Are vaccines necessary?
“Vaccines cause Autism.” These three little words form a sentence I’ve heard all my life. Growing up, even though I heard it from family members all around me, I thought it was like an urban legend. I never really thought about it, or how it could affect my quality of life. I could never think past that silver, glistening needle in the nurses hand. To me, vaccines were a myth, a torture method used by parents or whatever my little mind could conjure up.
It didn’t affect me until I was eight months pregnant with my first child. As my little boy kicked and wiggled inside me, I couldn’t help but feel excited. I wanted everything to be perfect for him. As a new mom, the thought of my sweet little baby getting sick and dying terrified me. I was told left and right, not to vaccinate. I was told, “vaccines don’t work, you’ll just cause unnecessary pain.” or, “the chemicals are dangerous. Don’t trust pharmaceutical companies. ” and of course, “vaccines cause autism.”
However, I had other influences that pushed for me to vaccinate my child. These voices were loud and sang praises towards vaccines. From them, I heard, “it should be considered neglect if you don’t vaccinate. Your baby will have a weak immune system.”or, “what if your baby catches one of these diseases?”. All these voices bounced around in my skull, echoing louder and louder the closer I got to my due date.
Everything has a positive effect and a negative effect but, I had to find out the truth for myself. With news reports of deadly outbreaks and the government pushing for forced immunizations, I sat down and began my research.
With so much information available for that research, I decided to take to Facebook with an anonymous survey to hear both sides of the argument and find out which vaccine arguments were most common. The most mentioned issues were, the connection between vaccines and Autism, adverse reactions to vaccines are more likely than contracting the disease itself, and natural immunity being the best option.
The idea of my little one getting autism from a vaccination terrified me. I had to get right down to the source of this theory that lead me to the one article that was published in Lancet in 1998 by British Dr. Andrew Wakefield. Although I couldn’t find the original article itself, I was able to find out what the study was. Wakefield hypothesised that the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine was directly linked to Autism. In the study that Wakefield conducted, he claimed that out of 12 kids, 8 developed Autism within a month of receiving the MMR vaccine. With this information, I can see why parents would opt out of getting vaccines. However, scientific research and evidence as well as a curious investigative reporter, were able to find out that Dr. Wakefield lied about his studies for financial gain. It was therefore retracted from Lancet.
In the article “Debunked” by Claudia Wallis in Time Magazine she states, “Wakefield's methods were the subject of what was almost certainly the longest medical-misconduct inquiry in British history” (Wallis, 2010). The General Medical Council, which licenses Brittish doctors, used phrases like “callous disregard” when addressing Wakefield and the study in a hearing that was held against Wakefield and his colleagues (Wallis, 2010).
According to Wallis, the reasoning for the councils harsh words is, “Wakefield neglected to disclose that he was a paid adviser in legal cases involving families suing vaccine manufacturers… he also handpicked children for his research...” (Wallis, 2010). This would mean that he picked children that were already diagnosed with Autism to perform his study. However that wasn’t the worst of what he had done. Wallis continues with, “And there were other lapses in the way Wakefield recruited research participants: in one instance, he paid children about $8 apiece at his son's birthday party to give blood” (Wallis, 2010). The council concluded that he was doing unethical, unapproved, invasive procedures on these children. Because of this, Wakefield rightfully lost his license.
With the retraction of Wakefield’s paper in the Lancet, most people expected the rate of vaccines to go back to normal. Unfortunately they did not and it has caused worldwide vaccine rates to decline. Parents still fear that there is a link between the MMR vaccine and Autism.
However, numerous studies are available to read that prove there is no connection between the vaccine and Autism. Going deeper into my research I decided to take to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and found an article called “Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism”. This article summarizes several studies done within and outside of the CDC. All of which concluded that there is no connection between any or the combination of multiple vaccines and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). In the article, it states that, “Some people have had concerns that ASD might be linked to the vaccines children receive, but studies have shown that there is no link between receiving vaccines and developing ASD” (Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism). It then mentions a study done by the Institute of Medicine, “ In 2011, an Institute of Medicine (IOM) report on eight vaccines given to children and adults found that with rare exceptions, these vaccines are very safe”. The CDC, regarding one of their own studies, also states that:
“The study looked at the number of antigens (substances in vaccines that cause the body’s immune system to produce disease-fighting antibodies) from vaccines during the first two years of life. The results showed that the total amount of antigen from vaccines received was the same between children with ASD and those that did not have ASD.” (Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism)
In fact, in that study called “Increasing Exposure to Antibody-Stimulating Proteins and Polysaccharides in Vaccines Is Not Associated with Risk of Autism” by Frank Destano, et al, that was published in The Journal of Pediatrics, it states, “We found no evidence indicating an association between exposure to antibody-stimulating proteins and polysaccharides contained in vaccines during the first 2 years of life and the risk of acquiring ASD...” (563). This would mean that all those parents that are pushing antivax agendas may be wrong after all. It has been proven over and over by hundreds of studies with thousands of children. However, if it has been proven that vaccines do not cause Autism (the idea that sparked antivax attitudes), why is there still an antivax agenda?
