Shrug

Here’s what I’d say about this issue--if you are a parent and you don’t care if your kid dies from an easily preventable disease, well, OK then. I guess I don’t either.

The Texas parents of an unvaccinated 6-year-old girl who died from measles Feb. 26 told the anti-vaccine organization Children’s Health Defense in a video released Monday that the experience did not convince them that vaccination against measles was necessary.

“She says they would still say ‘Don’t do the shots,’” an unidentified translator for the parents said. “They think it’s not as bad as the media is making it out to be.”

The West Texas measles outbreak, the biggest in the state in 30 years, has infected more than 270 people and hospitalizing dozens of them. Public health officials have repeatedly told Texans that studies have time and time again shown that the safest and most effective way to avoid contracting the very infectious, life-threatening disease is to vaccinate with the measles-mumps-rubella shot.

The couple, members of a Mennonite community in Gaines County with traditionally low vaccination rates, spoke on camera in both English and Low German to CHD Executive Director Polly Tommey and CHD Chief Scientific Officer Brian Hooker.

“It was her time on Earth,” the translator said the parents told her. “They believe she’s better off where she is now.”

“We would absolutely not take the MMR,” the mother said in English, referring to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccination children typically receive before attending school. She said her stance on vaccination has not changed after her daughter’s death.

“The measles wasn’t that bad. They got over it pretty quickly,” the mother said of her other four surviving children who were treated with castor oil and inhaled steroids and recovered.

The couple told CHD that their daughter had measles for days when she became tired and the girl’s labored breathing prompted the couple to take her to Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock. There, the girl was intubated and died a few days later. The other children came down with measles after their sister died.

This is bad, objectively. But I’ve never been overly concerned by the choices people make around their families, outside of actual crimes. I am not the nanny state liberal who says to keep all people alive for as long as possible no matter what. People make their choices. And basically, if you are too stupid to get your kids vaccinated, well, not my problem. I’m certainly not feeling bad for these people.

Death is a natural part of life. It’s avoidable and should be avoided. But if you aren’t going to care about your dead daughter, don’t ask me to. And that’s how I feel about vaccination generally. I certainly have no intention on ever masking again because people are too stupid to get vaccinated, just to speak of one other communicable disease easily avoided. You want to die, go for it. Not my problem.