As we all know, it’s 2019. The first picture of a black hole was taken, the race for the presidency is on, measles is back, and Aunt Becky is probably going to jail for mail fraud.

But only one of those things matter, and that is measles.

Like I previously stated, it’s 2019. Why are measles still a thing? Are Americans THAT uneducated that people believe vaccines will give their child autism, ADHD, or Down syndrome?

I hate to break it to you, but if you think your child can “catch” a disability from a vaccine, you should go back to school and learn something before you jump to conclusions.

Vaccines are incredibly necessary to our society today. Measles wouldn’t be back if everyone was vaccinated.

The Measles virus is at a 25 year high with 704 cases across the country. Measles wouldn’t at a high right now if parents just vaccinated their children. Yes, maybe a child could be immune, but the vaccine will keep everyone safe from the virus.

“Measles is a highly contagious virus, and before immunizations, 75 percent of people exposed to it for the first time would get infected,” said Tom Clark, the deputy director of the CDC’s Division of Viral Diseases. “That means that unvaccinated people are the most at-risk, and anyone who is under the age of five or over the age of 20 and also unvaccinated is at higher risk for measles complications. Your risk lowers dramatically if you’ve received the vaccine– even if you’re nearby one of the outbreaks.”

If vaccines weren’t safe then doctors wouldn’t give vaccines. If anyone believes vaccines are unsafe, use the internet. You can easily look up the ingredients for vaccines to learn what goes into them. Or, you can ask your doctor, I’m sure they’ll tell you what’s in vaccines if they know.

Someone who is an advocate for “safe vaccines” is Jenny McCarthy. Her son was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) after he was given the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine. She believes her son had so many shots that it “brought out the ASD”.

“Consistent with studies in other populations, we observed no association between MMR vaccination and increased ASD risk,” the authors write. “We also found no evidence that receipt of either one or two doses of MMR vaccination was associated with an increased risk of ASD among children who had older siblings with ASD.”

So, Jenny, the vaccines did not bring out your son’s ASD, the signs would’ve shown up sometime soon. You call yourself an advocate for ASD, yet you don’t seem to understand what ASD is or how it shows itself.

Jenny McCarthy is one of the reasons for the movement, but she is not the only person who has made it become so prominent. There are two websites that are absolutely terrible. These websites are NaturalNews.com and Whale.to, they’re anti-vaccine websites and they are so bad that I need to share them.

I first discovered the websites because I found a website about escaping the anti-vaxxer movement. I fell down the rabbit hole. I decided to go on NaturalNews.com and I immediately began laughing. I saw headlines that said “Toothpaste Gives You Canker Sores” and “Autism Hate Black Seed Oil”. What does this mean? I decided to read the articles but I was very disappointed because they weren’t as funny as I was hoping. The reporters were very serious about the topics at hand.

Now, I know these topics don’t relate to vaccines, but I dove deeper into both websites and found all of the articles about how vaccines are deadly. Vaccines aren’t deadly, they are perfectly safe and they are so necessary to keep the population safe.

Many anti-vaxxers use the argument of the Black Plague. So let’s discuss the Black Plague. Yes, SOME people survived the Black Plague, but entire populations of cities were completely wiped out. In fact, 25 million people died because of the Black Plague, according to National Geographic. If vaccines were around and people got vaccinated, the Plague probably wouldn’t have happened, but if it did, it wouldn’t have been as bad as it was.  They use the argument that people defeated it so it probably wasn’t that bad, but considering half of Europe was wiped out I would say it was pretty terrible.

Most people who are involved in the movement are involved in a Facebook group called “Great Mothers Questioning Vaccines”, at least that’s what I’ve learned from women who have left the movement. They’re told facts that can easily be debunked by looking them up online, but they don’t start to question these “facts” until crazy conspiracy theories start popping up in their feeds.

One mother, in particular, was very deep in the movement until she saw chemtrail conspiracies on her feed. Her name is Megan Sandlin and she’s one of the women on the blog page “Voices for Vaccines”. She bragged about being a “chunky” mom, meaning she was all natural, she had her second child at home and didn’t take her daughter to the doctor until she was 6 months old. She began questioning the movement and did some research, eventually finding out she had been wrong about vaccines. She decided to leave the movement, vaccinating her two daughters and becoming an advocate for vaccines.

“I now view the anti-vaccine movement as a sort of cult, where any sort of questioning gets you kicked out, your crunchy card revoked…I just want to be the best parent I know how to be, and that means always being open to new information and admitting when I’m wrong,” Sandlin wrote. “I was terribly wrong about vaccines, and I’m thankful my girls never caught anything. I feel like I’m being more true to myself, now, as well. I’m not blindly following what others say, just because we agree on a few other things. I’m putting my trust in science, and discovering who were really my friends all along.”

The anti-vaccine movement has caused a problem within our country, exposing vulnerable people to diseases that should be eradicated, but are not. This recent outbreak of measles could lead to even worse viruses, such as Polio, Hepatitis, Smallpox, and other viruses that are currently eradicated.  

In order to make sure all children are vaccinated, we need to have conversations, they may be long conversations, but they’ll be worth it in the long run. Rather than talk it out, some people have decided to enforce laws that could infringe on civil liberties. New York City’s mayor has banned unvaccinated children from public areas. Instead of handing out fliers or pamphlets, he’s basically telling people that if they aren’t vaccinated they aren’t welcome. Although I disagree with the anti-vaccine movement, I don’t think his approach is okay.

If we want people to be vaccinated, we need to make sure people are educated about vaccines. People need to understand that vaccines are good and not harmful. It’s good and absolutely necessary to question what we’re told, but it shouldn’t be a question when it comes to public safety.