WAKERELL-CRUZ: I don’t care about your politics, are you vaccinated?

I’ve lived a fairly sheltered life. I grew up in a middle class environment for most of my childhood, and enjoyed a comfortable upbringing in the safe suburbs of Windsor during my teens.

My social circles are fairly diverse. I’ve always prided myself on being able to find common ground with people of different backgrounds, ethnicities, and religions.

I’m a conversationalist, and I love hearing about people’s beliefs and opinions, to help me understand how different people view the world we all live in.

There is a very stark contrast between conversation that takes place online, and conversation that happens takes place at work, in bars, or at social events. One thing I’ve noticed in particular is that although I see certain opinions espoused all the time on the internet, I have never actually come across a real life flat-earther, or anti-vaxxer.

I do not really have time to entertain flat-earthers. I don’t take what they say seriously for a second. You could literally never convince me that the Earth is flat. The science is more than out, and even thousands of years ago, it was generally known that we did not live on a flat surface, but instead, on a ball.

As Galileo will tell you, though it was known that we lived on a ball, most of the population was convinced that we were the literal center of the universe, and that the sun and stars revolved around we here on Earth. Galileo was imprisoned for this theory, being sent to prison for life for heresy.

For anti-vaxxers though, I can at least understand the concern. It is very odd to be pricked by a needle and injected with foreign substances that contain strange chemicals, formulated by scientists that you will never meet, and that you probably don’t know the name of.

The thing that is most interesting about the anti-vaxxer phenomenon is that it appears to transcend social barriers, including political party, something that is rare nowadays.

The people who are touting the anti-vaxxer message tend to come from two different camps: Yoga health lefties, and “big brother is watching me” right wingers. The two sides have different reasons as to why they disagree with vaccines, but are cut from the same cloth.

The health freaks tend to argue that it’s not natural for young children to be “pumped with chemicals,” and that these chemicals are actually getting people sicker. They claim that there has not been much research done to fully conclude that vaccines are safe, and that they could even potentially cause autism.

It doesn’t help that some high level celebrities are keeping the anti-vaxxer rhetoric in the news cycles. Recently, make-up mogul and tattoo artist Kat Von D got a lot of attention, and plenty of heavy criticism for announcing to her hundreds of thousands of followers that she will not be vaccinating her child, as well as announcing that she will be raising him to be vegan.

The autism claim has been refuted time and time again, and it’s not worth getting into. It’s a flat out lie, and one that President Trump unfortunately claimed he saw happen “with his own eyes,” palso claiming that autism is an “epidemic.”

The people on the right that hate vaccines tend to be from the Alex Jones camp. They claim that the metals and elements in vaccines, especially mercury, eat at the cerebral cortex, and essentially stunt early brain development. There is also very heavy “don’t tell me what to do” sentiment that comes along with this camp as well.

This odd pairing together add up to a small but vocal minority. They let themselves be very known online, and will give you plenty of anecdotal evidence to support their claims.

It is scary to get a vaccine. They hurt, take time out of your day, and can lead to some mild discomfort in the days after. The media is largely pro-vaccine, but it does not help that whenever someone is harmed by vaccines, there is a media frenzy.

One incredibly odd case that comes to mind immediately was when one woman, Desiree Jennings, claimed that she could now only walk backwards because of a flu shot she received. It only took days for this to garner international attention, and of course, she was exposed as a liar.

There are a plethora of stories like these that you can find on YouTube. They tend to fall apart under any scrutiny.

The fact of the matter is that vaccines are safe. I’m sorry to say it, but the science is out. There are rare instances where people are harmed by vaccines they recieve. This is a risk that we as a society have to take, for the greater good of us all.

It’s sad to say, but even if a small percentage of vaccinations caused some harm to the user, it’s still a much better case scenario than say, the plague returning. Which it is, by the way!

So please, dear reader. Get your child vaccinated. Get your flu shot. We just recently saw a very sad story come out of Quebec in which a 3 year old girl was perfectly healthy on Monday, and sadly passed away from an intense battle with the flu by Thursday.

For more information about where you can get vaccinated (in Canada) take a look over at https://vaccines411.ca/en/