Friday, January 2, 2009

This American Life--Vaccinations episode

Many of you know I have chosen a delayed schedule of vaccinations with my daughter. I still am doing them, but I have chosen to go slow with them and am using some European schedules, some Canadian schedules and my daughter's doctor's guidence. That is all explained in my post on vaccinations here. Over the holiday we were listening to This American Life on Public Radio International (which is one of my very favorite shows ever and I catch every pod cast too), anyways they did an episode on a family that chose to not vaccinate (and then chose to go overseas) and their child caught measles. This is not your regular media propaganda telling us that those unvaccinated children are damned or at least damming everyone else, the journalist actually understands the reasons people choose to not vaccinate. While it is still not complete in telling about those of us who do vaccinate just at a different pace, it is a very interesting story on what happens when people get scared, and those of use who's children are not fully protected by a vaccination travel out of a country that has not eradicated a specific disease. And mostly its very interesting to hear parents on both sides voice their opinions.

Just to be a story spoiler, everything turns out just fine. And to be clear, I do plan to have my child vaccinated completely at some point (minus just a few that don't really mean anything), and I do believe in public health/safety. Please read my post on vaccinations at some point if this is a topic that concerns you. until then try to catch this episode on This American Life the vaccination episode.

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