The MMR Controversy - Assignment Example

The MMR Controversy affiliation Autism The MMR controversy was first introduced by a researcher from Royal Free Hospital in 1998. This was after he identified a relationship between the incidence of autism among the children who had been vaccinated with the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR). A public claim was made in 2002, by a team led by a pathologist from Dublin that claimed that measles virus had been detected in gut biopsies of children suffering from autism. This provided a vindication to the hypothesis that first appeared four years earlier.

The original evidence of the link was, therefore, the presence of the measles virus in patients who are autistic and suffering from gastrointestinal problems (Flaherty, 2011)Autism in child’s developmentAt infancy, children do not experience fears and have little preference for contact with specific peoples. It is psychologically correct to say that from the first few months of life, the children start to experience happiness, sadness and anger. Their cognitive domains also develop during this time, up to the age of one year when they can even identify familiar faces within the family and from outside.

It is during this first year of life, between the development of emotions and full development of the cognition that autistic symptoms can be evident (Barkway, 2009).The Psychological PrincipleThe propagation of the MMR-autism relationship theory can be discussed under the psychological principle of stimulation. In this principle, people tend to be stimulated by an interesting event or news, thereby becoming increasingly alert. They tend, therefore, to interpreted situations according to the stimulant and in most cases they end up even more confused.

This especially happens when the stimulant is no longer interesting or when something else reduces their interest in the original stimulation. In this case, the stimulation was an interesting, controversial revelation. Similar psychological errors may be present in situations where a healthcare practitioner is indicated for malpractice by a client out of misunderstanding (Barkway, 2009). This action may stimulate other people to regard this as an interesting, and some even dig out misleading information concerning the individual due to overstimulation.

Controversy clearedThe controversy was cleared through research and the research findings outlined clearly the limitations of the original stimulation. First, the study has low validity, having been based on results from only 12 children from the same locality. This makes the findings neither reliable nor generalizable. It was also discovered through counter research that indicated continued effectiveness of the vaccine in the prevention of the three diseases that it targets. Researchers in the UK studied the health records of 498 children born between 1979 and 1998 who are autistic.

This research, having dealt with a large research sample identified no relationship between autism and the MMR vaccine (Brown et al., 2012).The bio-psycho-social model of healthHealth is explained in terms of the combination of biological, psychological and social aspects of a person. The bio-psycho-social model of health seeks to explain that the health status of an individual affects the person in the biological, psychological and sociological aspects. Vaccination is a preventive measure aimed at preventing the occurrence of a disease.

It is aligned to the goals of this model in that by preventing the disease, and vaccination does prevent not only biological expression of the disease but also the psychological and social disruptions that results from the disease (Vetere, 2010).ReferencesBarkway, P. (2009). Psychology for health professionals. Sydney: Churchill Livingstone/Elsevier.Brown, K. F., Long, S. J., Ramsay, M., Hudson, M. J., Green, J., Vincent, C. A., … Sevdalis, N. (2012). UK parents’ decision-making about measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine 10 years after the MMR-autism controversy: A qualitative analysis.

Vaccine, 30, 1855–1864. doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2011.12.127Flaherty, D. K. (2011). The vaccine-autism connection: A public health crisis caused by unethical medical practices and fraudulent science. Annals of Pharmacotherapy, 45, 1302–1304. doi:10.1345/aph.1Q318Vetere, A. (2010). Bio/psycho/social models and multidisciplinary team working--can systemic thinking help? Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry. doi:10.1177/1359104507071050