It was with deep concern and not without some amount of embarrassment that I read the news of how in many Northern parts of Kerala - and yes, my own hometown too figures in that list - parents were refusing to give their children the MMR vaccines. As per the state health minister Shylaja Teacher, only around 58% of the children have been given their doses as of the cut-off date, forcing them to extend the deadline. It would seem absurd that in 2017, we are still discussing whether to give vaccines even after so many decades of viewing its success across the world.
And yet, the lobby to brainwash people and play to their inner insecurities has been doing an increasingly stellar job in seeding fear into the minds of the gullible and unsure, undoing decades of work by health care workers and scientists. They have given half a dozen theories and reasons as to why no parent should consider…
