If you nearly killed your son, would you take responsibility for it like these parents did?

I don’t know what I would do but kudos to those parents for taking responsibility publicly!

Of course I’d feel responsibility and guilt if I were a parent and something happened to my child because I am responsible for their life.

Well, yeah. Kids are all germy so I’d definately get them shots, even though I hate the idea.

Yes, it is admirable they see the misinformed error of their ways but OTOH we all are faced at times with trying to make the best decisions with limited knowledge.
Medical/vaccination horror stories have plenty of chapters on both sides.
I have known a cat that lost it’s leg from a rabies vaccine induced tumor.
I know a young, fit, healthy mother who had a stroke after a “routine” tummy tuck and is now severely disabled.

There are animals that have lost limbs to tumors induced by a type of rabies vaccine and it’s injection location but, I will risk that to avoid a fatal and incurable case of rabies in my animals or myself as I live in a high wildlife zone.
Everything has it’s risk/gain ratio.
I imagine we are biased depending on which side of the fence we have stood on.
If my cat lost his leg to a rabies vaccine I might become more adamant about educating others on this, not uncommon, phenomenon of a particular vaccine and it’s tumor creating outcome.

I think these parents did the best they could for the information they had and now that the information has changed they are open to rethinking their position. That is only a natural and healthy response of relatively emotionally healthy people, more so than a show of responsibility.
They were not irresponsible, they gambled and took a risk, and now they will not repeat the behavior.
I refused to take that Phen Phen weight loss drug about 15 years ago when my doctor wanted to give it to me for being 30–40 lbs overweight.

Turns out I made the better decision considering how many people died from complications from it’s use and here it was being promoted for even fairly modest weight loss. No thanks, I lost the weight walking 3 mile a day for 6 months and lightening up my diet.
Live and learn.
Glad the little boy will be okay.

Unfortunately, I think that most of the people making those kinds of stupid decisions continue to be too stupid to learn the lesson. I’m glad that these parents at least had the intelligence to learn how bad their earlier, uninformed decision had been.

One can only hope that they continue to broaden and deepen their body of knowledge regarding other hazards of childhood, and educate themselves on “relative risk”. That is, of course there is a certain risk to immunization; there is some element of risk in every medical procedure. Hell there is risk in simply meeting people and shaking hands! But that risk is infinitesimal and remote compared to the very real and likely risk of not having the immunization, as they learned.

But my hat is off to these folks for admitting their earlier bad decision and for now promoting immunization.

I would definitely speak out about it to inform other parents and it is information for adult health also. Adults need to maintain their resistance to tetanus also. I would not say these parents nearly killed their child. I would never word it that way personally.

I wonder if the parents had no idea what tetanus is? Some of my friends are hestitant about vaccines, but tetanus they did not risk, they gave that to their children.

Tetanus is a completely preventable disease and should absolutely be vaccinated against due to the horrific toll it takes. A BIG pat on the back to these parents for admitting their mistake. I was horrified when I lived in NZ to witness the HUGE and ignorant backlash against immunisations. They are raising children on an island that is constantly exposed to external pathogens. The climate itself is a breeding ground for every microbe…. bacteria and virus, to take hold and run rampage through the population, happily transforming itself to the conditions of both readily available animal and human host. Not to mention the fact that New Zealanders are most likely to travel abroad during their lifetime and be exposed to all number of bacteria and virus. If ANY one group should immunise themselves, it is the islanders who are exposed to the transient and sudden pathogen.