How many of us have heard stories of older generations of their family dying from pertussis, measles, chicken pox, diphtheria, polio?  I know my mom’s sister died from diphtheria, and my mom and her brother were lucky to survive.

I came across an article, written by a retired pediatrician, talking about how much vaccines have changed life in his 57 year career.  I agree – millions of lives have been saved.  I just am concerned with one of his statements — he should be firmer on making sure parents immunize according to the CDC published schedule.  It works, and a revised schedule puts others in danger.

Your thoughts?

If you think today’s world can be a perilous place for children, imagine life in the 1950s.

On Thursday I had the fun and privilege of watching my 5 year old granddaughter at her pre-K graduation, hopefully just one of many milestones to come.  Her smile and excitement was priceless!

A beautiful slide show of the class, from toddlers to pre-K graduates, made me again realize how fast that time flies.  It seems like yesterday that she was born, and now I can have regular conversations with her.  I will turn around, and she will be graduating high school.

I am thankful every day for the good health of my grandchildren, and part of the reason that they are healthy, is that they have been vaccinated on time in accordance with CDC recommendations.  I had to wonder, how many of the kids up there, weren’t vaccinated on time, or maybe weren’t vaccinated at all?

I thought of the son I had lost, and how precious the memories I have of him are.  Those memories will have to last me a lifetime, because there won’t be any new ones.

Don’t take your child’s good health for granted.  Keep them healthy, savor each day with them, because those days are truly a gift.

There is always talk of new parents wanting to delay immunization schedules for their babies.  I cringe when I hear that, when I have a friend tell me her daughter has decided to space out her new baby’s immunizations.  This is not the way to protect your infant.  The outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases is increasing, and it’s because of delayed vacccinations and those who are afraid to vaccinate, that this is happening.  You brought your child into this world with love and hope for a happy, healthy life.  Do you part by vaccinating on schedule.

Alternate Vaccine Schedules Are Not Safer and Should Be Obsolete

I was lucky to attend the National Adult Immunization Summit today in Atlanta, and learned so much on how to raise awareness about vaccines that are needed for adults.  So for Parents for Protect, they need to protect themselves also.  Make sure you are up date on flu, shingles, meningitis, pneumonia, etc. vaccines.  Check with your healthcare provider.  If you are going to be around an infant, make sure you’ve had the pertussis booster — very important for parents, grandparents, friends, exxtended family — anyone who will be around the baby.

Vaccinations are everyone’s responsibility!

There are many organizations like NMA, whose mission is to keep our kids healthy.

Christine Vara wrote an excellent blog for Shot of Prevention, that I’d like to share:

Across the U.S., individual state policies determine which immunizations a child needs in order to be permitted to attend school.  And each state also has different ways in which parents can obtain exemptions from these requirements.  However, as vaccine exemption rates climb, so do outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases which are threatening the health of our children.  Some states are trying to respond by making an effort to legislate their way toward better public health.   However, both vaccine supporters and critics maintain different interpretations of “informed consent“.

On the one hand, public health departments are supporting legislation in states such as West Virginia, Oregon, and Vermont that seek to add requirements to an all-too-easy exemption process.  Prior to opting out of vaccines for their children, they want parents to be adequately informed of the risks of these decisions.  From the public health standpoint, if a parent wants to opt-out of vaccinating their child, the process shouldn’t be any easier than what parents are expected to do to adhere to the vaccine requirement.  Therefore, by requiring parents to discuss vaccines with a health care provider, to learn about the risks of not vaccinating, new state legislation is seeking to provide better parental education and information.  It would only be expected that this would be welcomed by those who question the safety and efficacy of vaccines. ….

To see the rest of this blog, please open this link.  We all need to work together to protect our children.

As the National Meningitis Association is preparing for its annual fundraising gala, I have been reflecting on the many people I have met and the many stories I have heard since my son died.  I share tears for those who have lost loved ones, and I share in the joy of those who have survived unscatched, and marvel at the strength of those who have survived but with long lasting side effects.  This disease shows no mercy, and its effect can be felt years later.  Many of you saw my post earlier this week on Facebook, about a fine young man, who was stricken with meningitis as a freshman in college.  Now, over 10 years later, he just underwent a kidney transplant, due to the damage done to his kidneys so many years ago.  He is so fortunate to have found a match from his mom.  But think of all his family has gone through — from days and weeks of worrying whether their son would survive, through months of recovery and rehab, and thinking the end to this nightmare was in sight, but it wasn’t.  Just magnify this by all of the cases over the years.  How much can this disease keep taking.  How loud do we have to scream to tell people to get vaccinated.

Over the last few weeks, the Tennessee State legislature has had a meningitis vaccination bill working its way through the Senate and House.  This bill will help protect all of the children in the state from this potentially vaccine-preventable disease.  The bill made it through the Senate with no problems!

This morning I was told an anti-vaccine group was rallying its forces to stop the bill in the House committee.  A series of mis-truths were disseminated.  I immediately called all of the representatives on the House committee and urged my support for the passage of the bill.  Not only were my children born in Tennessee, but I have many family members still living in the state.  Even if my sons were born halfway around the world, I would still have called.  I want all children protected.  I also took the opportunity to point out the mis-information in the anti-vaccine literature.

The reception I received was very positive, and the bill made it out of committee.  I am so happy that science and sense has won this round.