Thoughts from a 'Pro-Vaxxer'

     

Receipts from my recent flu vaccine experience, at Costco.

    I was four years old, perhaps, when I received the first medical vaccine.

    Most of my family lined up at the high school in Edina, Minnesota, and I recall the sugary water in a tiny cup. I drank it up and eventually left the school with my mother, and siblings.

    Flash forward to 2021: While shopping at a big-box store (Costco), I received a vaccination against this year's flu.

    I've been getting flu vaccines for most of my adult life, but they used to be given at our office. When I no longer had an office, I sought out the vaccine at stores -- first at HyVee and more recently, Costco.

    I never thought about getting regular preventative health care until I didn't have insurance to help cover the costs. That was the case for a couple of years; I did scramble a bit until I found what was needed. Most costs were out-of-pocket.

    These days, at 63 years old, I have a health insurance policy from the Affordable Care Act. The Blue Cross/Blue Shield policy logically includes preventative medical coverage and it makes sense to take advantage of the benefits.

    I grew up believing in vaccines and that hasn't changed, even in these charged political times. 

    The history of vaccines, both pro and con, was something covered recently in a New York Times online article by Maggie Astor.

    One of the first times this topic arose was 1898-1903, she wrote, and it concerned the smallpox disease. Parents demanded that schools allow their unvaccinated children in, and some burned their own arms with nitric acid to resemble the scar left by the vaccine. 

    Anti-vaxxers spread propaganda about horrific side effects and about doctors who were corrupt, according to the article, part of the "On Politics" e-mail sent Sept. 9.

    The roots of vaccine mandates date to the formation of the United States. General George Washington famously required early smallpox vaccines for his soldiers in 1777. (In those days, doctors rubbed live smallpox virus into broken skin to end in a mild infections that would guard against a more severe infection later.) Modern historians report that no soldier turned Washington down, according to medical records of that era.

    Astor reports that resistance to vaccine mandates increased in the 1800's, especially in the American West. Opposition sounds familiar: Some opposed vaccines back then because of personal liberty; some thought lawmakers were in cahoots with vaccine makers and others had safety concerns. 

    In the 1890s and 1900's, squads of men would enter people's homes at night, to inject inhabitants with smallpox vaccines. Whew!

    The polio vaccine was more acceptable to all, Astor wrote. It was not mandated at first, and President Franklin Roosevelt, who had polio, had founded the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, or what's now called the March of Dimes. Polio was considered eradicated in the United States in 1979 because of the successful vaccination program, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC.

    The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1905 that vaccine mandates were constitutional.

    Now 116 years later, Americans continue to be divided on the issue.