To the Editor:
“I Grew Up Unvaccinated. I’m Lucky I Didn’t Get Sick,” by Elisabeth Marnik (Opinion guest essay, March 1), is both reassuring and troubling.
As the son of a pediatrician growing up in Forest Hills, Queens, I had a ringside seat to fretful parents from all the backgrounds that midcentury Queens had to offer — and to the near godlike status they assigned my father, who dispelled those fears with an unshakable faith in the 20th-century miracle of vaccines.
My father’s case was bolstered by the fact that iron lungs, high infant mortality rates and outbreaks of diseases like measles and diphtheria had only recently been consigned to history. He had trained with the eminent child psychologist Lee Salk — the brother of Dr. Jonas Salk, who developed the polio vaccine — and so his veneration of modern immunology was both personal and professional.
I am reassured by Dr. Marnik’s story because it shows that it is possible to overcome biases and misconceptions, but it is not easily replicated. I agree with her that one does not overcome those powerful notions with strictly factual or statistical arguments.
I also do not envy the pediatricians of today, who must battle dis- and misinformation. The physician-as-god is indeed dead, or perhaps on life support, courtesy of TikTok, A.I. and the internet.
We need a way to overcome ignorance on a mass scale. Dr. Marnik’s journey, while reassuring, does not fill me with confidence.
Peter Bass Chevy Chase, Md.
To the Editor:
In my 93 years I have observed tragedies that make me a firm believer in vaccines and other gains against disease. An uncle died of pneumonia in 1944, and an 18-year-old friend died from a burst appendix that year, just before penicillin became widely available.
Having gone through the usual childhood diseases (measles, mumps, whooping cough, strep throat) and enduring the seasonal fear of the dreaded polio, my husband and I jumped to protect our children with the vaccines and antibiotics that become available by the 1950s.
My husband, who studied under Dr. Jonas Salk at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, couldn’t wait to give the polio vaccine Dr. Salk developed to our children, bringing home a syringe with the miraculous solution as soon as it became available.
Parents who are conflicted today about vaccines don’t have memories such as ours: spending days in darkened rooms during a bout of measles to protect our eyesight, or the pain of chickenpox and mumps. I assume that they at least believe in antibiotics, which we didn’t have to treat infections.
A child dead from measles is a high price to pay for one’s beliefs.
Joanne Oroark Santa Barbara, Calif.
To the Editor:
As a pediatrician, I was very moved by Elisabeth Marnik’s essay. And it strongly reinforced something I have long felt: It is so important to empathize with the parents of my young patients and to work to educate them and answer their questions.
I tell these parents that I was a pediatrician for five years before I became a mother. I felt ashamed for feeling nervous when my daughter got her first set of vaccines. But that is just being a mother. And it is OK.
I just wish that I had more than the typical 15 minutes allotted for a pediatric visit to accomplish this ever more important task.
Julie Halvorsen Princeton, N.J.
Calling All Teens: Are you a teenager with something to say? The New York Times’s Learning Network invites you to write a public-facing letter about an issue that matters to you. The Open Letters Contest runs until April 8.
A Voice From Norway
To the Editor:
In December 1945, my father came home to Norway after nearly four years as a prisoner of war in Hong Kong and Japan. He was skinny and suffered from trauma and malnutrition, but he was alive.
He was always grateful to the United States for its fight against the Japanese and German aggressors, which gave him the possibility of a new start. And without this successful fight, I would not be here either.
In the postwar years, the Marshall Plan and the creation of NATO gave further reasons for our gratitude to the U.S. for an economic restart and military security against the Soviet threat. Regardless of disagreements among Western countries, there has always been trust that we stood on the same bedrock of democratic principles, human rights and the rule of law.
But where are we now? Since the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, President Trump has repeatedly tested the limits of his power, and again and again he has learned that the institutions that could rein him in have submitted to his will. The very values that my father fought and nearly died for are at stake.
I hope America will wake up before it is too late.
Leif Ongstad Oslo
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