The Anti-Vaccination Epidemic - Article Example

The Anti-Vaccination Epidemic Since the introduction of vaccines, there were individuals or groups that opposed vaccines, accusing vaccines to be part of major health complications. These individuals get their allegations from the side effects of vaccines, but fail to see the greater picture of the greater benefits of vaccines. The epidemic arose when recently, in 2014, there was an outbreak of whooping cough, a disease that had been eradicated years before (Paul, 2). This is as a result of decrease in vaccination in children due to the anti-vaccination movement. A major cause for fears in parents to refrain from taking their children for vaccination is the notion that arose in the 90s that vaccines have more disadvantages. Some blamed the vaccines to cause delays in a child’s development; others accused the Measles-Mumps-Rubella vaccine to cause autism. This specific notion was developed by a gastroenterologist named Andrew Wakefield who believed that he had found a reason to believe that the vaccine against measles was linked to autism. His research was published by the Lancet journal that later the journal discredited the claims and retracted his published works from the journal. All this led to Wakefield his licence to practise medicine. This was because it was discovered that his research was based on data that was faulty. Scientists later tried to replicate his research but failed leading to his works being discredited. After that, no other research was made to prove any link between mental disorders and vaccines. (Paul, 23) However, despite this, most parents worldwide feared vaccines and most chose to delay the vaccines waiting to be convinced otherwise or to avoid vaccination completely. According to Paul (pg 10), several researches showed that there was an increase in parents who refused to vaccine their children from 1991 to 2004 in America. Also, there was a sharp increase in the number of children with mumps in New York and in 2010; there was a major outbreak in whooping cough due to the fear of vaccination. Surprisingly, most people who are against vaccines are learned but they trust their knowledge too much and they form the anti vaccination movement. Examples of why someone would choose not to vaccinate. There are many reasons out there that make most people especially parents to avoid vaccination. One of the reasons is that some parents have read or heard some studies that question the safety of vaccines. An example is the release of some vaccines that have not been properly tested and young children are administered with these vaccines. They lead to adverse effects and parents refrain from using vaccines. Another example is the notion that cancer is linked to vaccines. (Bonhoeffer & Heininger, pg 10) There are some studies that show that if a child is exposed to measles naturally, he/she can develop anti-cancer antibodies that will help prevent cancer later in life. This means that if children are vaccinated, their ability to fight cancer later in life becomes diminished. This leads to people refraining from vaccination. Another reason is the controversy that shows that vaccines are linked to autism. There have been studies in the past trying to link the two together. Truly, some have stressed that there is a link. Other studies have shown that there is no link. Despite this controversy, a lot of people have chosen to refrain from using vaccination. (Lombard et al, pg 25) Another reason is the accusation of fraud in the scientific studies and industries. There have been a lot of cases and an example is the revelation of fraud in the manufacturing of vaccines by a certain professor in UBC, Faculty of Medicine. She found documents that showed that these companies discovered severe effects of the vaccines but did not report them to the public. This is termed as scientific fraud and she even suggested that this malpractice is still going on. Another example is how over 15years ago, the CDC did a research on thimerosal and found that has a link with autism. However, they did not inform the members of the public. Over the years, since the development of vaccines, a lot of people complained over the injuries and side effects caused by vaccines. Others sued the companies providing the vaccines. Due to this, an Act called the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act was developed. However, this Act was developed to protect the manufacturers and companies from any problem or fault. According to the Centre for Disease Control, all vaccines have an adverse allergic reaction in approximately 1 in 1million children. (Bonhoeffer & Heininger, pg 50) Instead of being sued directly, the parents of the ones being vaccines have to go through a long process in order to get compensation for the one who has been injured. The companies are therefore untouchable in these circumstances, leaving the tax payers to cater for any damages caused by these vaccines. This discourages people in general to participate in vaccination for fear of carrying the burden of catering for any damages that may arise. Another concern is the ingredients present in the vaccines. There have been many issues surrounding the ingredients that are used to make vaccines. Others say there is no cause for worry because they are safe but others dispute this. A look at the ingredients can help in understanding some of these concerns. The ingredients include; Aluminium-its salts or gels are used in vaccines as adjuvant (substances that quicken the response to a vaccine). Another ingredient is egg protein which is present in vaccines like yellow fever and influenza and these proteins are derived from chicken eggs. Another one is antibiotics, which are added to some vaccines to prevent the growth of bacteria in the vaccine. Formaldehyde is another ingredient which is put in some vaccines that contain inactive toxins from bacteria to stimulate immunity. Formaldehyde helps in inactivation of these bacteria. It is also used in destruction of unwanted pathogens during production of the vaccine and is removed before the vaccines are packed. (Lombard et al, pg 40) Monosodium glutamate and ethanol are used as stabilizers in some vaccines and thimerosal is a preservative that contains mercury that prevents contamination by pathogenic microbes. Several studies have shown that thimerosal is harmful and it may be responsible for some neurologic disorders especially due to the mercury present. There are many research studies and articles that show that some of the ingredients that make vaccines may be hazardous for a child hence parents opting to not use vaccines. (Bonhoeffer & Heininger pg 30) Another example of why some people do not choose to use vaccines is the belief that the facts that support the safety of the vaccines are not enough. Their main concern is that proper trials have not been performed to ensure safety of vaccines. Also their concern is built on the fact that there are no publications so far that compare the people who have had vaccinations and those who have not had to show the pros and cons. Therefore most people have lost trust in the agencies that are responsible for ensuring the safety of the vaccines. There are some individuals that believe that vaccines are unnatural and they prefer the natural way of acquiring immunity by getting sick. Even those who support vaccination agree that the natural way of acquiring immunity is much better. The ones who do not support the idea of vaccination argue that immunization comes immediately