According to the anonymous survey that I ran on Facebook, there are other concerns dealing with vaccinations that stem from the questions caused when Wakefield published his phony study. However, they are accurate questions that need to be answered, so, once again, curiosity got the best of me and I needed to find the answers.
According to the survey, some parents believe that the threat of an adverse reaction is more likely to happen than contracting the deadly disease itself. One surveyor said, “I believe that vaccines can be harmful to a great many people... with all the other chemicals that are in the vaccines… People have been known to have very adverse reactions to them, up to and including death…” (Anonymous, 2019). This statement would be enough to scare most people away. First we must understand that everything has positive and negative side effects. Even the air we breathe can have side effects. Some people can eat nuts and receive the nutritional benefits, others come in contact with a nut and they find themselves in the emergency room. But, what are the odds of that happening with a vaccine and can it be reversed with medical intervention? Also, are those odds worth it?
In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the CDC run a system called the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. It is required by law for all physicians to report to this system any adverse events caused by a vaccine. They are required to give the name of the vaccine, the batch and any other identifying information. If they reach a certain amount of reports, that entire batch is pulled by the manufacturer immediately and destroyed. This happens no matter how many, or where each box of vaccines are in the United States. This ensures that reactions are limited and helps scientists study that batch to find what caused the reaction in order to keep them from happening in future batches. This makes the odds of a reaction very low.
So what are the odds of having an adverse reaction? In an article called “Possible Side-Effects from Vaccines” located on the CDC’s website, “Such reactions from a vaccine are very rare, estimated at fewer than 1 in a million doses, and would happen within a few minutes to a few hours after the vaccination” (CDC, 2018). Most negative reactions can be reversed with medical intervention. That being said, even one death can be scary. So is it worth it?
In an article called “Why I still Vaccinate: Even Though I Almost Died from a Vaccine Reaction”, by Dr. Matthew Loftus that was published in Christianity Today, Dr. Loftus describes his terrifying experience. He said:
“As I lay in a hospital bed, the doctor and I tried to figure out why red, purple, and blue patches were erupting all over my body. My blood platelet levels were so low, I could have developed spontaneous internal bleeding... then I remembered. Three weeks prior I had received several vaccines to prepare for a medical mission trip” (Loftus, 2015)
Yet, Dr. Loftus still believes in vaccines, recommends them and receives them. He says, “I know the risks of vaccines quite intimately. Even so, I continue to take vaccinations, I ensure that my children get them, and I recommend them to all my patients” (Loftus, 2015). This is a very powerful statement coming from a respected physician who has experienced an adverse reaction himself. He says, “All medical interventions--whether a simple cholesterol test or a complex surgery--carry both an increased chance of benefit and an increased risk of harm” (Loftus, 2015). This would mean that as long as the benefits that we receive from vaccines greatly outweigh the risks, vaccines continue to be a necessary type of medical intervention.
However, some parents argue that vaccines are no longer necessary since they have nearly eradicated the diseases they prevent. Because of this thought, some parents think that natural immunity is better. However, yes, these diseases are dying out and yes, it is because of vaccines. So what would happen if we stopped vaccinating for these diseases? A domino effect of bad things would happen to the entire community. Just because some diseases are less common than they used to be, doesn’t mean they are gone for good. It also doesn’t mean that they aren’t an issue in other parts of the world. For example, if the United States no longer saw cases of measles so we no longer vaccinated for it, we would lose immunity to it. Why would it matter if we lost immunity for it? Because if someone were to travel out of and back into the states, or someone from another country came to the states, they would have the possibility of carrying the disease back with them. That would result in one Measles case turning into millions and the death toll would be catastrophic. Dr. Loftus says, “if our decisions about vaccines are based on how healthy we feel right now and how infrequently we get vaccine-preventable diseases, we'll miss the big picture of how dangerous these diseases can be and how powerful vaccines are” (Lofus, 2015).
