Vaccination is one the greatest achievements of public health which led to a marked decline in the rate of infectious diseases in the 19th century. (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 1999) However, currently a growing number of parents are in doubt regarding the safety of vaccines and the necessity to follow the recommended vaccination schedule for their children, resulting in many parents following an alternative schedule of vaccination or complete refusal of vaccination. (Dempsey et al., 2011)
According to a study conducted by the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2011, 13% of parents followed an alternative vaccination schedule, 22% of those who followed the approved schedule had doubts about it and 17% refused all vaccines completely. This increasing trend has become a growing cause of concern for the physicians and public health workers today.
Some of the common reasons cited by parents for not vaccinating children include:
• Autism and autoimmune disorders linked to vaccines
• Toxins present in the vaccines causing harm to children
• Vaccinating children for multiple diseases, especially for diseases which are not prevalent today.
One of the important reasons why parents are concerned about the safety of these vaccines is due to the 1998 theory proposed by British gastroenterologist David Wakefield linking autism to the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Though the Institute of Medicine has already conducted safety review panels since 2001 and rejected any such correlation, parents continue to fear about their children suffering from autism or immune dysfunction due to vaccinations. (American Journal of Public Health, 2008)
Parents are also concerned about the presence of toxins in the vaccines that could harm t...
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Refusal, Mandatory Immunization, and the Risks of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases. New England Journal of Medicine, 360(19), 1981–1988. doi:10.1056/NEJMsa0806477
Omer S.B, Pan, W.Y, Halsey, N.A, & et al. (2006). Nonmedical exemptions to school immunization requirements: Secular trends and association of state policies with pertussis incidence. JAMA, 296(14), 1757–1763. doi:10.1001/jama.296.14.1757
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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
In 1999 a study was done in the United Kingdom to see if there was a link between the two. In this study, researchers compared children had had and had not gotten the measles, mumps and rubella vaccination. The study identified four hundred and ninety-eight cases of autism including core autism, atypical autism and Asperger syndrome in children born in the United Kingdom since 1979. There was an increase in cases by year of birth with no change after the introduction of the vaccination. There was also no age difference at diagnosis between the cases vaccinated before or after eighteen months of age and children that were never vaccinated. These results showed no temporal association between the onset of autism within one or two years after being vaccinated with MMR and developmental regression was not clustered in the months after vaccination. The data from these results does not support the connection between MMR and autism and if an association was to occur it was so rare it could not be identified. Many studies have been done over this topic but the results prove that it in fact does not cause autism. It is likely that this myth is strongly accepted because the symptoms of autism begin to occur around the same time as the child is to be vaccinated with the MMR
The article “People Should Not Be Allowed to Refuse Vaccination” focuses on the dangers people who choose not to vaccinate are opening to others. The argument stems from the ease with which disease can spread through an unvaccinated community and the threat this poses to those who cannot vaccinate. Because of this danger the author of the article believes vaccination should not be left to choice, but required for the good of public safety.
“Vaccinations are causing a major upsurge in childhood diseases, adult maladies, and even deadly ailments such as Gulf War Syndrome and Lou Gehrig’s disease” (Blaylock). Every now and then an individual’s doctor calls telling them about the latest vaccine they should receive. The person immediately schedules a time to come in and get it done. But do they even give a second thought about it? Have they ever thought that maybe they do not need another vaccination? Many people have not taken the time to seriously think about the process of immunization. The truth is, there are many dangers that the average person should be unaware of. Rarely do vaccines actually accomplish what the public has been told. In fact, a lot of vaccines contain harmful substances that have been linked to disorders such as autism. The lack of education and dishonesty from doctors are putting people in danger of health problems without even realizing. Many parents feel obligated for their children to get vaccinated because of school, not knowing they have the alternative option of refusing immunization.
...ey found that 7.6 percent of parents report that in the past 12 months (or since birth) they had missed or delayed a vaccine for their child aged 4-35 months. In both analyses, refusal/delay is not associated with family income, public vs. private insurance, mother’s age, or region of the country. This study shows effectively only a small percentage of parents don’t get their children vaccinated. The information that the article references come from is the American Academy of Pediatrician, which this comes from a credible source, although there is no dated on the article to when this was actually publish the information data that was reported is from 2002; since that time the information could have change. Therefore, this information is very useful to toward my assignment to show that there is only a small number of the population to convert back to using vaccines.
