After being born, children begin a long process that will help their bodies grow immunity to certain, otherwise possibly deadly, diseases. The first shot a child receives is given a mere 24 hours after their birth, ideally. The antibodies in that shot are designed to protect the child from Hepatitis B. That shot, however, can also be administered later on in life, for the disease is not as life-threatening. The most important shot any person receives is given between 12 and 15 months old, and that is the so-called MRR – or measles/mumps/rubella shot, all three of which are highly contagious and extremely dangerous diseases. Mankind has so obviously found a way to easily lower the likelihood of a person being contaminated with easily treatable diseases. However, in recent years, there has been a large number of people who have renounced vaccines, believing that having their child vaccinated could lead to unlocking other such medical issues in their children’s bodies. That led to a severe growth in child death rates all over the world. That is what has made the topic of vaccination so debated between the members of society. The legalization of mandatory vaccination for children after their birth would undoubtedly put an end to the controversy.
In the past, people had an exceedingly difficult time dealing with diseases such as mumps, influenza, whooping cough, etc. As a result, the death rates of the population were at an all-time high. Before the appearance of vaccines, nearly everyone in the U.S. got measles, and hundreds died from the disease each year. After the distribution of vaccines, most doctors have never seen a case of measles. Another highly dangerous disease was diphtheria, which took the lives of over 15,000 Americans in 1921 before there was a vaccine. Now, only two cases of diphtheria have been reported from 2004 to 2014. Perhaps the most serious outbreak was the rubella one in 1964-65 where over 12.5 million Americans were infected, causing the deaths of 2,000 babies, as well as 11,000 miscarriages. Since 2012, after years of distributing the rubella vaccines, there have only been 15 cases of it recorded by the CDC. With the progression of medicine, humankind was able to find an easy and healthy way to keep the population safe for long periods, with no threat coming from the bacteria that the shots are designed to battle and neutralize. It has been proven by scientists and doctors alike that vaccines are the most efficient way to deal with diseases in the 21st century. The American Academy of Pediatrics claims that “most childhood vaccines are 90%-99% effective in preventing disease,” which goes to show that the probability of a vaccine being ineffective is very low.
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Even though it has been proven that the chances of something happening to children who are vaccinated are low, some people are quick to point out that this method is unnecessary for the most part. People who renounce vaccination believe that the human body is capable enough of building up its immunity against diseases, much like it does while battling a simple flu or a cold. They believe that, as it grows, the body’s immune system strengthens more and more without needing any sort of “external assistance”, as some of the so-called ‘anti-vaxxers’ prefer to refer to the necessary vaccines.
That belief holds some truth inside itself. It is unnecessary to administer heavy medication, such as antibiotics, to children when they catch something as small as a cold. A large number of doctors recommend leaving your children to wander, to get dirty, and to catch colds, so their immune systems can strengthen. However, the human body is unable to fight diseases as serious as those that vaccines protect you from. The shots themselves are administered during a person’s childhood, when their immunity is at its weakest, to prevent contamination that can be lethal. Yet a large number of people are comfortable with leaving their children to, more or less, fend for themselves while engaging in a losing battle with something that will kill them from the inside, like rubella, for example. Here is where a lot of the anti-vaxxers would argue that not all of the diseases that require vaccines could cause death. But they fail to take into account the long-term effects that surviving such a disease would have on them. Concerned mother Isabelle B., whose interest in the topic of vaccination grew when she had her child, is one of the few who have compiled enough evidence to prove the need for vaccines. In one of her articles, Isabelle points out,
Survivors of vaccine-preventable diseases can be maimed for life — think polio and paralysis, mumps and deafness, measles and mental disability, rubella and birth defects. Looking at mortality rates only misses the true burden of the disease.
So, even in the chance that an unvaccinated child goes through one of those dangerous illnesses and survives, the side effects would be far greater and more devastating than any side effect a vaccine might have.
Another aspect that has raised a few brows when debating the topic is the contents of the vaccines themselves. Scientists have been quick to reassure people that, while some vaccines may contain chemicals harmful to the human body, they are perfectly within the necessary quantities. Vaccines contain ingredients, such as thimerosal, formaldehyde, and aluminum, which are poisonous to a person when distributed in large doses, the amounts used in the vaccines are nowhere close to harmful. It has been further proven that children consume more aluminum through breast milk and, later on, baby formula than they do through vaccines. It has also been noted that children are exposed to more bacteria, viruses, toxins, and other such harmful substances in one day of their ordinary lives than anyone could find in a vaccine of any type. (Offit, 2008) There is also the fact that the amount of chemicals in the vaccines can be reduced depending on the child’s age and their abilities to handle them. So, there is no possible chance of the chemicals harming the children in any way due to their insignificant amount.
To the anti-vaxxers, the amount of the chemicals does not matter in the slightest. It is the very presence of those ingredients that enrages them. All that they tend to focus on is the fact that, for example, aluminum is a chemical present in some of the vaccines for children and some for adults. This then leads them to focus on nothing else but the fact that the excess amount of aluminum in the human body can cause some serious health issues and permanent neurological harm. Another ingredient that unsettles people is formaldehyde, a carcinogen, that can cause cardiac impairment, central nervous system depression, coma, and, possibly, death if the subject is exposed to it for too long. That is their train of thought when it comes to each chemical that makes up the vaccines, no matter what.
