A Canadian mother's Facebook post -- speaking out against anti-vaccine activists after learning that her infant son was exposed to the virus -- has gone viral.
Jennifer Hibben-White's 15-day-old son Griffin was exposed to the measles virus at a doctor's office in suburban Toronto last month. She wrote about it in a Facebook post that has since been shared more than 250,000 times, as of 8 p.m. Wednesday.
"I'm angry. Angry as hell," Hibben-White wrote on her Facebook page. "I don't know if my baby will develop something that has death as a potential outcome. Death."
Her post said that she took her son to the doctor's office for a newborn weigh-in appointment on Jan. 27. After she left, the doctor's office called her and advised her that someone who later developed measles was in the waiting room before their visit.
Though Jennifer had the measles vaccine, her son is too young to receive his first dose. Children are usually given a first dose of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine at 12 months, and a second dose between the ages of 4 and 6.
Hibben-White also has a daughter, 3, who’s had only the first dose of the vaccination.
She wrote that she was told to keep the children in isolation and monitor them for symptoms of the virus (fever, cough or runny nose) for the next week. Though measles symptoms often mimic a cold or flu, the virus can also cause deafness and brain damage.
Measles has a 21-day incubation period, so Hibben-White will not know if her son is in the clear until Feb. 17.
"I won't get angry at or blame the person in the waiting room. I would have likely done the same thing … you get sick, you go to the doctor. I have no idea what their story is and I will never know. But I do know one thing: If you have chosen to not vaccinate yourself or your child, I blame you."
People who speak out against vaccines, called anti-vaxxers, have delayed getting their children vaccinated because they still believe now-discredited research linking vaccines to autism and mercury poisoning caused by additives such as thimerosal.
"You think you are protecting them from autism? You aren’t. There is no, none, nada, nothing in science that proves this. If you want to use google instead of science to “prove me wrong” then I am happy to call you an imbecile as well as misinformed," she wrote.
"You think you are protecting them through extracts and homeopathy and positive thoughts and Laws of Attraction and dancing by candlelight on a full moon? You aren’t. I PROTECT YOUR CHILD. We protect your child. By being concerned world citizens who care about ourselves, our fellow man, and our most vulnerable. So we vaccinate ourselves and our children."
