A mother who chose not to vaccinate her child now deeply regrets her decision after the child contracted the measles and nearly died.
The New Zealand woman, Ally Edward-Lasenby, is just one of far too many parents who continue to be fooled by a discredited and debunked study that tried to link the MMR vaccine to autism several years ago.
Unfortunately, that same discredited study influenced Edward-Lasenby to decide not to have her son Cameron vaccinated even though she had already had her other child vaccinated.
“I made what I thought was an informed decision at the time,” she said.
Predictably, Edward-Lasenby then had to deal with her worst nightmare when Cameron came down terribly sick.
Diagnosed with the flu at first, it then became clear to doctors that Cameron had contracted the measles after the tell-tale symptoms of a rash and conjunctivitis appeared.
“They took one look at him and said, ‘You can get him to the hospital first or we can get an ambulance here,'” Edward-Lasenby recounted.
And his illness only worsened from there.
“Initially, he had white spots on his mouth,” Cameron’s mom said. “He had conjunctivitis. He was really unwell. He continued to deteriorate, and a rash came all over his body. Then they were talking about brain damage — potential brain damage — and the potential loss of life too because it was quite serious.”
Even after getting through the measles, his compromised immune system caused him to develop pneumonia.
“He was in and out of school on a regular basis,” she said.
In the end, Cameron recovered, but Edward-Lasenby could have easily lost her child because of a bad decision she made to not trust the science.
The MMR vaccine has been widely available for decades now and has been successfully protecting children from this potentially deadly disease all this time. Studies have shown that there are definitely no links to autism. In fact, not vaccinating increases the risk of autism. And millions of lives have been saved because the MMR vaccine was invented.
Even people who have been harmed by very rare side-effects of vaccines continue to support getting children vaccinated.
And now, because of the nightmare her son went through and the terrible guilt she would have felt if he had died because of her mistake, Edward-Lasenby supports vaccinations as well.
“I believe that it’s important to immunize,” she said. “We wouldn’t be in that position [if we had]. I played Russian roulette with my son’s health, which I’m not proud of.”
Let this be a lesson for other parents who are considering making the same choice. You’re putting your child’s life at risk and if he or she should die because of an easily preventable disease, you will have to live with that on your conscious for the rest of your lives. Thankfully, Edward-Lasenby won’t have to, but that doesn’t mean other parents will be so lucky.
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