The article "Estepilha, A Liberdade de Escolher a Praga" (roughly, "Stepping Aside, The Freedom to Choose the Plague"), published in Funchal Notícias, strongly addresses the growing trend of parents questioning medicine and opting not to vaccinate their children. The author describes this new "intellectual elite" as individuals who view medicine as a mere suggestion and Google as a university, distrusting doctors with years of study.
The notion that diseases disappeared naturally is criticized, attributing their eradication to public health campaigns and vaccines, rather than positive energies or teas. The text highlights the irony of parents demanding for their children the right to contract diseases that were prevented for them, calling this "freedom of choice," with consequences also affecting unvaccinated infants.
The article questions the blind trust in non-medical sources, such as online videos selling supplements, over scientific evidence and doctors' advice. The courage to risk a child's health is seen as easy, contrasting with the difficulty of justifying "I did a lot of research" to a pediatrician. The rarity of diseases like polio, due to vaccine effectiveness, is ironically used as an argument for their lack of danger.
It concludes that convinced ignorance, fueled by superficial information, has become an ally for viruses, contrasting with the love and prevention that led parents to vaccinate their children in the past. The final message is a call to understand the value of science and preventive medicine.
