BellyitchBlog

A California man who has a son with leukemia is demanding the state ban children who are not immunized from his child’s school.

Carl Krawitt‘s 6-year old son Rhett has undergone a few rounds of chemotherapy and has not re-built his immunity yet sufficiently to get all of his immunizations. Until then, Krawitt has filed a request asking that the 7% of kids at his son’s school, Reed Elementary in Tiburon, California be forbidden from attending school. That rate is higher than the 2.5% statewide that take up the state’s option to skip immunization for personal and religious reasons. The San Francisco Bay area, generally, has some of the highest exemption rates in the state and nation.

Rhett requires “herd immunity” or others around him to all be immunized to protect him from coming down with communicable diseases like the measles.

“It’s very emotional for me,” Krawitt told NPR. “If you choose to not immunize your own child and your own child dies because they get measles, OK, that’s your responsibility, that’s your choice.”

He added, “but if your child gets sick and gets my child sick and my child dies, then…your action has harmed my child.”

Krawitt and his wife sent a letter asking the state “require immunization as a condition of attendance with the only exception being those who cannot medically be vaccinated.”

So far, the superintendent said he is considering and monitoring the situation and health of students at the school.

The only thing, by the time a kid contracts measles which has had a recent outbreak in California, it may be too late for Krawitt’s son.

What do you think? Fair or no?

h/t NPR

Repost

Officials are blaming the recent measles outbreak at Disneyland parks on a kid of “anti-vaxxers”, parents who refuse to immunize their children from deadly diseases,

Apparently, as the theory goes, somebody’s non- vaccinated kid caught the measles while traveling abroad then went to one of the Disney Parks in California and sneezed. It was the little action needed for all the other anti-vaxxer kids at that park to be exposed and come down with the deadly disease.

Sheesh!

A total of 64 children since December in California have contracted the highly contagious disease, a likely impact of the anti-immunization movement, the Washington Post reports.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention state that measles is so contagious that if “one person has it, 90% of the people close to that person who are not immune will also become infected.”

And there you have it. We knew it was coming.

The outbreak has gotten so bad, California officials issued a warning telling anyone under 12 who is not vaccinated to avoid Disney, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Disney has told its employees in contact with measles-sickened co-workers to stay home until they can prove they’ve been vaccinated and undergo a blood test.

It’s a case of too much education, a new study says, finding that anti-vaxxers are affluent, educated and cluster in certain communities and infect each others’ thinking on the issue.

It’s unfortunate. As I’ve blogged before, I could have died from catching German Measles while a small child living in my native Sierra Leone, West Africa decades ago. Vaccinations were a premium and privilege that all kids did not get back when I was growing up.

My best friend and I contracted the disease at the same time and he died.

It is for this reason, I am always baffled by those who decide against vaccinating their kids, and to take their chances, believing they are protecting their kids, and not putting them as risk for early death. A report in 2011, found that the study that catapulted the modern anti-vaxx movement was a big fraud.

Baffles the mind!

Sound off in the comments. Risk worth taking or reckless option to not vaccinate?

anti-vaxxers

Dad asks CA to ban non-immunized kids from sick son’s school

A non-vaccinated kid at Disney responsible for recent measles outbreak