I know. I wish more people would tell the scary stories of having the diseases that we vaccinate against. I've heard about polio, since my parents lived before the vaccination and thus have memories related to it. And I've read about measles and some of the others. People just forget how scary the diseases themselves are.

I think part of it is a cultural aversion to the idea that children die. Most cultures throughout history had to be aware of this, childhood mortality was so high. But our mortality rates for kids are actually very low. And so people freak out over children dying and it seems so unnatural to them that they want someone to blame. It's unfortunate, but some kids are just going to die. We have millions of children, and we've got our mortality rates low, but out of millions of kids, some will die. As a society, we need to learn to accept that reality, because we have no way to change it.

I think the stories of a child here or there dying would have less power if we understood that sometimes kids just die.

I have tons of sympathy for the family and friends of such kids, but that's not the point. Something can be tragic and still have nobody to blame.