By: Matthew List
03 November 2010
CNN recently reported that ten infants have died in California from whooping cough this year. People are wondering if any vaccinations could have prevented this, but all these infants were too young to receive the vaccination. It became a question as to where to lay the blame.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, whooping cough, affects 30 to 50 million people annually and takes more than 300,000 lives per year. The CDC also states vaccinated individuals can still become infected and transmit whooping cough.
This makes me question the validity of vaccines. I never got the swine flu vaccination or took extra precautions. I washed my hands like I normally do and didn’t get sick.
I have never made the choice to get a little bit sick to try to prevent a worse illness. While I understand the idea behind this practice, I never believed the idea of vaccinations was good. My thoughts have always been to let nature take its course, and your immune system will learn to catch up.
A New York Times article, written by Donald McNeil Jr., talks about how we as a nation created a surplus of vaccines for the H1N1 virus. It’s a huge overreaction and as a nation this isn’t just a one-time problem. The article tells us 95 countries were unable to obtain the vaccine and of those only two countries received it.
The worst part is instead of giving these vaccines to less wealthy nations, we have simply decided to destroy the vaccines. While I think these vaccines might be overkill in our nation, it could be helpful to Third World countries.
We overreact to illness and have an overall state of germ phobia as a nation. We have placed more importance on the appearance of cleanliness than we do on being healthy.
Read the entire article here.
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