Measles! Here? (A teachable moment)

Residents of the Northwest suburbs have been stunned to learn that an outbreak of measles - once thought to have been eliminated in the U.S. - has sickened some of our youngest and most vulnerable children.

Gradually the population is realizing that measles and many other preventable diseases still exist. They exist because a person with almost any disease can land at O'Hare in the morning and cough all over Woodfield that afternoon. And they exist because a small but significant proportion of parents refuse to immunize their children. The question arises - why would anyone resist immunizing their children?

The ironic, commendable, and true answer is they resist for the same reasons most parents do get them: because they love their children passionately and want to keep them from harm.

Thanks to the Internet, today we are exposed to a plethora of information ... and misinformation. Jonathan Swift once said, " Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it."

Readers now realize the proposed connection between the measles vaccine and autism came from a 1998 study that has been fully discredited and its author stripped of his license. The journal apologized for even printing the study - a truth that is still limping behind.

I have long felt that the best way to approach this problem would be if parents could somehow speak to their distant ancestors and pose their questions. If they could only say, "My child's doctor wants to do something to our daughter to prevent some illnesses. It's like your smallpox vaccine - effective yet not perfect. But they don't give that one anymore; the vaccine eliminated smallpox! We now have routine vaccines to prevent measles, polio, meningitis, whooping cough, tetanus, even cervical cancer, and nine other diseases. Should I let them immunize her?" What do you suppose those ancestors would say?

Bruce Bedingfield

Hoffman Estates