We got a letter from some health mob a few weeks ago telling us that there had been a number of cases of whooping cough in our area. We already knew about that, as it had been covered in the papers, but it was interesting to see how the authorities reacted nonetheless.
By writing a letter.
Funnily enough, it was vaguely useful, so I will not bag them out for it.
All our kids have been jabbed for every infection known to man. I hold no truck with this anti-vaccination crowd. If you don't want to jab your kids, I don't mind. I don't believe in sticking needles into other people's children against their will. I think they are idiots, but that is not sufficient cause to trample all over their parenting rights.
If I were to be utterly harsh about it, I'd say that if stupid people breed and then make a conscious decision not to vaccinate against diseases that used to kill 1 in 3 children not 100 years ago, then if the kids die of a preventable disease, that is simply the gene pool taking care of itself. I've walked around plenty of country cemeteries and seen the age at which kids used to die, so I don't need an prodding when it comes to getting our kids poked and jabbed.
That said, I was shopping the other night, and as I walked through the fruit section, I could hear a very distinctive cough coming from down the aisle that screamed "whooping cough". Not only had this boneheaded parent decided to give their kid a great chance of getting a nasty disease, they were also stupid enough to take the little germ factory to the supermarket, thus increasing the chances of spreading the infection around.
If I had my way, we'd board them up in their houses and not let them out until all signs of infection had passed - much like the peasants did with the Black Death. By all means, don't vaccinate. But if you do happen to catch something, don't come out in public. We don't want to share in your stupid misery.
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I am of course miserable at the moment because we all have a mild does of the flu. I started coming down with it this morning, just as I was getting ready to go for a ride. Thankfully I didn't. Nothing worse than being miles from home and feeling a fever coming on. Struggling home against the onset of the flu is the pits. I guess this will be a low mileage week.
4 comments:
A friend in the Health Dept tells me that cases of whooping cough are concentrated in two areas - the underprivileged suburbs and the trendy hippie towns.
The sad thing is that very young babies cannot be protected, so their lives can be put at risk by some hippie dipsticks.
Hmm, not many hippies around here.
Guess I am living in a slum then.
Thanks Margo!
Although... despite being vaccinated against every possible disease as a child (and believe me I remember every single jab and sugar cube coated in Polio stuff) I contracted a severe case of Whooping Cough at age 14. I spent two weeks in sick bay at school and read about 15 Mills & Boons books. It was fabulous.
Did you get jelly and icecream? We always got lots of jelly and icecream in sick bay.
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