after being exposed to a disease while vaccination brings immunity after several doses. They also argue that vaccination involves introducing a pathogen together with the harmful ingredients directly into the body to evoke immunity. Vaccination therefore becomes an issue that is against natural way of building immunity. The Advantages of Vaccination Vaccination has been an advantage in the general health of individuals by playing a major role in decreasing the rate of diseases that are infectious. Despite the many controversies and agents fighting against vaccinations, there are reasons that prove that the benefits outweigh the risks associated with vaccinations and that the vaccines are of great value to the people and to the society as a whole. Vaccinations help in preventing infectious diseases and also reducing the risk of death from these infections. Without vaccination people become more susceptible and vulnerable to the infectious diseases because they lack the antibodies necessary to fight the disease. If one is not vaccinated, tackling with a specific disease becomes a long painful process and therefore it is important for people to overlook the few disadvantages like the concern about their safety and get immunised to reduce the threat these diseases carry. Immunization protects a child from complications that may arise from the vaccine-preventable diseases like loss of hearing, amputation of the limbs and many more. According to the research in the past, most of the vaccines have helped in preventing diseases greatly with most of the vaccines being approximately 90% effective. (Centre for Disease Control and Prevention pg36) If one is not vaccinated, he/she becomes a threat to the person next to them. In cases of outbreaks, the unvaccinated individuals become the major mode of transmission due to their susceptibility. These individuals can transmit a disease even to the young infants who are too small to receive immunization or to sick individuals who cannot receive a vaccine due to their disease. If a greater number of people in a community are vaccinated, this reduces the chances of a disease to cause an outbreak. This provides immunity for the whole community in some way and this kind of immunity is called the herd immunity. Vaccination has also been economically helpful to people since to get a vaccination, it costs less than to cater for the costs of the disease. Vaccines cost less in terms of money and time than when one is infected since the spending in time even to care for the sick one and to cover for the medical expense is a lot. In addition, there has been an Act namely the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act which has enabled the government to make most vaccines free to the members of the public. Vaccination has also provided benefits to the society economically because it saves money to the government which could be used to treat infections and it saves money by preventing the loss of productivity as a result of disability caused by these infectious diseases or by early deaths. Vaccines also ensure that the generations to come are protected. In the past, for example, before the vaccine for rubella was developed, the rubella virus caused deaths in thousands of infants and babies. Upon the development of the vaccine, the deaths decreased greatly especially because the virus could not be passed to the unborn children. Vaccination in general protects passing of some lethal infections especially from mothers to their unborn children. This helps in eradication of most of the infectious diseases completely saving the generations in future. There are some diseases that have been eradicated completely like small pox and currently polio. There are no vaccines for small pox since the disease is no longer a threat in the world and also because this disease does not exist anymore. The last time small pox was epidemic or endemic was in the 1940s and the last one in Somalia in 1977. (Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, pg36) Polio has been decreasing greatly and tremendously and all this is due to the availability of vaccines against them. There are diseases that are still a threat to the world like measles. Therefore, it is very important for to administer vaccines against these diseases that are vaccine-preventable. Although there some infectious diseases that have been eradicated in the United States of America, there are some countries that still have outbreaks of some diseases for example in Pakistan. These diseases can enter into America by the international travellers and if the people in the America are not vaccinated, it will be very easy for a disease to enter and spread throughout the nation (Paul, 13). Disease outbreaks have, in the recent years and currently, been as a result of parents not vaccinating their children. An example is in 2014 when there was a whooping cough disease outbreak due to the fears parents had about the adverse effects of the vaccines which were not based on true facts (Paul, 20). This led to a sharp increase in the number of children with whooping cough. If parents refuse vaccination to their children, the spreading of a disease becomes very easy even to children who are too young to get immunised. This was the case in the whooping cough outbreak in 2014 and the government responded by forcing children to be vaccinated and allowing only the vaccinated children to go to school. It is important for all people to learn each of the diseases that are vaccine preventable and the complications that they carry. It is important to note that some of the diseases are more serious in adults than in children and vice versa. There are some vaccines administered in childhood that lose their strength as one goes into adulthood. Therefore adults also require vaccination against some diseases, not children only. The adult may even require a booster for prevention. This will prevent the transmission of a disease from an unvaccinated adult to a child. Both children and adults require vaccination in full doses to enable the vaccine to work with maximum effectiveness, in cases where a vaccine requires multiple doses. The various allegations against vaccination have been proven wrong by scientists. The notion that the ingredients used are harmful has been corrected by scientists who say that the ingredients are used in very small quantities. If they were in large doses, then the results would have been lethal. They have also proven that extreme negative reactions to the vaccines are very rare with the most severe effect being anaphylaxis which occurs in very few people. Also major organizations in the medical field have ensured proper studies have been made to ensure that the vaccines are very safe. The organizations include Food & Drug administration and many more. Works cited Bonhoeffer J and Heininger U, “Adverse events following immunization: perception and evidence, 2007 Print. Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, "National, State, and Local Area Vaccination Coverage Among Children Aged 19–35 Months – United States, 2012". Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 62(36): 741–3. PMID 24025754. François, G.; Duclos, P.; Margolis, H. et al. "Vaccine Safety Controversies and the Future of Vaccination Programs". The Paediatric Infectious Disease Journal 24 (11): 953–961, 2005. Lombard M, Pastoret PP, Moulin AM ,"A brief history of vaccines and vaccination". 2007. Print. Paul A. Offit, "The Anti-Vaccine Epidemic," Wall Street Journal, September 24, 2014. Print. Read More