When I was in my twenties and early thirties, most of my friends were having babies. Around the same time there was a terrifying rumour going around that to vaccinate your children with the MMR jabs would cause them untold illness. So, in the parents warped intelligence – they hadn’t had Measles, Mumps or Rubella (that’ll be the jabs you had as a kid!) – they didn’t have their childrens’ vaccinations done at all.

Now, 16 years later…we have outbreaks of the Measles, Rubella and in some cases Mumps.Do you know what Mumps can do to a male? Measles can kill or leave you very much incapacitated, and Rubella is horrifying. I think whooping cough is making a come back too, and not in a good way!

For a start all of these illnesses are preventable, why bring them back?

The following are true symptoms of the diseases, for that is what they are.

Measles

• Diarrhea
• Pneumonia
• Encephalitis (inflammation of the brain)
• Blindness
• Deafness
• Premature birth or low-birthweight baby (in unvaccinated pregnant women who get measles during pregnancy)
• Reduced immunity to other deadly diseases
• Death

Rubella

Rubella infection creates mild symptoms in most children and adults, but can cause serious health problems when it happens during pregnancy:

• Rubella virus infection is the leading cause of vaccine-preventable birth defects.
• A pregnant woman infected with rubella in early pregnancy has up to a 90% chance of giving birth to a baby with congenital rubella syndrome (CRS). Birth defects of CRS include:
  • Heart defects
  • Hearing loss
  • Glaucoma
  • Cataracts
  • Developmental delay

Mumps can cause:

• deafness – usually with partial or complete recovery 
• swollen, painful testicles in older boys and men 
• miscarriage in pregnant women
• meningitis 

So there’s a happy list of joyous symptoms. Of course being in a wonderful Western World, we can take our little Cherubs to the Doctors and get them vaccinated now instead. Not all people have this valuable and taken for granted service. People in poorer countries face this all of the time. Note the reduced immunity to other deadly diseases. This could even be Covid that strikes you down.

People seem to have stopped washing their hands/using surgical handwash/wearing a mask. I’ve had a cold now for months! Just as it goes I meet someone who has had Covid – cripes! Because of the vaccines working so well, it is up to your employer as to whether you take time off if you are ill. My partners company deny you time off if you test positive for Covid. Even if you are crawling on the floor not breathing.

The most terrible thing about this is that he is not just sat in an office breathing his own air, he is driving to different customers across the land and going from cleanish outside air into stuffy offices with or without air conditioning, with lots or not so many other people with their versions of many germs.- here is where air conditioning comes into its own, spreading the germs evenly throughout the office! I once worked in an open plan office and suffered cold after cold after cold! The boss and his deputy had separate offices; they were not fools.

So what to do? Common sense, that most people seem to be without nowadays. If you can’t get out of bed, don’t. If you can not breathe without copious amounts of Vicks/Beconase/Sudafed stay away from me! If you must go out, wear a mask. There are some people who do this. It is mainly because they are stopping you from polluting them, not the other way around!

Lizzie Ross. Back from the Beyond 22nd January 2024.