WRITER Linda Patmore in her letter in last week's edition headlined "Vaccine hysteria" asks, “… if a child is vaccinated, why are their parents so scared of unvaccinated children?”
I suggest most parents are cautious rather than scared.
The more urgent issue though is this: the larger the number of unvaccinated children (and adults) the larger the number who will likely be infected if there is an outbreak of a vaccine-preventable disease.
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READ NOWEven if my family is protected by vaccination I would not be much of a human being if I were not greatly saddened by hundreds or thousands of my fellows suffering and dying from a disease that vaccination could have prevented.
A present example is the rise in the incidence of whooping cough in Australia.
As more parents are saying, as Ms Patmore does, “Why would anyone with a new little baby want to pump viruses into a vulnerable new little body?”, diseases such as whooping cough and measles, which were all but eradicated in Australia, have made a comeback and are on the rise.
The World Health Organisation estimates that more than six million lives are saved worldwide every year by vaccinations. Do we not care about the lives of others?
WILL PASCOE, Rivervale.