My first grandchild, Sam, was born last August. He’s nine months old now and growing fast. I love that little guy. There’s so much I want for him, including good health and freedom from infectious diseases. That’s why I joined the group Grandparents For Vaccines (grandparentsforvaccines.org), a volunteer-led movement whose mission is to ensure America’s grandchildren have the best start in life without the threat of vaccine-preventable diseases.
When I worked as a scientist at the National Institutes of Health, I studied how electric and magnetic fields interact with our bodies, a topic full of false claims that are not supported by the evidence, such as cell phones cause brain cancer. Now, I find a similar situation with vaccines, where misinformation is widespread. Many myths about vaccines are untrue, such as allegations that they contain toxic ingredients, cause autism, overload the immune system, and are not tested before approval. As a scientist, I know there is overwhelming evidence that vaccines are safe. You can learn more about the science behind vaccines from the Your Neighborhood Scientist article “Vax to the Future: Building a Healthier Tomorrow With Vaccines” by Alyssa Maturen-Backlas.
Today, I speak as a grandfather as well as a scientist. In some ways, vaccines are victims of their own success. Diseases like whooping cough, diphtheria, and the mumps are so rare today that people don’t realize what life was like before vaccines were common. But grandparents remember. Grandparents, and especially great-grandparents, grew up before many vaccines were common. They know the pain and suffering caused by infectious diseases. They have important stories to tell.
Let me give you some examples. Jan from Washington recounts how she lost her twin brother Frankie to polio in 1953, just two years before Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine was approved. Jan also got polio, but survived after a harrowing ordeal. She says “we cannot go back to those bad old days.”
Children’s book author Roald Dahl lost his beloved seven-year-old daughter Olivia to the measles in 1962. You can listen to his words as he writes of his devastation. Dahl dedicated his book The BFG to Olivia’s memory after her death. He says “I know how happy she would be if only she could know that her death had helped to save a good deal of illness and death among other children.”
Andy and Ginny from Minnesota describe Andy’s battle with meningitis in college, before the current vaccine was available. He survived, but only after gruesome amputations of all but one of his fingers and toes, and months of rehabilitation. Andy says that “every child should receive the shot… meningitis is just too dangerous and too fast moving to overlook.”
You can hear dozens of other stories on the Grandparents for Vaccines YouTube station. All these stories illustrate the terrible suffering associated with what are now vaccine-preventable diseases. Children no longer need to fear polio, measles, and meningitis, if their parents have them vaccinated.
Let me close with a request. I expect some readers of Your Neighborhood Scientist want to contribute to and advocate for science and public health, but don’t know how. Here are four suggestions:
- Follow Grandparents For Vaccines on Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, and other social media. Help us get the word out.
- Listen to the videos, learn what life was like before vaccines, and talk about what you learned with others. Advocate for vaccines.
- If you lived back in the time before vaccines and witnessed the damage these horrendous diseases caused, consider telling your story to Grandparents For Vaccines. Make your own video.
- If you have the time and interest, become a state rep for Grandparents For Vaccines. They are recruiting reps for each state, and even each media market, who can promote vaccines by speaking at events, writing letters to the editor in local newspapers, and telling their stories publicly.
Your experience is so important to children like my grandson Sam and others of his generation. Your story may be the one to convince a young mother to vaccinate her kids. You may save a life.