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...
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.
Childhood vaccinations have replaced common childhood illness as a “rite of passage” for many young children. Many parents, at the recommendation of their physician, diligently bring their children to the doctor every couple of months for what are thought to be important and safe vaccinations. Many parents are lead to believe that vaccinating their children, albeit the so-called slight risks associated with vaccines, is the responsible thing to do for the sake of the common good, which includes their child’s safety, as well as the safety of the community. But are parents made aware of some of the ingredients in these so-called safe vaccines and the inherent risks of the ingredients? Are parents aware of the protection the United States government offers to vaccine manufacturers and those who recommend and administer the vaccines? Do parents realize that their child just might be a sacrificial lamb?
In the Frontline episode The Vaccine War, a progressively distressful debate ensues among many scientists and doctors within the public health system and an unnerving alliance of parents, politicians, and celebrities. The topic of debate is the overwhelming pressure parents feel to vaccinate their children and their right to decline such vaccinations. In several American neighborhoods, groups of parents have been exercising their right to refuse vaccinations, which has elevated anxiety on the return of vaccine-preventable diseases such as pertussis and measles. The reason such parents are denying their children various vaccines such as the MMR “triple shot” for measles, mumps, and rubella is because they are convinced that it is linked to autism, a link that has yet to be proven. Many of these parents are focused solely on their children, not taking into account that their decision may put the American populace at risk for disease. Such parents are not thinking about other members of society that vaccines don’t work for, and in certain adolescents the effects deteriorate, thus only when every person is immunized the “heard immunity” is successful.
Omer, Saad B., Dr. "Vaccine Refusal, Mandatory Immunization, and the Risks of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases — NEJM." New England Journal of Medicine. Web. 13 May 2014.
First, I would like to introduce the different types of vaccines and how they are being manufactured. According to Lynn Cates, who is Medical Doctor, vaccines are made from either weakened, killed, or particles of the bacteria or viruses. There is also another type of vaccine that is made from the toxins or poisons made by the germ (Cates). People who receive the vaccines containing weakened bacteria or viruses will only develop a mild case of the original disease with little or no symptoms. The vaccines made with killed bacteria or viruses will not develop the disease or the symptoms of it. The last category of vaccine is toxoid. “Toxoid vaccines contain toxins (or poisons) produced by the germ that have been made harmless.” (Cates) Example of this type of vaccine is Tetanus. All of these vaccines work by making the body produce immunity towards the b...
Childhood vaccinations have received a lot of media in the past few years, and parents continue to question whether or not they should have their children vaccinated. This topic is a very important issue because it seems to be a trend in our society where parents are not vaccinating their children. This then leads their children becoming more susceptible to unnecessary diseases/viruses that can be prevented with vaccines. The focus of the following articles was on the association of the specific vaccines measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR), and vaccines containing thimerosal, which has been a speculated reason for the cause of autism. This contentious hypothesis has many parents failing to vaccinate their children; this is especially true of many friends and family members of mine. They believe that vaccines can cause autism, and I want to prove otherwise.
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 against diphtheria, polio, pertussis, measles, mumps and rubella, and more recent additions of hepatitis B and chicken pox, have given humans powerful immune guards to ward off unwelcome sickness. And thanks to state laws that require vaccinations for kids enrolling in kindergarten, the U.S. presently enjoys the highest immunization rate ever at 77%. Yet bubbling beneath these national numbers is the question about vaccine safety. Driven by claims that vaccinations can be associated with autism, increasing number of parents are raising questions about whether vaccines are in fact harmful to children, instead of helpful (Park, 2008).
Vaccines trigger Autism in children even if some doctors and parents refuse to believe this is true. Vaccines do more more harm than good, those children who receive no vaccines at all are statistically safe. Causing increase in multiple disorder such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis and other immune diseases. As stated by Robert F. Kennedy, vaccines contain toxic ingredients which children at such a young age can not handle for their immune system. The American Academy of Pediatrics urges parents to vaccinate their children against sixteen diseases. Knowing that a small child is being given a high amount of vaccine doses is not good, a child's body can not handle the vaccine. When parents take their children to the doctors, the parents are