Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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FEBRUARY 11-17, 2015 UCW 5 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM I remember having the measles as a little girl. I was miserable. My mother insisted I stay in bed, and Daisy, our babysitter, was Mother's strict enforcer. It must have been in the spring or summer, because the windows in my darkened bedroom were open, and I could hear my sister and our friends playing outdoors as I lay abed feeling both bad and sorry for myself. Measles, a highly contagious disease, felled my sister soon enough, but in the meantime, I rotated from bed to oatmeal bath and back to bed again, covered in large dabs of pink, flaky calamine lotion. Measles are a vivid and unpleasant childhood memory. The Precious Jewels escaped not only the measles but a number of other childhood diseases as well. By the time they came along, most children in the United States, including the Precious Jewels, were routinely vaccinated against measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR). I wish I could say we gave vaccinating our children serious and studied thought, but we did not. We simply followed the healthcare schedule of their pediatrician, which included MMR shots. They were sometimes cranky, maybe even feverish for a day or two after the shots, but this passed quickly, and they enjoyed healthy childhoods and are now healthy young adults. The current measles outbreak in the United States is giving lots of people pause, including me. From my vantage point a long way away from measles and other childhood illnesses, such diseases have been off my mind and off my plate for years. I, like many, believed the national Center for Disease Control when it announced in 2000 that measles had been eradicated in our country and in many other parts of the world. Wrong-o! Measles are not only not eradicated in our country, they are on the upswing. The latest outbreak apparently stems from California, where an infected person came into contact with unvaccinated people at Disneyland. All concerned went back to wherever they came from, taking the virus with them and spreading it further. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 North Carolinians have been diagnosed in this outbreak. Almost 400 people fell ill with measles last year in Ohio in an earlier outbreak among unvaccinated people. That outbreak occurred within a tight-knit Amish community and was more contained than the current wave of measles. Everyone from medical professionals to United States Senators is weighing in on the vaccination issue. Do parents have the right to decline vaccines for their children and whether by doing so they are putting others at risk? Measles can strike unvaccinated people of all ages, but most people who become infected and die from the disease are children under five. While our family did not agonize over vaccinations, many parents do, and some of those decide against them. I get that. All parents want to protect our children, but we differ on the best ways to do that. Truth be told, so do experts. Remember when we were supposed to throw out butter and bring in margarine? No more. Remember when coffee and chocolate were no-no's? Now they are health foods, in moderation, of course. Remember when DDT and genetically modified foods were OK with virtually everyone? Not so much now. Parents of my generation were instructed to put our Precious Jewels to sleep on their tummies to guard against choking. Now, North Carolina actually has a law requiring day care workers to put infants to sleep on their backs. And — most chilling of all to me — a young woman I have known since she was born will wear a leg brace the rest of her life because she contracted polio from the vaccine. This is a very rare outcome given the millions vaccinated but a very real one for her. No wonder parents are nervous and confused. That being said, all decisions have consequences, or at least the potential for them. North Carolina's newly minted Senator Thom Tillis found that out the hard way last week when he suggested that restaurant workers have optional hand washing after bathroom visits, a prospect too gross to even consider. There is no question that vaccines have saved millions of lives, but they can and do cause problems for a small number. If parents opt out of vaccinations for their children because of that small risk, they then have an active responsibility to do all they can to protect other people from their unvaccinated children. In our highly mobile society, this is more difficult than ever as the Disneyland measles diaspora clearly shows. Parents who do not vaccinate their children may face lawsuits from people who contract measles or other conditions from their children in addition to the burden of knowing they caused harm to others. They must also be prepared for their children being banned from some day care centers, schools, and public places. On balance, I am happy with the vaccination decisions the Dicksons made for our Precious Jewels. They were small risks that paid healthy dividends. THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET Serving Fayetteville For Over 50 Years! 484-0261 1304 Morganton Rd. Mon-Sat: 6am-10pm Sun: 7am-3pm Celebrate Valentine's Day With Us! Valentine's Day Special Surf-n-Turf for Two $39.95 Reservations Accepted Contest&RequestLine: 910-764-1073 www.christian107.com KeepingtheMainThing...theMainThing. visitusonline FocusontheFamily 20Countdown Magazine Adventures in Odyssey MARGARET DICKSON, Contributing Writer, COMMENTS? Editor@upandcom- ingweekly.com.. 910.484.6200. Seeing Spots by MARGARET DICKSON The choice to vaccinate or not is highly personal. But those who choose not to vaccinate must be aware that they bear responsibility to those children they infect.