Bring up the word “vaccines” in any cordial, adult conversation these days, and you’re bound to find yourself in a blood bath of research, beliefs and very STRONG opinions on whether or not a child should receive what doctors believe to be life-saving vaccines.
Regardless of whether you believe that early childhood vaccinations pose the threat of autism and developmental disorders or not, one mom is pleading with Facebook users to get their children vaccinated—for her daughter’s sake.
Camille Echols is on the “pro” side of the vaccination debate. She believes kids should be vaccinated when they are able because without them, other people are vulnerable to the harmful effects of age-old diseases that were eradicated long ago.
Camille Echols
The constant battle in the vaccination debate is: If your child is vaccinated, and mine is not, then your child is safe from any disease that my child may (but will likely not) contract.
But as Camille explains, that’s not always the case.
Though a believer in vaccines, Camille’s daughter, Ashley, is not vaccinated—because her body wouldn’t allow it. And she wound up in the hospital because of it.
“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.”
With Ashley not having the opportunity to be immune to viruses like the chicken pox, Camille had no choice but to rely on other parents to vaccinate their children for the sake of her unprotected little girl.
But they failed her. Ashley contracted the chicken pox virus, which can be life-threatening—especially for a little girl who’s been the recipient of an organ transplant.
Facebook
A pediatric RN with over 10 years of experience working with transplant and chronic illness patients, such as her daughter, Camille says that everyone has statistics, but not everyone has the facts. And that’s ultimately what put her daughter in the hospital under constant care for an unforeseeable future:
“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.”
Writing in regards to her daughter’s treatments and hospital stay, Camille says the virus could wreak havoc on Ashley’s immune system.
Facebook
“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.”
Camille isn’t placing blame on anyone for what her daughter is going through, but she does want her message to be heard loud and clear by parents everywhere who are responsible for making this decision for their children—and others.
“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 [to] support that decision.”
Her final plea to parents was that they speak with their doctors, do their research and talk with people like her—whose children are not vaccinated for reasons beyond her control of simply making the decision for her child.
“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. [Ashley] has been through SO much already. And this was avoidable.”
Camille’s original post quickly went viral but has since been removed from Facebook after she received overwhelming amounts of backlash for sharing her experience.
May her story serve as a reminder that the debate over vaccinations is not as black and white as it may seem. Her intention is not to guilt anyone into vaccinating their child, but rather, share her experience and spread awareness about some lesser-known dangers of not-vaccinating.
