic champion. The kids had never heard of polio and had no idea what a terrible disease it could be.
DeleteI created a short Powerpoint presentation for them, showing them pictures of iron lungs, kids and adults using wheelchairs and crutches, FDR trying to walk in his braces, and mass immunizations. I included some information about historical epidemics and the development of the polio vaccine.
They were shocked when I told them that a former boss of mine had polio as a child and has needed a crutch to walk ever since. She now uses a wheelchair most of the time since being affected by post-polio syndrome.
I also told them that I had mumps as a child and gave it to my father, who ended up in the hospital, causing me no end of guilt for infecting him. Fortunately, he made a complete recovery, but a priest in our church almost died from the same disease.
The discussion made quite an impression on the class and inspired several of the students to talk with their parents about the importance of vaccines and what can happen if these diseases are allowed to flourish in our country again.
Adults need to get boosters for whooping cough too. I was vaccinated as a child and I had no idea the immunity wore off. Whooping cough ran through my office and 7 of us got it. It was horrible, painful and it took 3 months to get back to normal. I don't know why there isn't more public push for adults to get the boosters.
ReplyDeleteGlenn Beck and Alex Jones also spew anti-vax crap too,
ReplyDeleteSo true! We had it last year and it was awful!
ReplyDeleteMy two grandsons were vaccinated "on schedule" as required, but the elder one was just approaching the age of the recommended booster at twelve years when some unvaccinated 6th grader caused an outbreak in school. I remember the bad old days and the distinct sound of pertussis. The doctor confirmed it. Please be sure children get the booster as well as the Tetanus one around the end of elementary school and/or the beginning of junior high. People ignore the lessons of history at everyone's peril.
ReplyDeleteEvery one should get a tetanus shot every 10 years, esp if you garden, work on a farm, or work with the soil in other capacities. My grandfather died of lock jaw and it is truly a horrendous way to die.
DeleteI would have had an aunt.
ReplyDeleteShe died as an infant.
She died of Pertussis.
Before there was a vaccine.
I remember my grandmother telling me that people used to get very sick and sometimes die of diseases that modern science now prevented.
While we were looking at her daughter's gravestone.
Some things I am glad grandma is not around to see.
They include anti vaxxers and children dying because of antivax stupidity.
Why aren't the gop all over this like they are when the young woman has an abortion?
ReplyDeleteI had the whooping cough when I was 6 and so did my sister at the same time when she was 5. I still remember 50 yrs. later how much it hurt. We couldn't go out to play or go to school. We both coughed so hard that that our belly buttons stuck out. I made sure my children got every vaccination there was. People should keep up with those. My youngest son in his 20's got a bad case of chicken pox from his feet to scalp he was covered with sores. Not sure why that child got it but it's no laughing matter and parent's who play with their children's lives because they have stupid idiotic conspiracy theories are to blame if one of them die.
ReplyDeleteThe anti-vaccine movement has been going on at least since the 70's as far as I know. Had some friends way back then who were anti and that was the first I'd heard of it. Yes, they got the mumps, measles, chicken pox and I refused to babysit for them anymore.
This is not something to play with.
What I also meant to say is that diseases can wipe out entire populations, tribes and millions of people. Parents who think they know better are being SELFISH by putting the rest of our children at risk. Some things do need to be mandatory for the sake of public health and the rest of the population.
ReplyDeleteSeve kids under ten? Victoria Jackson harido? And the total "the winds just blow me wherever they want" outer locus of control attitude? Quiverfull nutcase.
ReplyDeleteWhat is ironic about a series of stupid decisions that endangered the health of her children and other children?
ReplyDelete