Vax Populi

Abby Crisp is a senior at Hackettstown High School

      Part of me wanted to just use photos as this blog. Photos of children, although a couple of the children are seniors in high school.

Joelle Tshudy is a senior at Belvidere High School

      The reason I thought maybe just photos would do is because it's a column about children. Or rather, about what parents think is best for their children.
     Parents have to make decisions every day about what is best for their children.
     Breast feed? When do you start solid food? What do you do about teething pain? In my day we read Dr. Spock like the Bible it is.  Pre-school? One or two years? Public or parochial school? How many extra-curricular activities? 

Desli Norcross and a friend with a very interesting dragon.

     Yes, there were questions about vaccines. Not the MMR, not when my kids were little. The only kids who didn't get the MMR were the children of illegals who thought the free clinic in Dover was run by the Federales.  The questions were about the DPT. Specifically the P in DPT. Some children run a fever. A very few end up with brain damage. Or dead. 
     So, we talked to our pediatricians and decided. 

Molly Gumm of Ringoes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      Of course moms discussed these things through our "social networks." Our social medium was a kitchen table where our chats were interrupted by the urgent need to tie a shoe or wipe a runny nose. Or maybe a wall phone in the kitchen, with a cord long enough to reach the sink and the stove and the dishwasher and all the cabinets. Until, of course, one of the kids chased the cat into the kitchen and they got tangled up in it. 

Alea Funkhauser of Hudson, NY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

    

     So I have great sympathy for parents who worry about vaccinating their children. What I don't have sympathy for is parents who don't give a damn about other people's children.
     Vaccinating kids isn't just about your kids. It's about herd immunity. We all have an obligation to protect each other and each others' children. You know, it takes a village to raise a child. Well, the corollary to that is the village must keep all the children safe. 

Avery and her goat at the Hunterdon County Fair

     The 1998 study linking autism to the stabilizers in vaccines was discredited beginning in 2004 and retracted in 2010. It's author lost his medical license after he admitted to fabricating the study for a financial motive. 
     Seriously, people, especially parents, get off this.

Jess Dai of East Amwell at the Hunterdon Fair

      Certainly, there may be many factors to blame for the seemingly incredible number of children diagnosed with autism. The over use of insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and rodenticides by factory farms, increased carbon monoxide in the atmosphere, fire retardants in cloth used to make pajamas, poisons sprayed on lawns by arrogant people who think their front yard should look like a green at The Masters, overzealous exterminators, artificial sweeteners, people having children later in life. Or a combination of any or all of the above.
     And, genetic predisposition to any or all of the causative factors.  The point is, we don't know. 
    

A dog and her boy in Oak Ridge.

      And, because we don't know, but we do know that the diseases vaccines were developed to wipe out were serious, at least for a percentage of the people who get them, we need to err on the side of vaccinating. 
     Because we're all in this together. 
     And so are  our kids. 

Olivia and a baby goat because if there's anything cuter than a kid, it's a kid with a baby goat.