Kailyn Lowry, one of the stars of Teen Mom 2, has hit back at people who criticized her for not vaccinating her youngest child, Lux.
“I mean, I guess the only thing I can really say and continue to stand for is to parent how it’s best for your child and family,” Lowry said in an interview with In Touch Weekly . “People don’t love everything I do but I don’t shove my beliefs down anyone else’s throat. I know what’s best for my kids and other parents know what’s best for theirs.”
Lowry revealed her choice to not vaccinate Lux during the latest episode of her podcast, Coffee Convos .
Thanks to the rise of social media platforms, the anti-vaccination movement has gained lots of momentum over the years, convincing several moms to forgo vaccination because of its purported links to autism. As the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) points out, theories about the connection between vaccines and autism have been debunked by several scientific studies. But these ideas continue to thrive in online communities and through celebrities or those in the pop culture landscape, like Kailyn Lowry.
Critics of her decision to avoid vaccination advised Lowry to be careful about the information she chooses to spread, warning that her anti-vaccination stance has far-reaching implications.
“I just hope that when people say they’ve ‘done research’ that they mean clinical trials and not mommy blogs,” one person tweeted in response to Lowry. “There are more dangerous chemicals in a chicken nugget than a vaccine.”
Diseases that were once considered eradicated by vaccines have been popping up again, and doctors have been blaming the “anti-vax movement” for the phenomenon.
As Science Alert reports, recently, there has been a serious measles outbreak in a county near Portland, Oregon, which has led to the declaration of a public health emergency. In that county, close to eight percent of the kindergarten-aged children were not given the vaccinations required for entry into schools. Seven percent of those students did not receive the vaccines for nonmedical reasons, which include “personal or religious” justifications. Most of the people who contracted measles in that area were not immunized.
“It’s alarming,” said Douglas J. Opel, a pediatrician at Seattle Children’s Hospital, to The Washington Post, as reported by Science Alert “Any time we have an outbreak of a disease that we have a safe and effective vaccine against, it should raise a red flag.”
