‘It is astonishing that a mother treats the health of her own child in this way’

Help normal parents

Infuriating those anti-vaxxers and other will-o’-the-wisps. They trust God or their immune system or their feelings and are aggrieved if they are not allowed to enter somewhere. It is time that normal parents who want to protect their children against potentially very dangerous diseases get a little help. They are the ones who will soon be forced to give up shelter because it is no longer safe there. If they have to wait until vague types have been discussed, then it is no longer necessary.

If the government does not offer protection to parents who support official government policy, which is also supported by decades of experience and scientific knowledge, then something goes completely wrong. Where are the childcare organizations that make vaccination mandatory?
Alette van DoggenaarUtrecht

Own parents

I wonder whether the parents who do not want to vaccinate their children (only basic) have asked their parents whether they were vaccinated as a baby. I don’t hear them talking about that.
Wim OlthofTo put away

Increased susceptibility

In the report in the newspaper of March 28, Mrs. Britt Ditmar unintentionally shows an important cause of the declining vaccination rate: extensive ignorance about what childhood diseases can cause, together with the idea that as a mother she knows better what will benefit the health of her children than the doctors and scientists who recommend vaccination.

A characteristic phrase from her speech: ‘The measles is intense, but a child becomes so strong if it passes through such a disease naturally.’

In reality, the exact opposite happens: experiencing measles actually makes a child weaker and more susceptible to other diseases. Not so long ago, scientists discovered that a measles infection seriously damages the memory of the immune system. Previously built-up immunity is largely erased, and the child can become seriously ill again from diseases to which it was immune before the measles infection. This increased susceptibility can last for years.

And then we haven’t even mentioned various other, some of them very serious, complications of measles, including ear infections that can lead to permanent deafness. Another complication is a fatal encephalitis (SSPE), which causes a child who apparently survived a measles infection without any problems to suddenly die years later after months of brain deterioration. The chance of this happening is not ‘negligible’ as Britt Ditmar states, but something on the order of one in several thousand, and even much greater for babies.

If all Dutch children were to get ‘normal’ measles again, this would kill dozens of children every year and leave many more deaf for the rest of their lives. So go, get that shot, because the risks of measles vaccination can be called negligible.
Richard RaskerEnschede

No other time

My father-in-law grew up in a small and prosperous business family, in a spacious house with good sanitary facilities and clean tap water. Yet he contracted polio in the 1930s. He survived, but continued to limp all his life and developed post-polio syndrome later in life. He died at the age of 64 and never saw his grandchildren.

What I’m saying is: don’t think that infectious diseases were mainly prevalent ‘at a time when there were still twenty of us living in a house and no clean drinking water’. Or that ‘going through such a disease naturally’ makes you stronger.
Anne PekAmsterdam

Selfish aspect

There is a selfish aspect to not wanting to have your children vaccinated. You can make that decision because others have had their children vaccinated. This means that diseases occur less often and your unvaccinated child is less at risk.

What will you say later to your infertile unvaccinated son who once had mumps? Mom thought eating lots of whole foods would protect you and I trusted your immune system?
Monique GeensAmsterdam

Provide information

Shocking, the reasons given by parents for not being vaccinated. Scientific studies are considered unproven by a mother. Other parents are attacked by the same mother with the comment that if their child becomes very ill, they should take a look at their shopping cart. Your child will just get sick or die and then have this reaction.

Sometimes, parents, you can also choose to be well informed, to park your ego, to realize that you have not actually studied for this, and also to realize that your child can also become seriously ill, and that a so-called innocent illness can be fatal. could be.
Margot SpelbrinkRhoon

Selection menu

Laura Spijker from Heiloo is not against vaccinations. But what bothers her most is the standard range of vaccination cocktails, which means she cannot choose which diseases she does and does not want to protect her child against.

Serious? You have the opportunity to protect your child against all kinds of diseases, but you would like a menu of options? Just give me the measles and polio, never mind whooping cough and mumps. What choices do you make and what do you base them on?

It is astonishing that a mother would treat the health of her own child in this way.
Frans LeliveldAmsterdam

Negligent

I wonder how many children have been removed from their homes because of the child benefit affair? Did these parents not love their children? Why can’t unvaccinated children be removed from the home? These parents are neglectful and endangering their children. Youth care at its best; short-sighted and negligent.
Nel GroenveldAalsmeer

Liable

The ability to refuse unvaccinated children is only a limited measure. People who go on winter sports bear the additional risks they run and may take out additional insurance for this. Let’s do the same for parents who do not vaccinate their children. If a child becomes ill, the costs will be borne by the parents. And it may even be possible to hold parents liable when other children are infected. Such a measure seems to me to be more effective than simply refusing access to childcare.
Thomas de BoerGroningen

More natural

To all the parents who think it is more ‘natural’ not to have their children vaccinated: it is also very natural when one in every ten children dies before their fifth birthday – as they did just a hundred years ago.
Richard RaskerEnschede