As the topic of vaccines has returned to the forefront recently, I’ve been thinking about what an unremarkable experience I’ve had with vaccinations.
The Mississippi State Department of Health recently announced that eight Mississippi counties had kindergarten vaccine rates fall below the 95% threshold necessary for herd immunity. State Health Officer Dan Edney warned that this means there is an opening to the spread of diseases such as measles, and we’re already seeing more cases of measles this year than in the past three decades. Fortunately, Mississippi has remained resilient on MMR vaccination rates, even leading the nationwide average.
Still, the numbers are concerning. Johns Hopkins reported last year that vaccination rates—including the MMR and DTaP vaccines—continue to decline. And along with that decline is a rise in vaccine skepticism, both nationally and globally.
Growing up, I never heard anything about vaccine hesitancy. I received every vaccine recommended for a ’90s kid. I still have my childhood vaccine schedule and added to it in 2015. I caught chickenpox as a child, and chickenpox usually—usually—provides lifelong immunity once it runs its course. When I was applying for the University of Memphis graduate school, I found out at the ripe old age of 25 that I no longer carried the antibody. So, I received my two doses. I’m not a fan of shots, but I lived.
I also caught bacterial meningitis when I was a young child. I received the Hib vaccine, which protects against some forms of meningitis, but I experienced either a breakthrough case or caught a different form (the pneumococcal vaccine didn’t become recommended for all children until the 2000s). This is reflected in my vaccine schedules. The updated schedule I received in 2015 after my chickenpox vaccination includes a section for the pneumococcal vaccine, which is not on my 2000 schedule.
Vaccines are safe. They aren’t silver bullets, but they’re as close to a shield against disease as science can create. You’ll notice that the CDC’s page on smallpox describes it in the past tense. A global vaccine campaign eradicated the disease permanently. Before the campaign, smallpox killed about three out of every 10 people it infected. Smallpox symptoms are gruesome and can leave permanent damage if not outright killing the host.
The COVID-19 pandemic was a defining moment in human history, killing an estimated 7 million people or more. And there are many lessons, positive and negative, to take from the pandemic and its response. But one of the most impressive feats in scientific history was the mobilization to produce an effective vaccine in less than a year. And despite the ongoing dog and pony show on Capitol Hill, the response would have been a lot worse without the vaccine.
A disease like smallpox wouldn’t have disappeared by ignoring it. It would continue to infect and keep killing. And as devastating as smallpox was, it was a relatively easy disease to contain. Others are more difficult.
Take whooping cough, for instance. We have a vaccine, but its efficacy fades over time. After Mississippi’s first infant death due to whooping cough in 13 years, Dan Edney said whooping cough is an example of a disease that has to be constantly guarded against. He added that declining vaccination rates are influencing the number of cases we’ve seen recently.
Whooping cough can cause suffocation. Measles can cause brain swelling. And children aren’t the only ones at risk—unvaccinated adults are as well. I don’t know about you, but these aren’t the kinds of diseases I’m willing to play a game of chicken with. From a pragmatic standpoint, I’d rather be vaccinated, and if I still get a breakthrough case, then at least the effect will be blunted.
Get your vaccinations. Protect yourself. Protect your children. Protect each other.
This MFP Voices opinion essay reflects the personal opinion of its author(s). The column does not necessarily represent the views of the Mississippi Free Press, its staff or board members. To submit an opinion for the MFP Voices section, send up to 1,200 words and sources fact-checking the included information to voices@mississippifreepress.org. We welcome a wide variety of viewpoints.
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