Measles Outbreak?

It's with a bit of fear and trembling that I write this post. I have avoided taking on anything regarding vaccinations here, because I believe it to be a deeply personal choice. As the parents of our children, God will hold my husband and I accountable for the choices we make, and no one else. Therefore I reserve all judgments about the decisions other parents make, especially in this area. If you are interested, I am happy to give you the reasons for the choice we personally make, but I will not debate about it.

That said, have you heard about the Measles Outbreak yet? (Insert sarcasm here)

Several things come to mind:

1. 120 something people in 10 states? Do we have any concept of the tiny percentage of the population that actually is? And they're going so far as to call it an epidemic?! Even if it is the most cases in 10 years. Good grief.

2. Hard to find good sources to reference on the internet, but if you read books about these things it's easy to see that these kinds of diseases have natural highs and lows of infection. If my memory serves me correctly, every 10 years there is a high point as the virus mutates, and then it declines again. This happened long before vaccines!

3. Measles is not life-threatening in healthy children, no matter what they try to say about it. They say the same things about Chicken Pox and even the flu. Feed your children nutritious food, limit their sugar and white flour and chemical additive intake, make sure they get enough sunshine and exercise, and give them things to help their immune system when they do get sick. They'll be fine. Of course there are no guarantees in life (even WITH vaccines), that just means we still need God.

4. Notice they say MOST of the infected were not vaccinated. What are the actual numbers there? And if vaccination is so important and life-saving, why do some people get sick anyway? Perhaps it is better standards of living and cleanliness that caused the decline, and not vaccination at all?

5. The wording of the report makes me mad too. 250,000 children die of this disease every year, but they split that up from "in poor countries." The deaths don't happen here! We have good healthcare and good nutrition and watchfulness by educated parents.

6. The Reuters report names the countries where the people were infected overseas. They are mostly western Europe, not poor countries. These people didn't go to undeveloped countries and come back with measles. It's just the year for measles to be high. No matter where it started, there would probably be infections.

7. Is anybody ever going to address WHY hundreds and thousands of parents are refusing vaccinations? If they would take the nasty chemicals and preservatives out of the vaccines, that would help. Maybe funding safety studies by companies unrelated to the vaccine manufacturers? Rather than making the parents out to be idiots who are dead-set on reintroducing dead diseases, maybe addressing their concerns would be a better idea?

8. I'm not even going to start with the risks of the MMR...

So, I'm sure you can tell where I stand on vaccinations based on this. :) We have to make the best choice we know how to make, and trust God, no matter what our choice is!