They Lost Loved Ones to Preventable Diseases: Why You Must Vaccinate

Before vaccines, infectious diseases claimed countless lives in the U.S., with measles killing up to 6,000 annually in the early 20th century, polio paralyzing 15,000 children yearly, rubella causing 20,000 congenital syndrome cases each year, and whooping cough claiming 8,000 lives annually, mostly infants. These scourges, once rampant, were nearly eradicated by vaccines, yet declining immunization rates, driven by hesitancy and misinformation, are fueling resurgences. In 1900, nearly one in five children died before age five, largely due to such diseases, but modern vaccines have reduced this rate to under 1% in vaccinated populations. As vaccine skepticism grows, amplified by figures like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., families who endured these illnesses share their stories to underscore the privilege of modern medicine and the duty to vaccinate for community protection.

Janith and Jacque Farnham: A Lifetime with Rubella’s Consequences

Janith Farnham, 80, gently guides her 60-year-old daughter Jacque’s walker through a Sioux Falls art center, pausing at a painting of a cow in a hat. Pointing to Jacque’s Minnesota Twins cap, Janith signed, “That’s so funny!” Jacque, born with congenital rubella syndrome after Janith contracted rubella early in her 1964 pregnancy, before a vaccine existed, faces hearing impairment, heart defects requiring surgery at four months, diabetes, glaucoma, autism, and arthritis. Janith noticed early that “things weren’t right,” as Jacque didn’t respond to sounds or enjoy being held, her heart purring with a defect. As a special education teacher, Janith sent Jacque to the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind and joined a support group to help her thrive. Jacque now lives in a residential home, her room adorned with stuffed animals and photo books of memories like Mount Rushmore trips. She spends four or five days a week with Janith, enjoying her mom’s dog, sports, and her iPad. “When you live through so much pain and so much difficulty and so much challenge, sometimes I think: Well, she doesn’t know any different,” Janith said, marveling at Jacque’s humor and affection. Furious at vaccine hesitancy, she added, “It’s more than frustrating. I mean, I get angry inside. I know what can happen, and I just don’t want anybody else to go through this.”

Patricia Tobin: The Pain of Losing a Sister to Measles

Patricia Tobin, 73, still hears her mother’s scream from 1970, when she found her six-year-old sister Karen unconscious on the bathroom floor during a measles outbreak in Miami. Karen, described as a “very endearing, sweet child” who sang around the house, fell gravely ill shortly after Easter. Though a vaccine existed, it wasn’t mandatory, and their mother delayed, thinking, “there was time,” as Tobin recalled, “It’s not that she was against it.” When Karen collapsed, Tobin, then 19, called an ambulance, but Karen slipped into a coma and died of encephalitis. “We never did get to speak to her again,” Tobin said, her grief still raw. She stayed by Karen’s bedside, witnessing the devastation of a disease now preventable. With most states below the 95% vaccination threshold due to exemptions and a debunked 1998 study falsely linking the MMR vaccine to autism, Tobin is alarmed. “I’m very upset by how cavalier people are being about the measles,” she said. “I don’t think that they realize how destructive this is.” Her story underscores the critical need for widespread vaccination to prevent such tragedies.

Lora Duguay: Polio’s Lasting Grip on a Resilient Life

Lora Duguay, 68, vividly recalls lying in a 1959 hospital isolation ward at age three, her paralyzed body packed in ice, seeing her crying parents through a glass window. “They told my parents I would never walk or move again,” she said of her polio diagnosis, a disease that once paralyzed thousands of U.S. children annually, prompting parents to avoid crowds during epidemics. Though the early polio vaccine Duguay received was only 80-90% effective, she defied predictions, walking with a limp after intensive therapy. She married, raised a son, and worked as a medical transcriptionist. In her 40s, post-polio syndrome struck, robbing her of mobility; one morning, her left leg failed. After rehab, she turned to painting, finding “a sense of purpose” in art shown at galleries. Now wheelchair-bound, she paints on stones and petrified wood at an electric desk. “Herd immunity keeps everyone safe,” Duguay said, praising the modern polio vaccine’s near-100% effectiveness, which has eliminated U.S. cases since 1979. Her experience highlights vaccination’s role in preventing polio’s return.

Katie Van Tornhout: A Mother’s Loss to Whooping Cough

Katie Van Tornhout, 40, cherishes a plaster cast of her daughter Callie’s tiny foot, lost to whooping cough at 37 days old in 2009. Born six weeks premature on Christmas Eve after a five-year struggle to conceive, Callie was “this perfect baby” who loved foot rubs. When she began coughing at a month old, doctors initially saw no cause for alarm. The next night, Callie turned blue and limp in Van Tornhout’s arms at a clinic. Despite a brief recovery, she deteriorated in the ER. “Within minutes, she was gone,” Van Tornhout said, after Callie, too young for the Tdap vaccine, was exposed to an unvaccinated individual. Holding their lifeless daughter for four hours, the couple grieved “what could have been.” Callie’s death was confirmed as pertussis on her due date. Van Tornhout, now with four children and a stepson, advocates through Vaccinate Your Family, convincing a pregnant woman to vaccinate her baby. “It’s up to us as adults to protect our children, like, that’s what a parent’s job is,” she said. “I watched my daughter die from something that was preventable.” Her advocacy stresses the duty to maintain booster shots to protect infants.

Vaccination is a privilege that has saved millions from the horrors of diseases that once decimated populations. With measles cases rising 30% globally from 2016 to 2019 due to hesitancy, and whooping cough outbreaks reported in 2024, the duty to vaccinate protects not only individuals but entire communities, preventing a return to the devastating losses of the past.