They write essays like this one:
I am the ’70s child of a health nut. I wasn’t vaccinated. I was brought up on an incredibly healthy diet: no sugar till I was one, breastfed for over a year, organic homegrown vegetables, raw milk, no MSG, no additives, no aspartame. My mother used homeopathy, aromatherapy, osteopathy, we took daily supplements of vitamin C, echinacea, cod liver oil. I had an outdoor lifestyle; I grew up next to a farm, walked everywhere, did sports and danced twice a week, drank plenty of water. I wasn’t even allowed pop; even my fresh juice was watered down to protect my teeth, and I would’ve killed for white, shop-bought bread in my lunch box once in a while. …
As healthy as my lifestyle seemed, I contracted measles, mumps, rubella, a type of viral meningitis, scarlatina, whooping cough, yearly tonsillitis, and chickenpox, some of which are vaccine preventable. In my twenties I got precancerous HPV and spent 6 months of my life wondering how I was going to tell my two children under the age of 7 that mummy might have cancer before it was safely removed.
So having the “natural immunity sterilized out of us” just doesn’t cut it for me. How could I, with my idyllic childhood and my amazing health food, get so freaking ill all the time?
Kate Dries applauds the author:
[Amy] Parker’s republished article has clearly hit a nerve: it has over 80,000 Facebook likes and dozens of comments from people who also suffered from illnesses after not being vaccinated. That’s probably because Parker’s is a story that’s rarely heard. While the internet is full of anti-vaxxers who speak about the harm vaccines have done to their children, the stories of the people who have been harmed by not being vaccinated are far fewer. That’s because developed nations exist in a bubble where, until recently, the standard of behavior was to be vaccinated. Those who argue against it, as Parker explains, are taking advantage of their good fortune that the majority of people around them are vaccinated.
The Dish 