Why are children not being vaccinated?

This scares me to death.  I am at a loss as to why parents would not want to protect their children from entirely preventable, horrible diseases.  Not only are these people putting their own children’s lives at risk, the risk the communities lives by degradation of herd immunity.

Here is the dictionary.com definition of herd immunity.  Herd immunity is the resistance to a particular infection that occurs in a group of people or animals when a very high percentage of individuals have been vaccinated or previously exposed to the infection.

There have been infectious disease miracles in my lifetime because of the public health vaccination efforts.  Stop and think about it.  Have any of you reading this ever seen a case of measles or mumps?  I haven’t and I am around the ill every day.  We seldom see chicken pox, Hep A or B, meningitis or whooping cough .  I have seen only one case of tetanus in my career and small pox has been totally eradicated from this country.  The only polio I have seen is from people that contracted it back in the 50’s.  Time and good health make people forget how bad things can be.

If you are afraid of vaccinations and are being swayed by the anti-vaccination crowd, then talk to me.  I am available to assist you in making a truly informed decision.