The Dangers of the Anti-Vaccination Movement

Unfortunately, many prominent actors/actresses and people have been promoting a movement which could endanger future generations.  The anti-vaccination movement is a threat to us all and founded on untruths. 

Vaccines are so incredibly important, and have managed to completed eradicate diseases such as smallpox (which killed 1 in every 7 children in Europe), and almost completely eradicate Polio.  Additionally, the introduction of the meningitis vaccine in 1988 saves almost 33,000 lives and avoids 14 million infections for children born in a given year.   The vaccines have a proven effect.

However; critics claim the following:

• Many diseases that were caused by overcrowding, poor hygiene, poor sanitation, and restricted diet were reduced because of changes in conditions.
• Survivors of disease would become immune, and preventing these immunities is a risk to future generations and only a temporary cure.
• This brings an even greater risk to older or sick people because they are not immune.
• Side-effects, such as autism, make vaccines not worth it. 

The problem with these claims is that they are simply not true.  Vaccines have been proven to be effective, especially when vaccination use stops in certain areas and disease reemerges.  The immunity is a null point, since if everyone is vaccinated then they cannot get sick with these diseases, and the side-effects that are definitely caused by the vaccine are extremely rare and usually do to an allergic response, and other side-effects anti-vaccinations claim, such as autism, have no scientific proof of correclating to vaccines.

The extreme danger of these promotions became evident during several epidemics in areas where vaccine use declined.

• In Stockholm from 1873-1874, campaigns against smallpox vaccine caused a reduction in vaccine use from 90% in other areas of Sweden to only 40% in Stockholm, triggering a smallpox epidemic which changed peoples minds, but only after lots of people died.
• A DPT scare in UK because of prominent figures misinforming the public about reactions to the vaccine reduced use from 81% to 31%.  An epidemic followed which led to the deaths of many children.
• Recent Measles outbreaks, such as those in Indiana in 2005, and in the UK and Ireland in 2000, stemmed from fears that the vaccines cause autism and other serious problems in children.  In Northern Ireland the vaccination rates reduced to as low as 60%.

The supposed safety hazards to children include the weakening of the child's immune system due to too many vaccines, fears that the chemical Thiomersal causes autism, and claims that the MMR vaccine might cause autism.  None of these claims has been proven to be true in numerous scientific studies, and recent trials have denied parents of autistic children compensation for injuries on the grounds of lack of evidence.

However, this fear of side-effects is not the only reason people choose not to get vaccinated, or not to have their children vaccinated.  Some people cite individual liberty, or that they can't be forced into using vaccines.  Others claim that vaccines are against their religion, since it is an attempt to thwart god's will.  Some people believe that vaccines are simply a way to make money off of people.  But scarier, is that according to a 1995 survey, 1/3 of U.S. chiropracters don't even believe that vaccines work, and convince clients not to take them.   All of this has made it very expensive for pharmaceutical companies, none of which actually make profits off of vaccines, since their court costs far outweigh any profit they would make.   Some companies have even pulled out of the vaccine business because of this. 

The anti-vaccine movement is led by bad scientists, bad thinkers, and parents looking for someone to blame for things that just happen sometimes.   Unfortunately, we cannot be complacent about this, since it could threaten our children, or the health of future generations.