Letter: For those too young to decide for themselves

Do we get wiser as we age? It’s often repeated, “there’s no fool like an old fool,” so perhaps we don’t. But most people, if they’re lucky to live long enough, do collect eventful moments that if anyone’s listening, can add to current discourse – in this case, the contentious subject of vaccination.

Before 1963, when the MMR vaccine was developed, kids like myself were forced to endure measles, chicken pox, German measles, and mumps in a childhood right of passage. Sixty-six years ago, when I was only 5 years old, I contracted a particularly virulent case of measles, but my only recollection was a total body rash.

Years later, when I queried my parents about my case, they agreed to finally tell me what had happened. In the middle of the night, I had become so feverish that they phoned the doctor. This was common back then as were actual visits by this same doctor to our home. He advised them to immediately immerse me in a bathtub full of cold water and ice cubes which broke my fever of 105 degrees and saved my life.

Measles, one of the most contagious, deadly diseases in the world, was eliminated as an endemic in the year 2000 through vigilant vaccination, sparing the nation’s children for decades from this horrific disease. But now some people are dangerously cavalier in their opinion of them, citing the rarest of reactions to the shots and NOT the more likely dangers from the actual diseases these parents seem inadvertently willing to inflict on their young children who I know they love dearly.

As a living voice from the past, I ask everyone to research what these diseases can do to the young human body and have compassion for those too young to decide for themselves. What about the diseases that threaten our beloved pets like rabies and distemper? Once again, research these deadly afflictions dramatized by the rabid dogs shot in “Old Yeller” and “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Without pet and large animal vaccinations, these diseases would become serious threats to daily life. Zero in on the disease and not the rarest of exceptions. It’s through vaccination that we save all that we love and hold dear.

Julia Fauci

DeKalb