Female Speaker: When a child is immunized, it prepares his or her immune system to fight off certain diseases. Each immunization contains either a dead or a weakened germ or a synthetic counterpart. These particles are not strong enough to pose a real threat, but this foreign presence does trigger an immune response. The immune system learns to recognize the invader and make the antibodies needed to fend it off. Now, if a child is confronted with the actual disease, their system is prepared. But, it's kind of like an athlete in training. Like an athlete, a child's immune system needs repeated practice to do well in the arena of germ fighting. The parent who skips immunizations or falls behind schedule can put their child at risk. And, if one child is infected, others are also at risk. Elizabeth Bingham has grave concerns about this. Her two youngest 15-month old Abigail and 4 year old Francesca are healthy now.
But Francesca's health could be compromised at any time. She was born without a bladder, and eventually had a kidney transplant. To keep her body from rejecting the kidney, she must take immune suppressing medications. Her immune response is limited.
Elizabeth Bingham: In Francesca's case, it was very important to make sure that I always had her around children that were immunized. It was a routine question I had to ask in order to have children to come to play at the house or for my daughter to be able to go over to their home, because there was always the potential that they would come home with something lethal.
Female Speaker: From the early ages on up, kids who study and attend classes whether it's preschool or high school are required to be up-to-date on their immunizations. But when school starts, many kids are missing. That's because school districts are often forced to turn away thousands of children who are not up-to-date or do not have proper paperwork proving immunization status.
Nat Herrington: We've had a serious problem with parents not responding the way we wanted them to respond to have their children immunized. We've impressed upon them that it's a health problem not only for their children, but for other children that their children may be exposed to it. But, aside from that, it's the law that children must be immunized before they're allowed to come to school so we've created a program a campaign called "No shots, No school," and this time, no kidding.
Female Speaker: Organizers say the campaign is helping raise awareness, and that immunizations are free for those who need it. The message is that no child should go unprotected.
Elizabeth Bingham: I'd rather say that I got my child immunized, and if something happens, say, well, I know I did the right thing than to have something catastrophic happen to my child and know that I could have done something to prevent it.
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