Page 4 - summer2016

Letters

secured from his orchard. Stamatis ing surrounded by a larger traditional continue until his skin turned red and
also had three separate vegetable gar- community so apparent and complete then purple. Then he would pass out and
dens and we enjoyed some fantastic on Naxos. immediately turn a ghostly white. My
home-cooked farm-to-table meals. He The island has other attractions. wife and I would look on and pray that
and almost everyone else in Apollonas There are three sixth century B.C. kou- he would start breathing again. This
have large organic terraced gardens ros, or partially carved marble statues went on for ten days!
planted with olives, grapes, fruit trees lying flat in the quarry sites. There is a Please spend a little time to find
and vegetables. These terraces have museum in the port, Naxos town, full of out what whooping cough really is.
been used for centuries. Most, if not sculptures dating from 3,000 B.C. that You will see why I cannot support your
all, crops were grown from heirloom apparently inspired Modigliani's art. cause.
seeds shared among local gardeners We highly recommend Naxos as a des- Name withheld
and villages. There was no evidence of tination for those who value friendly,
chemical usage, and goat manure was generous people, great food and Wise Reply from Leslie Monookian: We are
the principal fertilizer. Traditions! sorry to hear that your son contracted
All the mountainous villages had Warren Pierce whooping cough as an infant. It is
terraced gardens winding through Eggleston, Virginia always distressing when our children
them. The terraces throughout the are ill. Unfortunately, the whooping
island are watered from numerous ANTI-VAX CAMPAIGN cough vaccine is a dismal failure. In
mountain springs. This reminded me I really enjoyed receiving my fact, most recipients of the vaccine have
of the Inca terraces in Peru, except quarterly magazine from you and sup- no immunity two to five years after the
Naxos has a much more lush natural port most things that WAPF says and shot; worse still, millions of vaccine
landscape. Both places are famous for stands for. However, my reason for not recipients spread the disease—includ-
potatoes. Who would have thought a resubscribing is because of your anti- ing vaccinated children (www.thevac-
Greek island would be famous for its vax campaign. cinereaction.org/2016/02/recently-
potatoes. When my son was six weeks vaccinated-kids-are-spreading-per-
Passing along the terraces and old, whooping cough infected a lot of tussis-everywhere/)—without having
narrow serpentine roads are about fifty students at our local primary school any symptoms of their own or knowing
thousand well-managed goats. Some because an unvaccinated child attended they were spreading the disease; fur-
cows are kept in the more western, the school. My older two children still thermore, the vaccine has caused the
lower, hilly regions of the island. Home- contracted whooping cough but having pertussis microbe to mutate into more
made Naxian cheeses and yogurts are been vaccinated, they only received a virulent strains (www.nvic.org/NVIC-
everywhere and taste so special. mild dose of the disease. The six-week- Vaccine-News/March-2016/pertussis-
Besides great food from the land, old child was at the time too young for microbe-outsmarts-the-vaccines.aspx),
the seafood is equally wonderful and vaccination and caught full-on whoop- rendering the disease more dangerous
always fresh. All the restaurants where ing cough. Ten days in the hospital than it was before the vaccine—as in
we ate served fresh local food and with oxygen for the attacks twenty-four the case of your son. While cases of
beverages. Just being on Naxos is an hours per day was a frightening experi- whooping cough and other diseases are
experience in agro-tourism. ence. often blamed on the unvaccinated, the
Even though I have been grow- Our son would have an attack truth is that the disease is much more
ing organic vegetables for forty-five every hour or so. A very strong cough likely spread by vaccinated individu-
years and securing local pasture-fed with a terrified look on his face. Early als who don’t know they are carrying
livestock, eggs and raw milk, there in the attack, he could regain his breath and transmitting the disease. It is also
was a definite letdown coming back a couple of times with a horrible sound- noteworthy that Australia stopped
to the U.S. It was likely due to not be- ing gasp for air, but the coughing would the practice of “cocooning” (www.
4 Wise Traditions SUMMER 2016 Wise Traditions