Thank you

[pegkerr]

The newspaper here in Minneapolis reported that two more children died of the flu here in Minnesota, and now anxious parents are scrambling to get their kids vaccinated. I don't have to scramble, thank you very much, because I planned ahead, and my kids were vaccinated in October.

In thinking upon this, and upon my earlier post about getting my girls the HPV vaccine, I think it is fitting to stop and say a heartfelt thank you for something I have often taken for granted:

Thank you.

Thank you, Edward Jenner. Thanks to you, I don't have to fear blindness or pitted scars on my daughters' faces. Your discovery led to all the future discoveries that keep children all over the world safe.

Thank you, Louis Pasteur. Yeah, it was a hassle having to keep going back to the hospital to get that rabies series. But at least I didn't suffer this fate.

Thank you, Jonas Salk. Thanks to you, I don't have to fear the coming of summer, and my daughters can play on the playgrounds and swim in the pool and go to church with nary a worry of paralysis or contagion.

My daughters will probably never have measles, or mumps, or diphtheria, or chicken pox. They won't have to fear having a terribly deformed baby because they came down with German measles when pregnant. Now (I hope), they will be much less likely to have cervical cancer. We forget how lucky we are. There are still regions of the world that cannot get the everyday vaccines that we take for granted.

Oh, and a final shout out to Alexander Fleming. Thanks for your keen observation and the monumental discovery of penicillin (and all the antibiotics that followed) to which it lead.

I raise my glass in toast to you, ladies and gentlemen. You are the heroes and heroines whose hard work will make it possible for my girls to live to adulthood, strong and whole and healthy. I remember your names and deeds with honor, and utmost gratitude. So may we all.

Edited to add: And even as I remember and honor you, I ask further that you, my heroes and heroines, bend whatever will or prayer or spiritual guidance or wisdom you have to spare to give to the person (and I hope and pray that person is living now) who will someday announce the discovery of the vaccine against AIDS.

Comments

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear!

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Amen to /that/.

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

Amen, amen. And I'd like to add a toast to those who helped discover RH disease and its treatment, injections of Rh immunoglobulin (RhIg), since I (like my dad) am Rh-positive and my mother is negative. The prophylactic injection was approved the year before my mother got pregnant.

So thank you, Drs. Karl Landsteiner, Alexander S. Wiener, Phillip Levine, Rufus E. Stetson, Neva Abelson and L.K. Diamond, and no doubt dozens of others, too.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear! *raises a glass in toast*

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

You're a hero, too, (heroine?) by making sure that your girls have everything they need to grow up happy and healthy. Emotionally and physically. Thank you for not steering clear of vaccines based on belief in very suspect "research" or some misguided notion that vaccinating against HPV turns your girls into horndogs.

*raises glass to you*

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the reminder, and let me extend my thanks to all these heroes as well, on my own behalf, for their role in creating a time when I can live without even thinking of all those dire possibilities.

[tassie-gal.livejournal.com]

You forgotted Howard Florey who took Flemings work and MADE it work. For a good read you and teh girls may enjoy - try "The Mould in Howard Floreys Coat"
http://www.amazon.com/Mold-Dr-Floreys-Coat-Penicillin/dp/0805067906/sr=8-17/qid=1171063641/ref=sr_1_17/002-4438527-9670444?ie=UTF8&s=books

I bought it last year in the UK and really enjoyed the political/historical aspect - did you know the only reason penicillin wasnt patented by an american drug company was becuase the government decreeded that the war effort needed it more?

[naomikritzer]

After Molly was born, I was startled to discover that there is a large, rather vocal contingent of parents who eschew all vaccinations for their children because they're convinced that the side effects are worse than the diseases.

Molly had her two-month vaccinations just before Thanksgiving, and as I was thinking that year about things for which I was thankful, I thought, I am so grateful to live in a country where I have the luxury of worrying about the side effects of the readily available and highly effective vaccines. Rather than worrying about my child dying of measles, or tetanus, or polio.

I would like to add a heartfelt thank you to the parents of Edward Jenner's first vaccination patient, a sickly young boy who was too weak to be inoculated with smallpox, for having the courage to test a risky and unproven but lifesaving treatment on their son, and allowing Jenner to prove that indeed it wasn't just an old milkmaid's tale that cowpox protected against smallpox. And to the Polio Pioneers. And all the others who've rolled up their sleeve for science.

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

I seem to have some memories from the end of the "polio days", specifically one Sunday afternoon where my parents and I went to one of the local schools to get the vaccine. Does anyone else out there remember the kind that the gave on a sugar cube?

I guess my thanks go to whoever invented glasses, and also to whoever will have discovered the vaccine or cure for A.I.D.S., even though they may not be out of med school yet

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

Does anyone else out there remember the kind that the gave on a sugar cube?

My mom did, yeah.

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

Your Mom did, eh?

Suddenly I feel very old...

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

If it makes you feel any better, I was born when she was forty (second marriage) and I'm now thirty-six -- I have older parents.

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

Oh dear that gives rather the opposite effect than I intended didn't it.

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

No, it helped. Your mom's a couple of years older than mine was when she died.

[aitchellsee.livejournal.com]

Comrade!

My class (sometime between K-2) had the vaccine-on-a-sugar-cube. ISTR it was a pink drop on the cube.

[aitchellsee.livejournal.com]

[Oops! it's no longer January]

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

"Edited to add: And even as I remember and honor you, I ask further that you, my heroes and heroines, bend whatever will or prayer or spiritual guidance or wisdom you have to spare to give to the person (and I hope and pray that person is living now) who will someday announce the discovery of the vaccine against AIDS.

Thanks for the addition. I was gonna say something originally about the discoverer maybe not even being born, but I decided to be optimistic.