Dear Editor:
Recently I wrote an article for Historica about John G. FitzGerald. He was a doctor and bacteriologist from Wellington County who, in the early 20th century, was very much responsible for developing affordable Canadian antitoxins and vaccines to help fight infectious diseases such as diphtheria.
His work helped bring down the frighteningly high child mortality rate resulting from such illnesses. Thanks to the efforts of Dr. FitzGerald and people like him, medical science was able to give us weapons to fight epidemics of such deadly illnesses as diphtheria, smallpox, polio, typhoid fever and measles.
How distressing and downright infuriating it is to learn that a century later, measles is back with us – over a thousand cases in Ontario alone. There should not be a single case of measles in Canada or the U.S., because we have a safe, efficient vaccine that has been in use for generations.
Unfortunately, we also have an anti-vaccine cult that spreads false information that belongs in the same category as “the Earth is flat” and “Elvis is alive.” As a result, there are children who are not vaccinated and are therefore at risk.
To make matters worse, there are politicians who perpetuate that misinformation, irresponsibly weaponizing fear and ignorance in pursuit of political agendas.
In Canada, we had Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre pandering to the “Freedom Convoy.” In the U.S., Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an outspoken anti-vaxxer and a proponent of so much utter nonsense, doctors and health experts all over the world are astounded that he is the Secretary of Health.
This man, who has no training whatsoever in medicine or health sciences, even told people they could cure measles with vitamin A. Consequently, two American children have died from measles and others are in hospital being treated for liver damage from vitamin A overdose.
The anti-vaxxer insanity ramped up because the COVID-19 pandemic hit during Donald Trump’s first term as U.S. president. He was too incompetent to deal with it and at the same time could not stand the idea of a pandemic blighting his glorious time in office.
Attacking vaccination and other measures necessary to inhibit the spread of the virus was a way of attacking “the left.” Hundreds of thousands of Americans died needlessly. The states with the greatest numbers of anti-vaxxers also had the highest percentages of COVID deaths, but Trump and company dismissed that as “fake news.”
Now that anti-vaxxer insanity is threatening Ontario children. Politicians who jump onto that bandwagon – or perhaps we should call it a hearse – are a disgrace and unfit to hold any public office.
Dr. FitzGerald would be disgusted.
Ed Butts,
Guelph