Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
I won’t have jab tested on my son
mirror.co.uk
IT’S been almost impossible to get through the current experience without learning a lot about yourself – and I’ve just received my harshest lesson to date. I’m a hypocrite.
I want my child to be immunised against coronavirus with a vaccine, but I don’t want a vaccine to be tested on him.
Up to 300 young people between the ages of six and 17 are taking part in an Oxford/ Astrazeneca clinical trial, in Oxford, London, Southampton and Bristol. My son is six.
Although it’s rare for Covid-19 to have serious consequences for children, they can still pass it on.
The danger, of course, is that a few more mutations down the line, we’re facing a variant our current vaccines don’t work on – meaning the whole country slides down a massive snake, back to square one.
It makes sense for kids to be vaccinated And obviously vaccines need to be tested. I wholeheartedly back this plan.
Just not with my son, thanks.
Who are these mums and dads who have volunteered their precious offspring as guinea pigs?
Online, people have both applauded their heroism and accused them of child abuse.
Presumably, the risks and potential side-effects involved in
the trial are low, or no one would dream of going ahead.
How they silence the nagging doubt that maybe their child will be the “against all odds” anomaly, I genuinely cannot fathom.
I wonder if all this went through the minds of the parents of a six-year-old called Randy Kerr, back in 1954.
Nearly 70 years ago, this boy – the same age as my son – received the first injection in the Polio vaccine trial.
Hundreds of thousands of children took part. It was a huge success, and the kids were known as the Polio Pioneers. Millions of lives have been saved since, and who knows where we would be now without them. Randy’s parent’s obviously made the right decision.
If any are one day called Coronavirus Pioneers, 16-year-old Katelyn Evans’ name will be top of the list. Vaccine trials started on American teenagers late last year, and she was one of the first to take part. Her mother, Laurie, says: “I’ve gotten a few comments on Facebook —’what kind of mother would let her kids do that?’ But Katelyn has also had teachers and other students in the hallway say, ‘hey, my gosh, that’s so cool’ and ‘you’re so brave!’
“We feel like normal, everyday people who are just doing a little teeny-tiny thing we believe will help lots of people,” says Mrs Evans. “Someone has to.”
She’s right, of course. Someone has to.
There’s a part of me that’s ashamed of how I feel, that I’m not rushing to the front of the queue, offering up my child for the good of society.
Like I say, I definitely want him to be vaccinated, like the rest of the family, but only once I know it’s safe.
Maybe parents like Laurie Evans, who allow their kids to take part in trials are more well-informed, optimistic or courageous than those of us who wouldn’t.
Perhaps she’s simply a better woman than I.
People like her, and their children, are going to make a huge difference to all our lives.
There’s only one thing we need to tell them. As I remind my son over 80 million times a day
– what do you say?
Thank you.
I’m a hypocrite. I want my son vaccinated but I don’t want it tested on him