By Senator, Lena C. Taylor
State Senator Lena C. Taylor
In the spirit of the back-to-school season, August is National Immunization Awareness Month. Those of you with school-aged children will know that preteens must receive shots for tetanus, diphtheria, whooping cough, and meningitis before returning to school. You may not know that adults can and should get booster shots the fight tetanus and diphtheria, as well as whooping cough. Older family members can receive a one-time vaccine for pneumonia.
You are concerned about your health and the health of your children. This is natural and admirable. I too am constantly concerned with ensuring the health of myself and especially my son. Mandatory immunizations help give me a peace of mind that I almost take for granted. A lot of the illnesses that plagued my mother and father’s generation have been all but wiped out.
When I was a child, whooping cough seemed like an old-fashioned illness I didn’t have to worry about. Still, complacency can sneak up on us. In the last eight months, the country has seen a huge outbreak of whooping cough. This year may be the worst year for whooping cough since 1959, and Wisconsin has been hit especially hard. As a state, we currently have the highest rate of whooping cough.
Whooping cough is a serious illness which may lead to lasting health issues or even death among infants and the elderly. Though whooping cough is less serious for older children and healthy adults (two percent of people with whooping cough require hospitalization), the public health depends on fighting whooping cough and other infectious diseases.
Outbreaks like these happen, in part, due to lack of immunization. Organizations like the Community Health Improvement for Milwaukee have helped drastically increase the number of immunizations within city limits. Still, Milwaukee children are ten percent less likely to have up-to-date shots than Wisconsin children as a whole. Another disturbing fact is that only 10% of adults have received a whooping cough booster shot. Luckily, we have dedicated individuals helping turn those numbers around.
The yearly campaign to promote immunization is sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a federal agency dedicated to protecting the public health by better educating the American public about health issues. I am happy to join the chorus by also supporting this campaign. These vaccinations have been a cornerstone of modern public health policy.
No one can deny that, along with voluntary adult participation, mandatory immunization for school children has saved innumerable lives. The policy recognizes that we are all in this together, and that one family’s health decisions affect everyone around them. No one’s health decisions exist in a bubble. In this way, the immunizations serve as a working metaphor for President Obama’s health care mandate. These are the same principles: everyone benefits when everyone is involved.
And just as in President Obama’s health care act, we recognize that everyone benefits when we extend to those in need a helping hand. For families who cannot afford vaccinations in their current economic situation, immunizations are often free.
The City of Milwaukee Health Department’s Immunization Program can assist you. Call 286-8034 for questions.