I was raised vaccine hesitant. Now I’m double vaxxed against COVID-19 – CBC

My dad died from COVID-19, so I’m honouring his memory by taking the vaccine

Oct 17, 2021

I was raised by my father to be wary of vaccines.

Dad was a health-care professional. I had been vaccinated in my childhood for polio, smallpox and pertussis. Yet, for some reason, he decided that I would not receive the booster shots when I entered Grade 7. He and my mother had taken care of me through rubella, measles, mumps and chickenpox. “No more vaccines,” I remember him saying. I was strong and healthy, so what could some boosters do that my immune system could not already handle?

Dad was all about taking responsibility for one’s health by exercising, avoiding alcohol, and staying away from tobacco. Prescription drugs were a last resort. He worried about the increasing reliance on the array of pharmaceuticals that were becoming available in the 1950s and 1960s. Doctors were happy to prescribe them and patients willing to consume them. He worried about the rise of allergies and asthma in children and wondered if there was a correlation to the frequency of vaccination that was taking place. (There was not).

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/yukon-first-person-rachel-grantham-1.6212276