| Show It Seems To Me MeBy By Hy Joseph It n. Roberts 11 1 1 1111 11 1 1 1 1 1 11 National immunization COPYRIGHT 1978 Contemporary Features Syndicate Inc In 1953 when Jonas Edward Salk introduced the first successful vaccine against poliomyelitis and two years later Albert Bruce Sabin gave us a painless oral vaccine parents of the world rejoiced Finally science had provided sure protection against one of the most dreaded childhood diseases known It was happily predicted that polio would be wiped out within a decade Now L a little over two decades later we are w warned rn th that 1 conditions conditions' are ripening for an epidemic of polio We Weare Weare Weare are aghast What went wrong with the predictions Evidently the predictors did not dream that once the vaccine was plentiful and cheap parents would not see to it that their children were completely immunized against the horrible crippling sometimes fatal disease Who could blame the predictors Who could believe that adults living in our modern te technologically sophisticated society could be so ignorant lazy or apathetic that they would not take their children to the nearest clinic or doctors doctor's office for full immunization But that seems ms to be the case Once the scare of polio died down many parents lost interest And polio is not the only omy contagious crippling disease against which there is protection easily available at little or orno orno orno no cost Measles diphtheria whooping cough smallpox and rubella German German German Ger man measles can be prevented if parents are interested Unfortunately not enough parents seem to be The problem of unprotected children who can catch these various diseases and pass them on to other children and adults is nation wide wider It is estimated that in spite of just about all the schools in the country requiring children to be immunized before they can register there are 20 million unvaccinated unvaccinated unvaccinated un- un vaccinated children in our midst Since it is a national problem the Department of Health Education and Welfare HEW mEW is attempting to solve it at the national level HEW has launched a program that will attempt to Immunize every child from one to fifteen years old in the nation by 1979 The program is voluntary however and not all parents will permit their children to participate Some believe vaccination means giving the child a mild form of the disease and that he be will come home sick and spread the illness through the family Some object on religious grounds Some simply equate vaccinations with needles and needles are frightening as well as painful Some Som have little faith in medical science and others simply dont don't care enough to bother It is difficult to sympathize with these recalcitrant parents Most of us believe in preventive medicine in spite of the Swine Flu fiasco we fear epidemics and we ha have ve little pa patience tience with parents who seem not to care about the health of their children or Should HEW in its commendable effort to vaccinate every child in the na nation tion resort to coercive measures to force these parents to comply we might be in inclined in in- dined to overlook the right of parents to raise their children as they see fit It is essential however that we insist the program remain voluntary even if It it means HEW will not achieve its ambitious goal Otherwise where will we draw the line If parents can be forced to have their children vaccinated vaccinated vac vac- why cant can't they hey be forced to comply with government programs in iri hygiene nutrition safety discipline mental health citizenship In time the roles of parents could be reduced to merely procreators and caretakers of ot government wards What is at stake here is much more mor important than whether HEW can achieve percent immunization of the nations nation's children We must never forget that even incompetent parents have the right to be parents That right is God given n and it must not be usurped by any government agency regardless of how noble its intentions |
