This opinion letter was posted on the Detroit Free Press. Read more here.
I am writing as a pediatrician and pediatric cardiologist who trained at Children’s Memorial Hospital (now Lurie Children’s), Northwestern University in Chicago in the early 1980s. I then directed the fellowship training program at Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit for over 30 years.
During my training, one of the worst infections in infants and children was from a bacteria called Haemophilus Influenza type B (H-flu) which caused severe illness and many deaths until a vaccine was released. It was magical as almost overnight we stopped seeing children infected by this deadly bacterium. The fact that you don’t read about H-flu today is solely due to the effectiveness of the vaccine in preventing your children from this deadly disease.
Today, we are in grave danger of a re-emergence of illnesses previously prevented by vaccinations. Parents, your children are at risk of infections affecting the brain, lungs and other organs, which can result in seizures, hearing loss, brain damage, birth defects (from infected pregnant women) and death, all of which are preventable by getting the vaccines recommended by your pediatricians.
You have the power to keep your children safe. You can contact your insurance companies to make sure they cover these safe and effective vaccines and insist that your children’s schools demand that all students have received the recommended vaccines on schedule before attending. Contact your local and federal representatives to express your concerns about your children’s health and safety to counter the false dialogue that vaccines are unsafe or the debunked claim that they lead to autism.
The last thing you want to hear is that your child has a debilitating infection that you could have prevented by following your doctor’s advice to get them immunized on time.
Robert Ross
Bloomfield Township