Friday, August 22, 2008

WHY? Vaccines, History 

In the August 17 issue of Parade Magazine there was an article on vaccines - who needs which ones and why. One particular point caught my attention. The question was: Why do kids even need vaccines? The answer is very important.

Polio, tetanus and whooping cough seem like dangers that belong to history. It would be a mistake to conclude that the danger of those illnesses has passed. ..whenever vaccination rates slip, those diseases return. A recent outbreak of measles occurred mostly among kids whose parents had not had them vaccinated. We live in a global world and diseases do not pay any attention to borders.

I started thinking. The same logic applies to learning real history. The USA has done more good for more people providing freedom from tyranny than any other nation on the planet. It still is the nation of opportunity. American soldiers have died for more moral causes on behalf of others than any other nation. Our children are cheated when they are taught only a guilt-ridden, victimized view of our history. We owe it to them to teach the entire story as well as teach them the horrors perpetrated by so many other cultures.

Just as ignoring vaccines for diseases that we think no longer can affect us, ignoring the evil of foreign cultures and nations and ignoring the good of US History means the diseases and evil can very well come back to us.

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