Vaccinating Your Kids

Dear Aunt Slugger,

I am the father of a one-year-old baby. I am trying to decide whether to vaccinate him and I was wondering what your thoughts are, as a professional advice columnist with no medical training?

Sincerely,
Norman W. Carpenter, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin

Hi Norman,

It turns out that you have come to the right place, because despite my lack of formal medical training, I am literate, which is actually the only skill you need in determining whether to vaccinate your kids. I also, as it turns out, probably have a few screws loose because there is nothing I enjoy more than a good non-fiction book about diseases. I wish I were joking, but I am not. A quick look at my Amazon.com wish list and you find yourself asking if I'm cooking up biological weapons in my kitchen or if I just like to read about bleeding from the eyes.

Over the years, I have read books about smallpox, ebola, polio, rabies, and prion diseases, among other various horrifying and tragic conditions. I distinctly remember reading the ebola book on the elliptical at the gym and looking down at the handles and thinking maybe I should just hit those with some Clorox nine more times. And the rabies book had me side-eying my indoor cat.

One of the many takeaways from most of these books is that many viruses that once haunted humanity are no longer a threat to us because of vaccines. For those of you who do not recall any smallpox outbreaks (and if you live in a developed nation, you do not), smallpox is NOT. A. DAMN. JOKE. It had a ridiculously high fatality rate and was horrifically painful. Finding a vaccine for it and eradicating it is one of the great medical triumphs in human history. 

And then you've got polio. If you are nostalgic for simpler times, like the 1940s, then don't vaccinate against polio and see how you like living out your days in an iron lung. Or measles. If you love blind children, then by all means, don't vaccinate against measles.

The reasons people cite for not vaccinating are stupid. Yes, I said it: Stupid. This (and the fact that I never went to medical school) is why I am not a doctor. Because as a doctor, you can't really tell your patients that they're dumb as shit for not vaccinating. Your Aunt Slugger's bedside manner would be atrocious and the only patients I would be able to treat would have to be in a coma.

People, for the love of Christ, vaccinate your children. And you don't have to trust me, your advice columnist-turned-armchair unlicensed physician. Listen to the Mayo Clinic. Listen to the World Health Organization. Listen to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Do not listen to the anti-vaccine whackjobs who were thoroughly and effectively ridiculed in this episode of Penn & Teller.

Also, to the upper middle class white people that this article had to call out: CUT IT OUT. Or look at a picture of someone with hemorrhagic smallpox and tell me you're glad he or she didn't vaccinate. He might be dead, but at least he doesn't have extra mercury in his system!

Sincerely,
Aunt Slugger