Stick it to me

Do you like to have people smoking near you? I don`t. Do you like people with the flu, coughing near you and spreading their germs? I don`t. Do you like to drive your car without wearing a seatbelt and risk crashing? I don`t. If you become remotely offended in this article I really don`t care, but please think about your position before you attack me. You see I am confused, I am confused about why there is a movement towards not protecting humans against a long time enemy we have fought long and hard against for our survival. I am talking about disease.

Now I don`t know about you but I am vaccinated against a variety of diseases. Many of these jabs were not my choice but that of my parents. They exercised their parental rights to get me vaccinated just as they did when they made me wear a seatbelt in the car or a helmet when I rode a bike. Now in my opinion, these three things are all very similar. Each of them are designed to be preventative measures against insult to our body. It was also widely accepted back then that vaccinations like wearing a helmet was a safe way to protect your children. Now it appears the argument is vaccinations cause a variety of adverse reactions. I do wish to side note that many of these adverse reactions are extremely rare and the evidence that is relied on by many anti-vaccinators is a paper that has long been discredited and settlements in court about adverse reactions that have been taken out of context. People are now moving towards vaccinations being the boogie man that hurt people.

Now I am curious if any of these people were around when Polio was a big killer? I am also curious if they are vaccinated themselves? I wonder if these people are truly aware that the decisions they make affect people and populations around them. The recent Measles outbreak that has occurred is great evidence. Measles is no joke and neither is Polio or many other diseases. They argue it is their right to not vaccinate their child and send them to school. Do they drive their cars whilst their child is unrestrained? I am not arguing about what these people’s rights are but I am arguing about the general population’s right to be as protected as possible from disease, which on the whole is due in a large part to vaccinations. They seem to argue that it is ok to risk a child under 6 months who can`t be vaccinated. Not so much with words, but by merely having their child or them around to potentially pass on a disease show that they are ok with the risk. It is the definition of arrogance in my opinion. It is a misguided sense that it will never happen to me or my child.

Now I generally write about fitness and health. I get that this is an opinion piece, but it is an opinion based on common sense. We use to say, well it is survival of the fittest, but the game has changed. Humans have worked long and hard to reduce risks to our lives and that is part of the reason why our species flourish. It is simple for me there is no point writing about exercise or health if our lives were like they were 40 000 years ago, it wouldn`t matter. Things would not be like they are now without seat belts, helmets and vaccinations. I`ll leave you with this thought, millions of cars are driven and they pose a risk of accident and death. A seat belt makes a significant difference in survivability, but some people do suffer whiplash. Ask them if they preferred to crash without a seatbelt, the answer is obvious. So I ask how many outbreaks do we need to have before people start wearing their “seat belts”.