Mum and registered nurse, Camille Echols, shared a recent experience with her daughter to warn other parents about the danger of not choosing immunisations.
Camille is speaking out after her immunosuppressed daughter recently contracted chicken pox.
She wrote on Facebook, “I’ve been relatively quiet on social media about the “Anti-vax” movement. I’ve seen smart-ass memes saying “why would my unvaccinated kids be a threat to your vaccinated kids if you’re so sure they work?”
THIS is why. There are people who cannot have live vaccines, like my daughter, who had a kidney transplant when she was 2 years old. She got one varicella vaccine but couldn’t get the second because she was immunosuppressed and instead of developing immunity, she would have contracted the virus.
She was exposed to a child with chickenpox this weekend and now we are in the ER. She’s getting labwork, injections of immunoglobulin and then we have to wait to see what the infectious disease doctor says. The incubation period of chicken pox is 7-21 days. So even with all we are doing, she could still become sick in the next 3 weeks. And that would mean an automatic admission to the hospital for IV antiviral meds. She could become very, very sick from this.
Please, if you are someone who believes your child will get autism from vaccines, PLEASE educate yourself. There isn’t a single peer reviewed study that came to that conclusion. And the people choosing to skip vaccinations put children like my daughter at risk. She has been through SO much already. And this was avoidable.”
Camille has since updated her post to add,
“• I never claimed that the child with chicken pox was not vaccinated. That is irrelevant. The resurgence of chicken pox, whooping cough, measles and other diseases that were nearly eradicated years ago is a direct result of a large percentage of the population deciding not to vaccinate their children without sound research the support that decision.
• As for those telling me to “educate myself,” I am a pediatric RN with over 10 years’ experience in transplant and chronic illness populations. I have had extensive education regarding vaccinations. I would not post about something I was ignorant about.
• Those saying “it’s just chicken pox, she won’t die,” please educate yourselves on transplant recipients. There are millions of people waiting for life saving organs. With those numbers, the odds are good that someone in your life has been affected by organ failure.
Her post has gone viral with over 113,000 shares and 86,000 reactions. please be aware of the risks to other people in the community.
This week Kyly Clarke has hit out at parents who don’t vaccinate – read that story here.
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