Several mothers whose children died of the flu have been trolled relentlessly by anti-vaxxers.
Serese Marotta did her due diligence in 2009, as she did every year. She and her husband got their flu shots and vaccinated their two young children too.
But that was the hear of the horrific H1N1 flu pandemic, and the shot the family got didn’t contain that strain.
In October, her son, Jospeh died of the flu at just six months.
Determined to not let his death be in vain, Serese became involved in Families Fighting Flu, a nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness and promoting life-saving vaccination against the flu.
She hoped that sharing her story in a Facebook Live video, she could help to keep other families from going through the devastation that her son’s death had brought her family.
Instead, the post was inundated with appallingly hateful comments from people who were anti-vaccine or vaccine hesitant.
Joseph Marotta died at age five of the flu, in spite of getting a flu shot. His mother, Serese has become a flu shot advocate nevertheless, but her story has been met with hateful comments from anti-vaccine trolls on Facebook
It was shocking then, but Serese soon discovered this was a common – but never painless – experience for families like hers.
Last year, 185 children died during the flu season.
Not all, but many of those deaths were preventable.
The 2017-2018 flu shot was an imperfect match for the season’s dominant, aggressive strain, but it was still estimated to be about 38 percent effective – and seemed to work better for kids.
Public health officials and doctors are united and certain that the flu shot is safe, effective and the best shot we have at protecting ourselves and our children against the potentially life-threatening virus.
Even Serese, who lost her little boy in spite of vaccinating him is unwavering. But prior to his death, she had no idea that Americans – and many around the world – are divided on this issue.
‘Before his death, I was just going along and doing what I thought was appropriate to protect myself and my family,’ she says.
‘I was an environmental scientists, taking my children to pediatricians for well-visits, so if my pediatrician said it’s time to do this vaccination, I did it. I know the science, I know that vaccines save lives.’
But as of last year, 29 percent of people in the US did not consider getting their children vaccinated ‘very important,’ according to a Research America survey.
It has always been of the utmost importance to Serese, and still is.
She understands that Joseph’s case is ‘complicated’ because the H1N1 pandemic caught the world off guard, including scientists.
The Marotta family lives in New York now, but in 2009 they lived in Ohio. The H1N1-protective vaccine that was made emergency as the virus swept the nation and claimed lives hadn’t reached their community when she took her kids for the shot.
Two weeks after Joseph’s death, the vaccine that might have protected him from the flu arrived in their Ohio town. Serese took her daughter to get the shot.
Serese, Joseph, Joe and Emma (left to right) Marotta all got a flu shot every year. The family is only more adamant about doing so since Joseph’s death in 2009
Six months after he died, Serese was ready to do something. She reached out to Families Fighting Flu, and started speaking about the flu shot and Joseph’s death.
In 2010, she decided to mark Joseph’s death with a Facebook Live video for his ‘angelversary’ – her name for the day he died, October 18.
‘It was a very personal day for me, and I was sharing how important it is to be vaccinated,’ Serese says.
‘But the response was an attack on me. It was shocking.’
Serese says that sometimes that attacks are on her character and ideas, other times commenters simply seem to be questioning the vaccine.
‘It runs the gamut, some people are not malicuious,’ she says.
The ones that are malicious though, are missing the message and misreading the tone that Serese says she and organizations like Families Fighting Flu are trying to strike.
‘I just want to be respectful and share my story. I’m not sharing this to try to scare you,’ she wishes she could tell anti-vaxxers and vaccine hesitant commenters.
‘I want my story to be your lesson.
‘We have nothing to win. Our children are no longer here and we cannot change that. But, hopefully, by bravely continuing to do what we can, maybe we can convince one person to go get vaccinated and therefore save a life.’