By Aashka Dave
We’ve heard it all before:
“Vaccinating my child will cause autism.”
“…but there’s mercury in vaccines.”
“It’s against my beliefs—whatever should happen will happen.”
So instead of taking your child to the doctor for their MMR vaccine (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella), you take them to Disneyland instead.
And they get sick. With the measles.
Oops.
Science aside, the “vaccinations lead to autism” logic is flawed for its oversights and assumptions. Would anyone really prefer to expose their child to a deadly disease on the off chance that their child is going to develop autism? No parent would prefer a dead child to a healthy, happy, living one. The current vaccination-versus-health dichotomy is inherently false. Vaccines have a proven track record of preventing disease: there is a greater chance of a child dying after a tragic playground accident than of complications from a MMR vaccine. Parents don’t have to make a choice between health and autism. They have to make a choice between health and a fatal disease. Is autism truly a fate worse than death?
The inanities uttered by anti-vaccine fearmongers gained momentum in 1998 following the publication of a study conducted by one Dr. Andrew Wakefield. Wakefield’s study—later found to be invalid on a number of grounds—posited the idea that the MMR vaccine was linked so closely to autism that giving a child the vaccine was tantamount to giving that child autism.
Vaccination rates dropped sharply in the years following publication of the study. Wakefield was stripped of his medical license years later when his study was exposed as an “elaborate fraud.” As it turns out, Wakefield’s study was one big hoax. It only took into consideration 12 patients, all of whom had their information misrepresented or their medical histories altered. Would you call this a sound study? By all means.
Today, the disease incidence of measles has increased significantly, and the anti-vaccination movement is supported by “anti-vaxxer” parents who believe that vaccinations are detrimental to the well-being of their children.
Add to Wakefield’s study the influence of popular celebrities such as Jenny McCarthy, and anti-vaxxer logic takes on another layer of falsified credibility. To be sure, McCarthy would definitely have an interest in the purported relationship between vaccines and autism: her own son is (debatably) autistic. However, unlike most mothers who would be researching the subject in similar situations, McCarthy took her purported knowledge of the vaccination-autism link everywhere. A former Playboy model and 1994 Playmate of the year, droves of people listened to her simply because she had been on the cover of a famous magazine.
(It is worth noting that McCarthy’s life choices are her own. Modeling is as legitimate a profession as any other, and McCarthy’s successes in the entertainment industry are noteworthy. However, in the same way you probably wouldn’t want a computer scientist working as a makeup artist on an Hervé Léger show during fashion week, you probably shouldn’t consider a model with no college education an expert on vaccination.)
Fast forward to the present day.
MMR vaccination rates have plummeted in recent years. In 1963, the year preceding the advent of the US measles vaccination, there were 4 million cases of measles. 48,000 people were hospitalized and 500 individuals lost their lives. The measles vaccination proved so effective in the years that followed that the disease was declared eliminated in 2000; enough people had been vaccinated that measles was no longer a threat to the general population. Today, a significant number of parents choose not to vaccinate their children in the face of incontrovertible evidence that vaccines do, in fact, work—the purported side effects of measles are minimal in comparison to the havoc wrought by the disease.
According to the CDC, one in every 20 children with measles will contract pneumonia. Of these children, one in 1,000 will contract encephalitis, or swelling of the brain. At least one or two of these children will die.
Many parents argue that by not vaccinating their children, they are making a personal choice that does not impact those around them. Given the logic behind herd immunity, or the “means of protecting a whole community from disease by immunizing a critical mass of its populace,” many argue that not vaccinating their own progeny will cause no harm. According to this argument, when a critical mass is immunized, the whole community is protected, so a few exceptions would have minimal effect on overall public health. “If everyone else is vaccinating,” they argue, “then why should I have to do the same thing? Everything will be fine.”
The catch here is that herd immunity only works when a critical mass of the population is immunized. In most cases, that immunity threshold has already been reached even before the question of vaccinating children arises: the elderly, infants, and individuals with autoimmune disorders such as HIV cannot be vaccinated. By failing to vaccinate a child, parents are exceeding that immunity threshold, making it more likely that those at-risk individuals who don’t even have the option to protect themselves are going to get sick. Measles is a highly communicable disease, capable of being spread through the air. Its immunity threshold is 95 percent, meaning that only 5 percent of the population at any given time can be vulnerable to measles if we don’t want a measles outbreak on our hands.
Unfortunately, the progress seen in 2000 has largely retreated. The incidence of measles has risen in recent times thanks to the anti-vaccination movement—which is built on falsified information and claims. The Disneyland debacle this winter only underscores this point. Most of the people contracting measles now are people who did not get vaccinated. Six of those people were infants who absolutely could not be vaccinated. Where less than 100 people contracted the measles in 2000, 2014 saw around 600 people contract the disease. 2015 is poised to present even higher numbers given the spread of measles to states including Arizona and Illinois. As measles makes it way into cities and densely populated areas, it becomes a disease that cannot be prevented unless individuals are vaccinated.
Many who argue that children are better off without vaccinations cite claims that vaccines can overwhelm the immune system. Others decry the use of chemical-laden preservatives. With the exception of the latter, those arguments have been refuted.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, vaccines are scheduled over the course of a child’s first years specifically so that vaccines cannot overwhelm a child’s immune system. Some parents point out that there are far more vaccines today than during their childhoods. This increase is actually a testament to modern medicine: we can now prevent more diseases. There are now more opportunities for children to grow up hale and hearty than in the past. Certainly no one wants to return to the days of whooping cough.
The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork. Let's protect all our kids. #GrandmothersKnowBest
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 3, 2015
The Jenny McCarthys of the world also claim that vaccines use preservatives chock full of chemicals. Thimerosal, a vaccine preservative that does indeed contain mercury, was never used in the MMR vaccine. It was used in some other vaccines during the 1990s, but is no longer used in those vaccines either. The only vaccine to use thimerosal, in fact, is only present in the flu vaccine—which anti-vaxxers don’t dispute as often as might actually be warranted.
Measles has become the talk of the town as politicians suit up for the 2016 presidential election. Potential candidates ranging from Chris Christie to Rand Paul have spoken on the “dangers” of vaccinations and the vaccination statuses of their own children. Vaccination is poised to become a contested issue on the political circuit if politicians can’t get their messages straight, especially considering that the current measles outbreak is nowhere near winding down. If presumably “educated” politicians continue to give false credence to claims that vaccinations are more harmful than not, and that autism and vaccination are indeed linked, the measles outbreak will only become a bigger issue, potentially increasing the number of erring anti-vaxxers.
Bottom line? Vaccinate your children, protecting them and the children around them.