The “Big Picture” that Loftus is talking about is called “Herd Immunity”. Herd immunity is the amount of vaccinated people that keep disease from spreading. Loftus says, “Parents who consider the effects of vaccines only on their families without considering the wider consequences are… whittling away at the herd immunity that protects the most vulnerable” (Loftus, 2015) Those that would be vulnerable are those who can’t receive vaccines because of compromised immune systems, babies that are too young to receive certain vaccines and those that for one reason or another can’t afford them.
Not only does the rise of unvaccinated people affect those that are vulnerable to disease, but it also has an effect on those that were vaccinated. As the margin of unvaccinated people rises, so does the amount of exposure of those diseases on those that were vaccinated, making the vaccine no longer effective. Dr. Loftus says, “as long as 95 percent of your neighbors are vaccinated, you're probably safe. But as more parents rely on the herd immunity buffer and don't get their kids vaccinated, herd immunity will vanish” (Loftus, 2015).
Let’s take Measles for example, it is very contagious and very deadly. Statistics say that every year there are 146,000 cases that result in death. This would mean 400 dead per day and 17 per hour (Loftus, 2015). That is a lot of life lost to something 100% preventable through vaccines. Dr. Loftus says:
“If 100 people are standing in a room and 1 has the measles, within the next 35 weeks, 90 of those exposed- if not already vaccinated-will be infected… If 95 of 100 people are vaccinated against measles, the 5 who can't get the vaccine (or for whom the vaccine didn't work) will still be protected due to herd immunity” (Loftus, 2015).
This would mean that each individual person that can be vaccinated but chooses not to, increases the entire community’s chances of getting infected whether you are vaccinated or not.
To understand how catastrophic this could be, we need to understand where we came from to appreciate where we are. As the number of anti-vaccination attitudes rise, it’s terrifying to think of what it would be like with limited access or no access at all. What would our world be like with no vaccines? We need to understand this so that we can understand the true value of how vaccines have influenced our healthcare.
In the article, “World Without Vaccinations Was a Cruel Place to Live” published in The Sydney Morning Herald, Dr. Donald Bourquin, recalls a time without vaccines very vividly. He was in primary school in 1940, before vaccines were invented. He recalls, “we all accepted that following the autumn holiday one of the 40 children in the class would not return to school, because they had died or were paralysed after contracting polio” (Bourquin, 2016).
I couldn’t imagine being a teacher of one of those children, knowing that one of those precious little lives will not return. I couldn’t imagine being a parent of one of those children, watching my child suffer and watching the light slowly disappear from their little eyes. Dr, Bourquin continues:
“When I started university they were introducing the oral vaccination for polio. Very rapidly the number of cases dropped off. Now polio in the Western world is a thing of the past. Not, however, in less developed countries. Somebody, some time, is going to bring the virus back here” (Bourquin, 2016).
In the article he goes into lucid detail about what the other diseases looked like that are nearly eradicated today. In the 1960’s, the Measles vaccine was introduced. Before that, 2.6 million lives were lost each year from the measles virus (Bourquin, 2016). If they were infected but didn’t die, they suffered severe complications, especially in pregnant women. Dr. Bourquin says:
“...if a pregnant woman came in contact with the virus, her baby was at a high risk of abnormalities...I saw children with the after-effects of a mother having had the virus. The main problems were babies with cataracts or small heads, deafness and occasional heart defects. After introducing the vaccination we, as doctors, hardly ever saw those terrible defects” (Bourquin, 2016).
He goes on to explain other illnesses that he no longer sees now that the vaccines have been introduced. In those times, for those cases, they had what was called a “trachi-bell”. He says, “When that bell rang, everybody knew a child was suffocating” (Bourquin, 2016). I couldn’t imagine being a doctor at the time. Hearing the bell and looking into your colleagues eyes, each heart racing, adrenaline burning, knowing that it was a race to beat the clock to try to save the child. Also knowing that death is a very high possibility. As they work on the child, running words through their heads, how they might have to break the news to their parents that they just could not save their precious child.
As a mother, I feel it is my duty to protect my child. Looking into my baby’s eyes for the first time, I knew that I was this fragile infant’s only chance at survival. He can’t speak for himself. It’s up to me to be his biggest advocate.
