Parents of Babies Too Young to Vaccinate Feel Trapped by Measles Outbreak

[Eugene]

Source: New York Times

Parents of Babies Too Young to Vaccinate Feel Trapped by Measles Outbreak

By Julie Bosman
May 2, 2019

TROY, Mich. — Roberta Traini gritted her teeth through the small talk at the Barnes & Noble checkout, grabbed her purchases and hustled her 5-month-old daughter, Gretha, into the chilly April air, where it was safer to breathe.

“I was freaking out in there,” Ms. Traini said, jabbing her finger at the store. “I needed to buy a present for a birthday, so I was forced to go. I was nervous the whole time.”

This is life during a measles outbreak for parents of babies: a maelstrom of fear, isolation, truncated plans and, not infrequently, unfiltered fury.

Children typically do not receive their first dose of measles vaccine until after their first birthday. So parents of infants are trapped in a dangerous limbo. They want to protect their children from measles, an extremely contagious virus that killed 110,000 people around the world in 2017, most of them young children. Yet they have little choice but to chance exposing their yet-to-be-vaccinated babies any time they leave home.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/us/measles-babies-vaccine.html

[sdfernando]

1. Welcome to the reality that anti-vaxers have wroght!

yeah, sorry your kid got measles and died, but a least mine didn't get autism! WTF!?!?!?!?!

[Thekaspervote]

2. Yup!!

[msongs]

3. anti vaxxers dont care how many people die from measles cuz religion nt

[customerserviceguy]

4. Well, people don't easily make the transition

from being a carefree couple to parents with the responsibility of keeping their children from being exposed to all kinds of things.

Now, I don't excuse the anti-vaxxers one little bit. Just tonight, while we were watching the news at a bar, I said that if I were stuck on that goddam measles ship, I'd find the anti-vaxxers and toss their asses overboard.

But, I go to venues where beer and wine are produced, and these millennials drag a kid or two along with them, blithely strolling in like they did in their dating days. Of course, it is not legal to serve the children alcohol, and when Mommy and Daddy are sampling this year's vintage or a new variety of flavored IPA, little Junior wants a sip at some point in the growing up process. And when refusal comes, loud screaming is endured by everybody in the place. I've seen this for the last three decades, at least.

"I was forced to go,"??? Hasn't Ms. Traini heard of online shopping? Maybe someone should give her a clue.

No, it's not fair that there are places where children shouldn't be, but that doesn't change the fact that they will always exist, and people who are now parents need to deal with that reality.