Many people have strong opinions on whether or not you should vaccinate your children. Although there are some people in between that allow their kids to get some vaccines, most who oppose do not give their child any. In the Frontline documentary “Vaccine War,” there was clearly a for and opposed group for vaccines. Both sides made points throughout the documentary outlining their beliefs. People who do not vaccinate their children do so for many different reasons. Groups such as Generation Rescue provide a support system and anti-vaccine advocacy. From the research done by British Gastroenterologist, Andrew Wakefield, they believe that vaccine have a negative affect and cause autism as well as regression in their children. Children, from …show more content…
All the children had intestinal abnormalities. Before receiving the MMR vaccine, all the children had showed satisfactory achievement of their early milestones. Soon after receiving the vaccine, regression occurred in seven of the children. Wakefield’s results suggested that the direct cause of the children’s illnesses were the MMR vaccine. Based on the knowledge that I know now; Wakefield article is not accurate. There were many signs that pointed to this research being wrong. Some things discussed in “Vaccine War” were that all of the children studies in his research were referred to him by an attorney that was working on a case against the manufacturers of the MMR vaccine. Another major issue with Wakefield’s findings is that they are not able to be reproduced. A large part of research being credible is its ability to be reproduced in another study, and without that, the finding that he found are not sound. Because of the evidence the research may not have been correct, there was an editorial written stating that Wakefield’s findings that the MMR vaccine and autism were connected were fraudulent. This editorial also brings to light the fact that Wakefield relied heavily on the recall and beliefs of the parents and altered many of the facts about the patient’s medical histories in order to support his …show more content…
If I did believe that the vaccines did more harm than good, the retraction in 2010 would not have swayed me. People like to stick to what they believe is true, and since Wakefield continues stand by his findings despite them being retracted, people will continue to believe what he found to be true. I believe in vaccines. I trust what the companies that create and manufacture vaccines say about them causing way more good than bad. But, the opposing side does make some compelling arguments. Many people from the “Vaccine War” documentary mentioned how many vaccines children receive. I feel that since there are so many, the extra chemicals in them must have caused some harm to
There is a war going on against parents that refuse to vaccinate their children. It is coming from the government that makes and enforces laws requiring parents to vaccinate their children, hostile parents of vaccinated children, and doctors that refuse to see unvaccinated children. They are concerned about the potential health risk unvaccinated children pose to the public. These parents aren’t lunatics but are concerned parents that are trying to make the best choice for their children. In fact, these parents aren’t fighting alone; a number of pediatricians and medical experts are apart of this crusade and have taken the lead. They will tell you there is an agenda, “Vaccine manufacturers, health officials, medical doctors, lead authors of important studies, editors of major medical journals, hospital personnel, and even coroners, cooperate to minimize vaccine failings, exaggerate benefits, and avert any negative publicity that might frighten concerned parents, threaten the vaccine program and lower vaccination rates.” 4
The use of vaccinations has been a major topic in the news lately. The decision to or not to vaccinate your child is a decision that parents face each day. For some the decision is an easy one, a no-brainer. For others, it’s a very difficult one to make. People that are pro-vaccine believe that they are protecting their children and the future generations by vaccinating them against diseases that they could potentially get. People that are ant-vaccine believe that by choosing not to vaccinate, they are protecting their children and future generations from the serious side effects that they could potentially get from the vaccination.
Despite all the testing and approval process of vaccines, many people still mistakenly believe that vaccines cause autism, even in light of research that has disproven the notion. This evidences the difficulty of dispelling false statements once someone has accepted a falsehood, especially if it has scientific research backing the results. It also highlights the gullibility of the public at large to believe anything that medical research reports without questioning the findings. Unfortunately, the media attention such examples of junk science receive aids in convincing many of its truthfulness. The hype surrounding the belief that vaccines cause autism began in 1998 when Andrew Wakefield in the UK published an article in the Lancet linking the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR...
Why would anyone want to leave their child at risk of developing a sickness that could easily be preventable? Some people believe that vaccines do not work and are only harmful; they are wrong. Vaccines can be helpful not only to the child of the concerned parent, but also the children of other parents as well. Parents should vaccinate their children because it prevents illnesses, rarely has negative effects, and vaccines have increased the human lifespan. If an illness is preventable, parents should ensure that their children are getting the medical protection available.
When any subject takes hold of the American people and media for such a long time, it’s usually an indicator that something is not clear. Most often when a subject is clearly wrong, it won’t last as a controversial subject for long. It is very simple for any person to decide if vaccines are right or wrong for them or their children. Vaccines have unbiased Pros and Cons such as most controversial subjects. Pros and cons based on age, race, weight, health, health history, genetics and personal and collective history. We will be listing these pros and cons so you can
Doctor Andrew Wakefield had written a paper in Lancet journal in 1998 which suggested that MMR vaccine causes autism. In his research, he found out that MMR vaccine was responsible for bowel inflammation that leads to the translocation of non-permeable peptides into the bloodstream. (American Academy of Pediatrics) This in turn carries them to the brain causing the root of autism spectrum disorder to form. His research was called weak by drug corporations, governments and media companies and was then discredited earning him a fraud reputation. His paper has since raised a decade long argument on MMR vaccine originating autism spectrum disorder. This has caused a lot of parents to withdraw their children from being vaccinated, which increased measles infections.