You are probably wondering how this affects you. That’s just it. It does. It affects all of us. If you value life, if you value your loved ones, vaccinate. Doing this research, I understand that putting something into our bodies is very scary. However, I’ve come to the conclusion that choosing not to vaccinate is not only a bad attempt at a solution but, a selfish one. Dr. Loftus emphasizes this perfectly with this analogy, “It's like a town that lives at the source of a river and disposes of their waste in the water--forgetting the other town downstream” (Loftus, 2015). This means that by not vaccinating, we are putting not only ourselves at risk but the whole community.
How do we fix this? As science evolves and adapts, each vaccine becomes safer and safer, with lesser chances of anything bad happening. Proper communication between physicians and their patients will improve views on vaccinations. Parents also need to be more vigilant in asking questions and less quick to get out of a doctors appointment. Even staying a few minutes longer to watch your child will decrease the chances of having complications from an adverse reaction.
Another way need to protect ourselves is to recognize fraudulent information and to keep fraudulent information from spreading through social media. Social media is the top contributor to fake, fraudulent and biased information. In an article called “From Social Media to Mainstream News: The Information Flow of the Vaccine-Autism Controversy in the US, Canada, and the UK”, by S. Mo Jang, et al, published in Health Communication, it states, “Health professionals and scholars have warned that the Internet, particularly, social media may boost the circulation of hearsay and misleading medical and science information” (1). This means that a lot of what we see isn’t truth.
Studies say that people are more likely to believe an emotionally charged story over any other opinion. Parent’s are easily manipulated by the spread of these emotionally charged posts because of the protective instinct we have written into our DNA to protect our children. Parents, in this case suddenly decide that they know more than scientists and doctors. This type of phenomena is called the “Dunning-Kreuger” effect. In an article called “Knowing Less but Presuming More: Dunning-Kreuger Effects and the Endorsement of Anti-Vaccine Policy Attitudes”, published in Elsevier, by Matthew Motta, et al, they define this perfectly. They say, “...individuals who lack expertise fail to accurately appraise their own knowledge vis-a-vis experts on the subject” (275). Therefore, trusting scientists over your next door neighbor, is what we all should be doing. This is especially true when it comes to avoiding heartache down the road.
If we don’t start trusting the many credible sources available, not only will we all be at risk of disease, but the government will be forced to intervene. This is and should be a concern to every citizen. It is to me. The more power the government has, the less freedom it’s citizens have. However, they may not have a choice but to intervene because of the rise of anti-vaxxers. In matters of life and death, the government will have to intervene to protect its citizens and to avoid the chaos caused by disease outbreaks.
I trusted my doctors when my son finally arrived and vaccinated him on schedule. Because I believe in the science, it wasn’t my right to take that away from my child.
I urge the parents of today, to vaccinate their children. There are so many credible resources available if questions arise. The only way we’ll be able to beat the anti-vax movement is if we do the research and gain the knowledge we need to make the right decision, the pro-vax decision.
Works Cited
Destefano, Frank, et al. “Increasing Exposure to Antibody-Stimulating Proteins and Polysaccharides in Vaccines Is Not Associated with Risk of Autism.” Pediatria Polska, vol. 89, no. 5, 2014, doi:10.1016/j.pepo.2014.07.003.
Dr Donald Bourquin is a NSW GP. “World without Vaccines Was a Cruel Place to Live.” The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, Australia), 2016, p. 31. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsgit&AN=edsgit.A441586957&site=eds-live.
Jang, S. Mo, et al. “From Social Media to Mainstream News: The Information Flow of the Vaccine-Autism Controversy in the US, Canada, and the UK.” Health Communication, vol. 34, no. 1, Jan. 2019, pp. 110–117. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/10410236.2017.1384433.
Loftus, Matthew. “Why I Still Vaccinate: Even Though I Almost Died from a Vaccine Reaction.” Christianity Today, vol. 59, no. 4, May 2015, pp. 32–38. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=reh&AN=ATLAiBCA160414001177&site=eds-live.
Motta, Matthew, et al. “Knowing Less but Presuming More: Dunning-Kruger Effects and the Endorsement of Anti-Vaccine Policy Attitudes.” Social Science & Medicine, vol. 211, Aug. 2018, pp. 274–281. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.06.032.
“Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism Concerns | Vaccine Safety | CDC.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/autism.html.
“Vaccines: Vac-Gen/Side Effects.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/side-effects.htm.
Wallis, Claudia. “Debunked.” Time, no. 6, 2010, p. 18. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsgit&AN=edsgit.A246480106&site=eds-live.
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