The truth of the matter, however, is that, while the chemicals by themselves could cause potentially devastating harm to the human body, there are limits even to their powers. The people whose jobs are to create the vaccines are more than knowledgeable about the side effects of the ingredients they are putting in, as well as what amounts to use to not cause harm to the patients. The chemicals pumped into the human body are not harmful in those quantities but act as a sort of catalyst to help the body build up its ability to protect itself from certain. The amount of chemicals is enough to do their job without causing any long-term damage to the human body, despite opposite beliefs.
The final reason why the vaccination is so widely debated is the question of Autism spectrum disorder (ADS). It has been proven numerous times that vaccines are the single safest medical product available to the public, the statement supported by a large number of organizations around the world such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Institute of Medicine (IOM), American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), as well as many others. There has not been any correlation between receiving vaccines and developing autism, that statement proven by both the IOM and the CDC. In 2011, the IOM conducted research in which they tested eight vaccines on both children and adults alike in, with a few rare exceptions, the distributed vaccines were nothing short of safe. The CDC thought it necessary to further add to the research on the topic and, in 2013, they also proved that there is no connection between vaccination and ADS. To this day, there has been no proof that vaccines are what causes autism.
The motivation for the counterargument is still as mentioned in the previous one. Many believe that it is the presence of thimerosal, an organic mercury compound, is what is linked to autism and affects both children and adults. While traces of thimerosal can be found in all vaccines, the one that is truly the topic of concern is the MMR vaccine. The trend began way back in 1992 when Dr. Andrew Wakefield, an accredited British gastroenterologist at that time, conducted research by testing 12 young children, both with and without autism. A report about the experiment shows what could be a possible link between the measles virus in the gut and ADS. The theory of the possible link between the two diseases comes from the theory that some of the tested children had a possible predisposition to certain immune issues. More specifically, some children’s immune systems were predisposed to attacks by various environmental toxins, which gave off the impression of autism. The research itself showed some gruesome side effects. Researchers from the Wakefield’s foundation in Texas, Thoughtful House, who worked with him on the study, claim,
The child develops a leaky gut, tissue damage gets worse, the immune system grows weaker, and autoimmune reactions start. Then a lot of children experience a catastrophic event. Either in the form of a significant illness or a live virus vaccine. The immune system is overwhelmed and the child rapidly goes downhill.
The matter remains that there is no connection between the two diseases, and there have been no other studies that support Wakefield’s claims. Even those who attempted to replicate Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s experiment were unsuccessful. Along with IOM’s experiment from 2011, the CDC one in 2013 proved that fact quite easily. In their experiment, CDC studied several antigens, which are the substances in the vaccines themselves. Those chemicals help the body produce the necessary virus-fighting antibodies. The result of that experiment showed that there was an even amount of antigen received from the vaccines by both children with and without ADS. As stated earlier, one of the most closely monitored components of the vaccines is thimerosal, which was believed to be the cause of autism after a vaccine was distributed. But there are only traces of the chemical in the substance, mostly used to prevent multidose vials of the vaccines from being contaminated by any outside bacteria. There is not enough of the component to be able to cause even a passing health issue, much less something as permanent as ADS. In a scientific review, it was concluded that “the evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism.” (IOM, 2004)
It is believed that the reason for such assumptions, even though they lack any feasible proof to back up the claims, is due to the incredibly high number of people suffering from autism. More accurately, the large number of registered cases of autism. The number of people born with ADS may have always been unchanging, perhaps fluctuating every year or so. But there are far more patients with the recognized disease. That could be why so many people like to believe that something external caused the growing number of people with ADS, rather than a genetic predisposition to the illness, as well as the rising amount of registered cases. The truth remains that vaccinating children would not result in them having autism.
This topic would most likely stop being such a highly debated topic if vaccinations were to become mandatory by law. When there are far more cases that prove vaccines are safe rather than the opposite, the government has sufficient proof to rely on and be able to quickly and easily dissuade those who would prefer to argue over the matter. In today’s day and age, when technology is so advanced and our lives are so much easier, we should not allow children to die at the hands of careless parents just because they believe in something that has been scientifically proven to be wrong. Passing a law like that could save countless lives and put an end to the child death rate, especially when it is caused by diseases we learned to cure some 100 years ago.
References:
- B., Irina. “Graphical proof that vaccines work.” Medium https://medium.com/ Accessed 03rd March 2019
- Immunization Safety Review: Vaccines and Autism. Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, 2004
- Offit, Paul, MD. “Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure.” Columbia University Press, 2008
- Offit, Paul, MD., et al. “Addressing parents’ concerns: do multiple vaccines overwhelm or weaken the infant’s immune system?” Contemporary Pediatrics, 2008
- Piper-Terry, Marcella. “Vaccine Ingredients, Children as Guinea Pigs, & Religious Exemptions.” VaxTruth http://vaxtruth.org/ Accessed 27 February 2019
- Rudy, Lisa Jo. Reviewed Joel Forman, MD. “Why do people think the MMR vaccine causes Autism?” Verywell Health. https://www.verywellhealth.com/the-mmr-vaccination-autism-controversy-260556 Accessed 27 February 2019
- “Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/index.html Accessed 27 February 2019
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