Editorial for the Vaccine Risk Awareness Network (VRAN)
Newsletter (June-Oct. 2001) The Vaccine Risk Awareness Network
Inc. was formed in Winlaw, British Columbia, in 1992 in response
to growing parental concern about the safety of current
vaccination programs in Canada. The following editorial was
written by VRAN Coordinator and Newsletter Editor Edda West to
accompany a Chronicillnet.org Special Report, "Will the
Poliovirus Eradication Program Rid the World of Childhood
Paralysis?" The editorial is reprinted here with the permission
of the author and VRAN. Time and again, when parents call VRAN
searching for vaccine risk information, the question of polio
comes up. Anxious mothers ask -- but what about polio -- isn't
that an important vaccine to get? What if my child gets polio?
Although most young parents today didn't live through the polio
era, there is an inherited fear that lingers on -- a fear that
is reinforced by health officials who use the threat of the
resurgence of infectious diseases like polio