It is a bitter pill to swallow to think that so much of the good accomplished through childhood immunizations could hang in the balance and be just a generation or two away from disappearing.

The push for vaccination, especially of school-age children, has helped eradicate some diseases. Other childhood killers have been all but nullified through the miracle of medicine.

It was a matter of a few generations ago that polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the 1840s, the virus had claimed thousands of lives and left thousands of other sufferers wheelchair bound or confined to machines to help them breathe.

Through immunization of school children, poliomyelitis is almost unheard of in the Western Hemisphere since the late 1970s. Those who receive a vaccine against the disease have a 90 percent less risk of contracting the illness, which is why it is still a required immunization for children.

It was not so long ago that the 1960s saw more than 50,000 babies born blind, deaf or with other maladies because their mothers had been exposed to rubella during pregnancy. Rubella, also known as the German measles, is almost just a bad memory now.

But a growing number of parents are opting out of such preventative treatments. Eleven states say more parents are choosing to forego recommended immunizations for reasons that include everything from the number of needle injections — almost two dozen by age 2 — or because of a distrust of the government.??In a handful of cases, children are allergic to the vaccines and all 50 states allow exemptions for this reason. Most states also allow parents to say no to immunizations on religious grounds. A few allow exemptions for personal or philosophical reasons.

Among that latter category is a growing concern that the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal, which has been used in most vaccines since the 1930s, is responsible for the frightening increase in the number of children with autism.??Studies, rejected by most of those who resist vaccines, have shown that there is nothing to indicate thimerosal poses any danger.

In some cases, the cost of immunizations keeps parents from protecting their children. But many county health departments offer free or reduced-cost vaccines.

The result of all this has been that diseases quelled for decades are now starting to return with a vengeance. Mumps, measles and whooping cough are just a handful of the childhood plagues that are tasking health officials once again.

Parents have a responsibility to protect their children, but sometimes emotions and bad information seem to get in the way.

We cannot afford to step backwards and allow thousands more children to become victims of deadly and avoidable diseases.

REPRINTED FROM THE JACKSONVILLE DAILY NEWS