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It's Roald Dahl's birthday but his moving pro-vaccination letter is the gift that keeps on giving - Upworthy
Sep 13, 2021 3 mins, 1 sec

Despite the whimsical nature of his fictional worlds, Roald Dahl took the importance of immunization seriously, after losing his seven year old daughter Olivia to measles in 1962.

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old.

That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

They can insist that their child is immunised against measles.

I was unable to do that for Olivia in 1962 because in those days a reliable measles vaccine had not been discovered.

In my opinion parents who now refuse to have their children immunised are putting the lives of those children at risk.

In America, where measles immunisation is compulsory, measles like smallpox, has been virtually wiped out.

Here in Britain, because so many parents refuse, either out of obstinacy or ignorance or fear, to allow their children to be immunised, we still have a hundred thousand cases of measles every year.

Every year around 20 children will die in Britain from measles?

So what about the risks that your children will run from being immunised.

In a district of around 300,000 people, there will be only one child every 250 years who will develop serious side effects from measles immunisation.

I should think there would be more chance of your child choking to death on a chocolate bar than of becoming seriously ill from a measles immunisation?

All school-children who have not yet had a measles immunisation should beg their parents to arrange for them to have one as soon as possible.

It helped give her the confidence to leave her abusive relationship and inspired her to bring IMPACT classes to other Native women in her community.

"As afraid as I was, I finally had the courage to report the abuse to legal authorities, and I had the support of friends and family who provided comfort for my children and I during this time," she says.

More than four in five American Indian and Alaska Native women and men have experienced violence in their lifetime, and more than one in three experienced violence in the past year.

That's when it occurred to her: "What if I started a self-defense class for Native women?" Shanda says.

And that is why Shanda is being named one of Tory Burch's "Empowered Women" this year.

The $5000 donation will be made to IMPACT to help them bring IMPACT to more indigenous communities across the country and further their mission to help Native women recognize and protect themselves from physical violence.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a disturbing rise in anti-Chinese sentiment in Australia where people of Chinese heritage account for 5% of the country's 25 million residents.

A poll found that one in five Chinese Australians have been physically threatened or attacked over the past year.

A study published by The Guardian found that 44% of Australians say they have "very negative" or "somewhat negative" feelings towards Chinese Australians – a nearly three-fold increase from 13% in 2013.

They claim their negative feelings stem from the pandemic, the political rhetoric of Donald Trump, and a media atmosphere that encourages "creeping distrust" of Australians of Chinese heritage.

"For quite some time, there has been continuous discrimination in Australia against people of Asian origins, including overseas Chinese, which poses serious threats to the safety and legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens in Australia," Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said.

"A friend told me someone posted a sign insulting Chinese people — saying coronavirus is from China," the man told the camera.

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