In the news lately there has been a lot of discussion about whether or not vaccinations are the answer for your kids. What fired this discussion up again? Two things: a large measles outbreak in the United States, and an 18 year old that had himself vaccinated against his mother’s wishes, and then testified to Congress about it. While I would like to exert my opinion, forcefully, I will instead focus this article on the scientific facts.
Let’s start with a brief history: The early origins of inoculation are vague. Some say it was the Chinese in the 1500’s that made first mention. Others claim it wasn’t until Dr. Lister in the 1700’s in England. They became more mainstream in 1796, when Edward Jenner developed a method of smallpox inoculation. He actually used cowpox to vaccinate against smallpox. The next major advancement in vaccination was made in 1940, when technology advanced enough to create large-scale vaccinations for the general population. By the 1960’s it was recommended that individuals receive immunizations against the following diseases: Smallpox, Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis (Whooping Cough), Polio, Measles, Mumps, and Rubella. Wow, that’s a lot! Today, there are even more options for vaccination.
So, how exactly does a vaccine work? It’s pretty simple. We take a dead or weakened sample of the virus or bacteria and insert it into the blood stream. Your immune system reacts to the weakened sample and fights it off, creating antibodies against that disease. Because your immune system is kind of amazing, it remembers how to fight that particular virus or bacteria when it sees it again! Thus, if you come in contact with the little bugger again, your body will already have the mechanisms in place to keep you from getting sick, or drastically lessen the affects of the disease. Here’s another cool effect of vaccinating: when lots of people in an area get vaccinated, the bug doesn’t have as many hosts to choose from, which makes it harder to survive. Therefore the whole group becomes safe from the disease, even those that aren’t immune. We call this herd immunity.
Let’s take smallpox for an example. In the 18th century, about 400,000 people died every year from smallpox. That doesn’t seem like a huge number now, but consider that the population of the world in the 18th century was about one billion people. In fact, in the last 100 years of it’s existence, smallpox killed 500 million people (1865-1967)! The disease is caused by 2 different strains. Overall, smallpox had a death rate of about 30%. However, death rates were nearly 100% for those that developed the malignant or hemorrhagic forms.
While vaccination started in 1796, we didn’t see real results until the 1850’s, when the United States and the British Isles all instituted laws to encourage vaccination of their citizens. By 1914, it had been nearly eradicated from the known world. Vaccination efforts continued to 3rd world countries. The last known case of smallpox was reported in 1977. By 1980, the World Health Organization had declared it completely eradicated. Because of the herd immunity developed by the human population, we haven’t even had to vaccinate against smallpox since 1980!
We now know how it works, and have a great example of why we do it, so why are people afraid to have their children vaccinated? One bad scientist made the news! Here’s the deal-keeping the dead and nearly dead viruses and bacteria in suspension requires preservatives. In such low doses, those preservatives aren’t that big of a deal. However, Dr. Andrew Wakefield did a study in 1998 on the link between the MMR vaccine and autism and irritable bowel disease. He said that the preservatives (specifically mercury) in vaccines was causing autism. I won’t bore you with too many details, suffice it to say the study was incredibly FALSE! If you would like to see it in full, here is a link to the National Institute of Health’s article regarding the study. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3136032/
In fact, the study contained so many falsified claims that the co-authors withdrew their support. In 2004, it was also discovered that Wakefield had a significant financial conflict of interest. A tribunal of the British General Medical Council investigate further and brought forth 3 dozen charges of misconduct. Wakefield lost his license, and is barred from practicing medicine. It is also important to note that many other credible institutes have recreated his study. None of them were able to prove that there was a link between MMR vaccines and a rise in autism rates.
If we know it’s been discredited, why do we still have so many people that are convinced that vaccines will harm their children? Social media! It’s so easy for people to spread “fake news” across platforms. The real problem is that the decrease in vaccination across the United States is leading to outbreaks of diseases that were close to be eradicated (hi measles). Plus, the reduction in herd immunity means that those with auto-immune disorders that can’t have vaccinations are now at a higher risk of developing dangerous infections. But there I go giving you my opinion when I said I would leave it alone. My best suggestion is to talk to your healthcare provider. They will be able to direct you to valid studies and answer any questions you might have about the safety of vaccinations.
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