A new report from America’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention has detailed one family’s fight against tetanus after their six-year-old who had never been vaccinated against it contracted it.
He contracted tetanus from a cut on his forehead, nearly died as a result, and had to spend nearly two months in hospital. Oh, and the medical expenses totalled over $800,000USD, or $1.1 million AUD, because America.
The boy was playing on his family’s farm in Oregon when he scraped his forehead. Tetanus is a bacterial infection generally transmitted by soil, or, if our parents are to be believed, by all those rusty nails that somehow exist in suburban Sydney and pose a tremendous risk.
His family cleaned and closed up the wound, but six days later, his jaw began to lock up, a symptom of the infection that gave it the name ‘lockjaw’ back in the day.
So much hype about ‘toxins’ everywhere meanwhile tetanus is an actual, literal toxin that climbs up your nerves and into your spinal cord and brain and makes your muscles painfully spasm and contract until you stop breathing https://t.co/KFMh4MlIXW
— James Hamblin (@jameshamblin) March 9, 2019
His arms and upper body then spasmed, and he started to experience full-body seizures, and eventually had trouble breathing.
An emergency helicopter took him to hospital, where he was diagnosed with a tetanus infection, the first case in Oregon in 30 years.
Doctors gave him several rounds of vaccines and a large dose of tetanus immune globulin, but he still had to spend the next 47 days in intensive care. Throughout that time, he relied on a breathing machine and medication administered via IV to keep his muscles and blood pressure calm and spasms to a minimum.
On the 44th day, he was finally able to sip some water, and two days later, left the intensive care unit. After 50 days in hospital, he was able to walk 20 feet, but still needed to spend 17 more days in a rehab facility to regain the ability to move his legs.
After all of that, his parents were on the hook for $811,929USD, or $1,151,946.81 in AUD. They also have to pay for the emergency helicopter transport, rehabilitation, and follow-up visits.
You’d think that would be an incredibly expensive lesson well learned, right? Nope.
Even after all of that, the family declined the second dose of the vaccine needed for their child to be immunised against tetanus.
Hello. Tetanus is an easily preventable disease with a simple and cheap vaccine.
Putting your kid through 2 months of hell because you felt like it is child abuse. https://t.co/GvUcBGZA48
— Gene Wu (@GeneforTexas) March 9, 2019
At what point does refusing to vaccinate your child become neglectful or even abusive? After they’ve spent two months in hospital because of a preventable disease, maybe?
But I’m sure the parents are just relieved their kid isn’t at risk of getting autism from any more evil vaccines.
The state where the family lives, Oregon, recently had a huge outbreak of measles that prompted a Congressman to write to Facebook asking them to crack down on anti-vax groups and content.
Late last week, Facebook announced that they would begin cracking down on anti-vax pages and groups, but not removing them from the platform entirely – rather, ensuring they don’t show up as frequently in search results and as recommendations to people. The pages and groups will now also be more closely monitored by Facebook moderators.