Palfreman, J. (Director) (2010). The vaccine war [Television series episode]. In Fanning, D. (Executive Producer),FRONTLINE. PBS. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/vaccines/view/
After watching The Vaccine War, the main concerns of vaccines are public safety, the aftermath of injecting harmful chemicals into ones’ body and the parents that choose not to vaccinate their children. In the beginning of the documentary, a mother, Jennifer Margulis, states she felt like it was not needed for her newborn child to be vaccinated for a sexual transmitted disease. She feels like the ingredients are scary for a young child to take in with an immature immune system. The other issue is a massive outbreak of disease that could have been prevented. The Center of Disease Control is carefully watching the town that Ms. Margulis lives, Ashland, Oregon, because it’s the least vaccinated places in America due to parents opting out of vaccines.
Often this movement uses fear tactics to dissuade people from getting vaccinated. As science shows more and more that vaccines are not dangerous and anti-vaccine arguments get debunked, the spokespersons in the anti-vaccine movement become increasingly outspoken on their views and continue to search for other arguments against vaccines. Some anti-vaxxers have gone so far as to say that vaccines could lead to bioterrorism and have caused government and pharmaceutical coverups. (Landsman) Extreme hostility is also shown to people who do not jump aboard this movement. Parents who choose to vaccinate are often ridiculed by the anti-vaccine community members. Even more hostility is shown towards those who were once anti-vaxxers but then changed their stance on vaccines. The fear mongering, hostility shown towards the vaccine community, and the misinformation being spread by the anti-vaccine community is concerning and needs to be
The Frontline video “The Vaccine Wars” aims to convince doubting parents and anti-vaccine groups and associations that the benefits of vaccines highly outweigh the detriments through facts, scientific research, and the take of several specialists on the issue. The problem arrives as PBS attempts to do so while creating an unfair equity between two non-equally warranted positions (pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine), starting from the title “War”; which I will later discuss in more detail. By the most part, the documentary presented facts about vaccines, trying to avoid opinion and anecdotal experience, which seems to be the safeguard of so many anti-vaccines activists. The show was structured, mainly, in several interviews with professionals in
These repercussions can last decades as seen in the Wakefield case. Since Wakefield released his study, the MMR combination vaccination rates have dropped dramatically with cases of measles on the rise around the world exposing millions. The number of measles outbreaks in the UK rose from 56, the year the study was released, to 1,400 in 2008 (Ahearn, 2010). With more people choosing to not vaccinate that number is expected to rise. As one can see, these studies do no disappear overnight even if they are retracted. Often, people tend to be strong willed and will be suspicious of the legitimacy of the new study and refuse to believe anything else as the previous study was embedded in them for years. With medical journals and articles being just a click away, it is more than important to be weary of fraudulent and inaccurate studies releasing false information to the public. Spreading false, misleading information opens dangerous doors in the healthcare field, from epidemics and outbreaks to a misinformed panicking public believing they can receive viruses such as Ebola although they are 1,000’s of miles away from the infected
In recent years, the correlation between vaccines and autism has become the subject of much debate. On one side, there are the anti-vaccinators, or anti-vaccers. On the other, there’s pretty much everyone else. Despite the fact that the anti-vaccination movement has little base in scientific fact, their campaign to end early infanthood vaccinations rages on. While doctors and scientists try desperately to make parents look at the research studies, vaccination rates continue to fall. But, even in these dark times, there is still hope that scientific fact will prevail and defeat the anti-vaccination fear mongers who have caused many children to fall ill and even die because their parents did not properly vaccinate them. This is one of the most saddening scientific failures of the twenty-first century. A failure to educate the public properly has resulted in child, even infant, fatalities. The anti-vaccination movement was started based on falsified data and continues only because of a lack of knowledge and proper education of the general public.
Vaccines are becoming increasingly hazardous for many children and parents are not being informed about the safety of their children. Current reports are linking vaccines to serious life-threatening disorders such as asthma, autism, immune system dysfunction, and mental retardation (Williams). These recent revelations are causing an increasing amount of people to claim religious and medical exemptions from vaccines. From 1999 to 2006, exemptions have more than doubled from 9,722 to 24,919 (Cronin). It is very clear that vaccinations are posing many problems for parents everywhere. Each day researchers are finding out about vaccines and are realizing that there are a lot more risks than benefits. Dr Phillip F. Incao explains: “Today, far more children suffer from allergies and other chronic immune system disorders than from life-threatening infectious disease. It is neither reasonable nor prudent to persist in presuming that the benefits of any vaccination outweigh its risk” (qtd in Spaker). While infectious diseases are becoming uncommon there is no need for any person to get vaccinated.
Recently the number of parents who are intentionally delaying their children’s general vaccinations is increasing. The controversy that is causing the number of delayed vaccinations to go up is based on the fact that there are negative articles connecting them to autism and other similar diseases. When parents are researching vaccinations and they read those negative articles, those articles make them believe that vaccines cause autism. Vaccines are important because they protect humans from preventable diseases and getting them could save human lives. Vaccines are important throughout life no matter what some research suggests. Parents are now more likely to intentionally delay vaccines because of negative press, even though vaccines
They fear that vaccinations will cause severe and permanent damage in the natural immune system. They also think that the immune system is never allowed to grow if they become too reliant on the medicine. A heath website has an article called, Vaccines: What They Are and Why Your Child Needs Them that states, “Vaccines are generally quite safe. The protection provided by vaccines far outweighs the very small risk of serious problems. Vaccines have made many serious childhood diseases rare today” (Editorial Staff). However, there are some that say the possible side effects from vaccinations are still not worth the risk. Every vaccination recommended today by the government carries a risk of complications some being very serious. While that is true, for the most part side effects are generally very minor. For an example, most will experience a sore arm or a low-grade fever and will go away within a few days. Vaccines are continually monitored for safety, and like medication, vaccines can cause side effects. However, when one chooses not to immunize not only does it put them at risk, it also puts others who come in contact with this person at risk as