The fever suddenly comes. It is so high that the baby is trembling in the arm. His small body is burning and sweaty, and his chest is vivid and struggling to breathe through hacking cough. His eyes, blood shots and glass are almost open. He will not eat. He will not drink.
Then the rash is angry and constantly seems to be constant, and crawls around soft skin like a forest fire. Doctors say nothing to do. The medicine cannot stop it. The treatment will not leave it. What you can do is hold on to your children and he can do it through it.
This is measles. It is not “harmless childhood disease.” The viruses in the ruthless air that have already killed children this year are still spreading.
It is one of the most infectious diseases on the planet. The infected person remains in the air for several hours after leaving the room and waits to claim the next victim. One of the five children who signed the contract will be hospitalized. One in 20 people occur pneumonia. One in 1,000 people can suffer from the brain and cause lifelong disability or death. Even after the child is recovered, measles can leave a deadly time bomb.
We have a way to stop this. Measles, fashionable loweritis and rubella (MMR) vaccines are 97 % after taking twice. It is one of the most safest and most studied vaccines in history. It saved millions of lives.
Nevertheless, measles came back. Because of a lie. Because of fear. Because of those who have the power to promote fatal information for their political interests.
I am the mother of an 18 -month -old son. He received the first MMR dose, but he was not completely protected because he was too young. That’s why I cowardice As measles spread to this country. Our child (all our children) is not because the parents don’t care, but because they have made their mission that a powerful man fears them in the vaccine.
But here is the truth that many people do not understand. Parents who do not vaccinate their children do not do so because their children want to get sick. Loved parents do not risk measles, polio or hundred days cough.
They make that choice because they are afraid. Someone (often with power, trusted person) was convinced that a greater risk was not a disease but a vaccine itself. Fear is powerful. And the anti-barbin movement knows it.
Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. knows it. They know that if you can make your parents suspicious, even a little bit of vaccination. And it’s all needed to come back. This crisis is not the fault of a hesitant parent. The defects are also with those who have made a machine of fear and lies and benefited from destruction. And now, all of them are all at the highest level of our government.
Trump has appointed the infamous anti -Basia extremist Kennedy as the Minister of Health and Welfare. Kennedy has spent decades to preach an explosive plot theory to the vaccine. He claims to cause autism falsely. He used his platform to raise doubts, surprised his parents, and undermined the public’s trust in medicine. His promise to supervise our country’s health policy was not just reckless, but a direct attack on vaccines that maintained diseases such as measles during generations.
But in this disaster, Trump’s role did not begin with Kennedy. During his first term, when his approval grade was approved by Covid-19 Pandemic, Trump got vaccine information to save him. He dismissed the virus that it was not worse than the flu. He mocked masks and social distances. He proposed to inject a disinfectant with a treatment. And when the vaccine finally arrived (when he was forced to withdraw and protect the country, he instead made a political decision calculated to provide the support of the anti -scientific gripping.
The result of this decision is here. In Nevada, the ratio of children’s vaccination exemption from 4 %of 2019-2020 to 2023-2024 (children who do not need to be vaccinated for religious or medical reasons). According to the Center for Disease Control, the proportion of kindergartens who had been vaccinated for measles decreased from 95 % in 2018-2019 to less than 92 % in 2023-2024.
The enormous measles is now torn through Texas and is now spreading throughout the country. There have been more than 200 cases and at least two children died. The disease was removed from the United States decades ago. Never return. But now he has returned by empowering the web of Trump, Kennedy and extremists.
Children are suffering. The hospital is filled. And it will just get worse.
It is easy to blame parents for not vaccinating their children. But the criticism is wrong. Parents are not villains here. They are victims of the campaign that will provide deliberately and well -funded to surprise them. They are manipulated by bad actors who are falsely bombed and eat the deepest fear.
Real villains are people who spread that lie. Politicians who refuse to support the anti -aging extremists. Conspiracy theorists who benefit from fear. The gripter, who is quietly gaining his own children, is vaccinated.
Measles are back and children are dying. Their small body, covered with Pockmarks, will match the safe of bad people who lead our government after being sacrificed at an altar of political convenience. I hope your parents will find peace. And I hope the bad actors who tear these children will be responsible.
Shelbie Swartz is the executive director of Battle Born Progress, a 501 (c) non -profit organization that provides strategic communication on the Nevada progressive cause. She lives with her husband and infant in Las Vegas.
