Dear Editor:

When I was growing up there was no preventive treatment for the dreaded measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria or polio. Not only were our parents petrified, but as kids we were terrified knowing 15,000 polio cases were occurring every year. Personally I contracted German measles (rubella) and with it came conjunctivitis so severe that I could not open my eyes without using a hot wet towel. My only memory is a very dark room and my mother visiting with medication in the dark. I would not wish that on any child.

Recently a woman expressed anger at the “anti-vaxers” for the death of her 5-year-old and for the tenuous waiting period for her 15-day-old son. She has a right to be angry, but there are more people to consider for blame than those who, out of misguided fear, chose not to vaccinate their children.

Schools across the country appropriately established mandatory vaccinations, upheld by the United States Supreme Court, for all students to protect all others. Measles, mumps, rubella and polio had almost totally disappeared until the late 1990s, when Andrew Wakefield, a British former surgeon and medical researcher, published a fraudulent research paper claiming the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine was the cause of autism.

Brian Deer, an investigative reporter, uncovered the millions Wakefield made, while Wakefield lost his medical license. We lost security that our children were safe from these diseases.

Anger against the Anti-Vaccination League of America for a family who lost the life of any child is valid, but so is anger against Andrew Wakefield, whose fraudulent document cast doubt and fear in parents needing to vaccinate their children. Further in 2015 we have politicians who seem to be climbing onto the fraud bandwagon under the guise of “choice” — despite the well-documented facts of fraudulent acts by Wakefield, his attorney Richard Barr, and others who climbed onto the ladder of deceit.

Fear is an alert system to check the facts before you expose your child, other people’s children and the most vulnerable children in the womb. Vaccinations save lives.

Jarryl Larson

Edgecomb