Katie Hopkins- your selfishness will endanger my child

My high risk son.

Dear Katie Hopkins,

It’s very unlikely you will read this or if you do you probably will not care however I need to write this.

I need to write this for my son, for all the high-risk children you are letting your son endanger by not having the flu vaccine because you do not want to fill your healthy child with ‘medicine he doesn’t need’.

This is not a pro vaccine rant, it is not a for or against argument, this is my life, my son’s life we are talking about.

You see, I would have sold my soul for a ‘annoyingly lucky fit and healthy’ child one that wasn’t born with a heart condition, one that didn’t have to fight for his life for 9 days in NICU, that he didn’t need open heart surgery at 6 months to save his life, one that didn’t need lifelong monitoring and future surgeries.

I wish I was as lucky as you to say that he never needed an emergency same day appointment. One where you instantly know the outcome, a referral to hospital and possibly admission. One where your stomach tightens and you can barely breathe from the panic and fear for your child’s health. Where something as innocent as a cold could be fatal.

I wish that I even had the option to consider not vaccinating my child, however as a parent of a high-risk child that has had his life saved my modern medicine I trust my gut, and the medical professionals and do what I can to protect my child, and others.

I wouldn’t wish what we have been through on my worst enemy, the fact you think when catching the flu your child will be of one day and then ‘crack on’ confirms this. Frankly it is delusional and downright disrespectful to those who have died from the flu. Because this still happens. It is dangerous. You have no idea what is like to see your child struggle to breathe, to have consultant numbers saved in your phone or carry your son’s whole medical history around with you.

You say society dictates that we vaccinate the majority to help protect the high-risk children. You even go as far to day that you are selfish and that your child’s health takes priority over anyone else. What exactly gives you the right to do this? Why is it your son is more important than mine? Than all the millions of high risk children? We all co-exist on this earth as a society, a community yet you feel that you can just ignore the risk you are letting your son be. What if your son does catch the flu, and passes it on to your other children? An elderly friend of the family? A neighbour, that leads to complications? If my son catches the flu it could kill him. My other healthy son will have any vaccines that may protect his brother and so will I. Friends and family have had the vaccination to help protect Elijah, they didn’t have to, but that’s what you do. You look out for one another, that’s how a society works, perhaps if people were not as selfish as you then we would live in a nicer place. In some parallel world if I knew my child having a vaccine that could potentially protect others of course I would do it. You are potentially risking other’s lives.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion especially when it comes to raising your own children, and to have the opportunity to state their opinion. People have the right to educate themselves and the risks things such as vaccines but not because someone in the public eye writes a scare mongering article on the Daily Mail. They should do this because they want to not because you tell them too. They should do this not by reading horror stories on the internet but with a Doctor.

You label pro vaccine mums as ‘good mums’, and those who choose not to as ‘bad mums’ some have said that unless your child is vaccinated they should be banned from the school gates. But let’s flip the argument round, should my child who has been through hell and back stay at home because of the selfishness of someone else? Why once again do you feel you have the right to think your child is more important that another?

I didn’t write this to make everyone rush out and go get a flu vaccination or feel guilty because they choose not to vaccinate their children. I wrote this for my son, my high-risk son that you are endangering for what I can tell from your article because you are ‘not that good’, to think of other children and people that unfortunately live on the same planet as you.

Next time you have an opinion on such a loaded subject, please try and think of another reason that your selfishness before you print it for thousands of people to read.

Yours sincerely, a frankly astonished high-risk mother.