What Would It Be Like Growing Up Unvaccinated?

Being unvaccinated while growing up is a precarious and often dangerous experience. If you grow up unvaccinated, you are always on your guard, as you could be at risk of dying from a disease that is easily preventable.

Impact on Public Health

To truly understand the impact of vaccination on public health, one need only visit a local cemetery. Upon checking the gravestones, one can observe a significant drop in child deaths and interments around the mid-1950s, primarily due to successful vaccination efforts. This stark fact teaches us how vital these life-saving measures are.

Personal Accounts of Unvaccinated Growth

Stories from those who grew up unvaccinated are often horrifying. Many of them have shared their experiences, emphasizing the fear and vulnerability they faced. Once they reached the legal age, they got vaccinated immediately to protect themselves from preventable diseases.

Historical Context

Historically, before the advent of vaccinations, the child death rate was alarmingly high. Many children did not survive to adulthood, leading families to have more children to ensure that at least one would carry on the family legacy. By not vaccinating their children today, parents subject them to the same life-threatening risks that existed in the past.

Risks of Being Unvaccinated

For some, growing up unvaccinated means enduring diseases that vaccinated individuals do not. Those rare vaccinated individuals who experience side effects face much lower risks of death compared to the unvaccinated. Sadly, some unvaccinated children die needlessly, their fate sealed by the wrong-headed propaganda they are exposed to through caregivers.

Accountability and Advocacy

I am fortunate to come from a family that values public health and encourages vaccination. As a result, I received all my vaccines and am in good health today. It is imperative that anti-vaxxers be held accountable for the avoidable deaths of children.

The Other Side of the Story

While the majority advocate for vaccination, the anti-vax movement presents its own arguments. Some argue that one vaccine can lead to side effects like shingles. However, the reality is often more about vested interests in pharmaceutical companies.

Reemergence of Preventable Diseases

As a person who grew up in a time when vaccinations were widely accepted, I can only speculate on how unvaccinated children today fare. Without immunity from diseases like polio, measles, mumps, rubella, and many others that were once common, these children face significant health risks. We have seen painful evidence of this during cemetery tours, where the graves of children who died from preventable diseases in the early 20th century are still evident. Sadly, the rise of the anti-vax movement has led to a resurgence of these diseases, which could have been prevented through proper vaccination.