In 2010, the study that sparked the anti-vaccine movement was fully retracted from the journal which published it as a result of its author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, being found to have a massive conflict of interest, amidst other ethical issues. Dr. Wakefield was employed by lawyers suing over alleged vaccine injuries (Novella, 2010). For the purpose of money, Dr. Wakefield sparked a worldwide debate over the legitimacy of vaccines as a whole, and has caused the deaths of thousands by proxy. The misinformed parent isn’t the victim, they were vaccinated and protected, the one suffering is the child whose parents feared autism more than measles.
The Measles Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine is a beneficial form of treatment and any links to autism are not only unfounded, but harmful to the population at large. It is the duty of health care professionals to inform and treat the public with their welfare in mind. With a healthy understanding of what a vaccine is and how it works, an in-depth look at the flawed and unethical study that sparked this whole fiasco, and addressing points brought about by an uneducated discussion of this topic, this research paper can set to rest a few misguided minds.
The MMR vaccine is a beneficial form of prevention against Measles, Mumps, and Rubella. The MMR vaccine, and for that matter most vaccines, seem very counterintuitive until you get into the science behind them. The active ingredient in most vaccines is a specimen of the disease in question that the vaccine is trying to Woody 2 immunize the body against. Again the word counterintuitive screams here, how is introducing the disease to the body meant to go about preventing that exact thing? The MMR vaccine, for example, has weakened and dead cells from the measles, mumps and rubella diseases.
Which isn’t to say that that is purely what consists of this vaccine, most of the vaccine is water and some of it is anti-inflammatories or immune boosters to help make extra sure that the virus does not overtake the immune system and spiral out of control. Leukocytes (white blood cells) are the body’s main defense cell against disease. Once these defense cells get used to fighting a disease they can do so very effectively, to the point that someone might not even feel the effects of a disease.
If the white blood cells are the warriors of the immune system, the vaccines are the training dummies, because vaccinations do not introduce fully fledged diseases into the system. The disease cells are either already dead or weakened and the body is allowed to fight off the cells and adapt to fight those same cells in the future. Most diseases are able to be simply fought off once and never caught again except in rare or special cases, like chicken pox. What’s more, the immunization success rate on vaccines is so high that it’s become integrated into our society as a standard of health.
Schools around the country have requirements of vaccinations not just for the purpose of protecting the child in question, but also in an effort to protect other children who may have a weakened immune system that would not be able to handle a full-blown case of measles or many other diseases for that matter. The vaccinations are so effective that the United States has eliminated multiple diseases from the country, including measles (CDC, 2015). Admittedly, parents cannot afford not to look this gift horse in the mouth. It is more than reasonable to look for flaws, side effects, and downsides to vaccines.
Parents should do so in a Woody 3 scientific and ethical manner though. Dr. Andrew Wakefield conducted a study in 1998 which sparked the entire anti-vaccine movement. He studied twelve children and within that sample size found what he apparently believed to be a statistically valid correlation between the MMR vaccine and autism/irritable bowel syndrome (Wakefield et al. 1997). However, Mr. Wakefield was afterwards stripped of his medical license in the UK and his study was retracted from the publishing journal as a result of ethical violations and mistakes found in the study.
During the study, Mr. Wakefield was in the employ of lawyers currently suing against vaccine injuries and his study was likely funded by the money the lawyers were paying him as an expert witness. Also, the sample size for the study is so small and with no data on how the participants were chosen one cannot say whether or not this sample size was also biased or not. Even worse than the motivational ethical violations are the ones where abuse was taken against the children in the study.
Invasive procedures were performed to find any shred of evidence that might be used to support Wakefield’s conclusion of irritable bowel syndrome. These procedures include colonoscopies and lumbar punctures (spinal taps) which were unnecessary and honestly dangerous for a group of children aged anywhere between three and ten years old (Wakefield et al. 1997). The British Medical Journal also published a series of articles exposing the fraud and revealing that the motivations for the study may have been purely financial (Rao, Andrade 2011).
And this paper that was published unethically, immorally, and incorrectly has sparked a controversy that has caused the death of thousands. Parents around the world have heard the supposed risk and stopped vaccinating their children, which in turn has led to a rise in deaths from completely preventable diseases like measles, mumps and rubella. Many adherents of the Woody 4 anti-vaccine argument will say, “the study was flawed but it started a discussion.
However, this discussion has led to the deaths of innocents, babies that could have been protected and were not because some parents feared a mental disability more than the infection and/or death of their child. Google warriors that do not understand the science and medicine behind vaccines go out and pick information that supports the idea that scares them. It is not a harmless discussion, it is research versus unethical and incorrect research and it is killing children. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Measles kills one to two children for every 1,000 infected with the disease.
The CDC also reports that 644 cases of this virus was contracted just in 2014 alone. These desktop crusaders will point to correlation and call it causation, and whistleblowers will valiantly step from the shadows to publish books with no real evidence to back up their incredibly courageous claims. But the papers they quote are misquoted and the information they give is cherry picked and aligned towards their own views. At the end of everything, the MMR vaccine is an effective form of prevention against three harmful infectious diseases. Dr.
Wakefield’s whistleblowing study was heavily discredited and all arguments to have come since the study are similarly flawed and unfounded. The MMR Vaccine is a beneficial form of treatment and any links to autism are unfounded and harmful. Dr. Wakefield was not unreasonably stripped of his medical license. Unfortunately, it took ten years for his study to be fully retracted. Thought was put behind the dismantling of this horrendously harmful rumor, even if none was put behind its formation. When someone asks how vaccines cause autism, there’s only one real answer. They don’t.