Nichole Metallic, a student in my Granite State College online social psychology class, posted this when we were discussing the belief that many people still have, that vaccines cause autism. We've had an interesting time examining how Andrew Wakefield's work came to convince many people of this. His work has been completely discredited, but some people are still afraid to vaccinate their children. Nichole gave me permission to put her insightful post:
My son will be three in March and I have been conflicted about this topic since I was pregnant. I have given him all of the required vaccinations because I felt that my fear of him contracting something that he hasn't been vaccinated for is greater than my fear of the actual vaccination. When sharing my concerns with my son's doctor he shared a metaphor with me that helped make up my mind about whether or not I was going to give my son the vaccinations.
Imagine you are driving down a dark highway at night. You decide to turn your headlights off, but with the lights from all the other cars on the highway you can still see where you are going. One, then two more cars decide to turn their lights off as well. It's becoming harder to see the road but you can still see. But when everyone turns their head lights off - no one can see where they are going and the highway becomes a mess.
My son will be three in March and I have been conflicted about this topic since I was pregnant. I have given him all of the required vaccinations because I felt that my fear of him contracting something that he hasn't been vaccinated for is greater than my fear of the actual vaccination. When sharing my concerns with my son's doctor he shared a metaphor with me that helped make up my mind about whether or not I was going to give my son the vaccinations.
Imagine you are driving down a dark highway at night. You decide to turn your headlights off, but with the lights from all the other cars on the highway you can still see where you are going. One, then two more cars decide to turn their lights off as well. It's becoming harder to see the road but you can still see. But when everyone turns their head lights off - no one can see where they are going and the highway becomes a mess.
Nichole
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