vaccines - the basics
TRANSCRIPT
The vaccine debate today is conducted in stirring images and strident language.
Emotions run high on this issue
Let’s stick to the facts.
Vaccines introduce a dead or modified form of an illness into your body.
This creates antibodies: an army to fight the illness next time it appears.
Every virus and bacteria needs its own antibodies to fight it.
Your body can overcome some illnesses quite easily.
Others are too strong. They can kill or severely damage us.
That’s when we need vaccines. They help our body’s natural defenses.
Vaccines have prevented mass disability and deaths from:
Whooping Cough
Hepatitis B
Influenza
Polio
Measles
Rotavirus Smallpox
Tetanus
Meningococcal C
Diptheria Mumps
Vaccines keep individuals safe from dangerous diseases.
What about ‘herd immunity?’
Herd immunity is where so many people in a place are immune that the disease effectively
becomes extinct.
If the disease does appear, it has nowhere to replicate and it quickly dies out.
Herd immunity protects those in the group who cannot be vaccinated.
Herd immunity only works if we know the vaccination status of everyone in a double circumference of a vulnerable person.
When diseases all but disappear, it’s easy to forget how devastating they can be.
People become complacent.
Not here!
Vaccinations are totally unnecessary
these days.
Medicine is way more advanced now.
That’s ancient history!
Things like that don’t happen any
more.
That won’t happen to us.
We no longer fear disability as we once did.
Developed countries no longer suffer through mass death and disability.
People begin to wonder if vaccinations are really worth it.
No vaccines means a big cost saving…
Why risk side effects for no good reason?
Why put my kids through unnecessary medical procedures?
Everyone once knew someone who had died from or been disabled by a preventable
illness.
It’s vital that we remember what we have overcome. The war is not over – it continues
with every child who is vaccinated.
Want to know more about vaccinations? Listen to this podcast episode: http://parentresourcecentre.com/podcast-‐15-‐vaccinations/
Want Emily M Morgan to speak to your audience about helping parents become informed? Contact her:
! http://emilymmorgan.com/speaker/
Want to find out more for Informed Parents? Visit: http://www.parentresourcecentre.com