My view on the issue of child vaccinations

When I was a child in the early 70's there was a world wide effort to eradicate smallpox.. the effort to the best of my knowledge was successful. I remember going to school and all the of kids were lined up in the school gym so EVERYONE could be vaccinated. One of the main reasons why there is not a wide spread occurrance of diseases such as measles, mumps and other potentially deadly diseases is because most parents have immunized their children.

I find it very disturbing that some new parents have chosen not to immunize their children. They have their reasons such as the fear of autism is caused by the MMR vaccine( this belief has not been substantiated) Personally I would much rather have a child with autism than have a child contract one of the preventable diseases and DIE!!!!!!! How can my children live their lives to the fullest without making sure they are immune to these very preventable diseases.

I grew up in the country where we went barefoot during the summer and there was always some rusty nail hiding somewhere. More than likely one or more of my siblings or I would step on said nail... there was a very good chance we could have contracted Tetanus if not for the vaccine we recieved by our diligent parents. Not to mention how often to some children bite each other. According to many doctors the human mouth has far more germs that even the canine mouth... yes it is possible to contract Tetanus from a human bite.

In short every parent has the right to choose to immunize their children or not but I feel that unless the child has immune issues such as HIV/AIDS than not immunizing them is just plain foolish and not in the best interest of their children