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To Vaccinate Or Not To Vaccinate: There Is No Question

Photo by Noodles And Beef

How myths are born
In 1998, a British former surgeon and medical researcher published a fraudulent paper that would later cause the preventable death and suffering of tens of thousands of children worldwide. This man’s name is Andrew Wakefield, and in February, 1998, he authored a paper published in The Lancet, a prominent medical journal. In his paper, he claimed he found a link between the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism.

Shortly after being published, several other medical research groups reported they could not replicate the results in Wakefield’s paper – meaning further research they have done has not demonstrated such a link. In 2004, a journalist investigation revealed that Wakefield had undisclosed financial conflict of interest: at that time, a solicitor hoping to sue the companies producing the triple shot had hired Wakefield to attack MMR, a fact he did not disclose to his colleagues nor to the journal that published his paper. Additionally, Wakefield was filing a patent for a “safer MMR vaccine”.

In 2010, after a thorough review, a committee by the British General Medical Council found Wakefield guilty of more than 30 violations, including 12 counts involving the abuse of developmentally challenged children, mentioning Wakefield had acted both against the interests of his patients and “dishonestly and irresponsibly” in his research. His paper was retracted by The Lancet, and he was barred from practicing medicine in the UK.

Fixing the broken view
Since then, hundreds of reputable papers researching whether there’s any link between vaccines and autism have been published. They have included more than 15 million children amongst them (Wakefield’s “research” partially followed only 12). No link has ever been found, and Wakefield’s claims have been repeatedly disproven. A great infographic about this can be found here.

Yet by that time, the damage caused by Wakefield’s lies was too far to undo: certain groups, mostly in the United States, have gotten hold of this false information and decided to wage war against humanity’s third most successful preventative medicine measure in history.

Turning a deaf ear
Against all best efforts, those objecting to vaccines do not tend to change their mind. On the contrary. A study done by the American Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has shown frightening results: not only was credible information about vaccines rejected by parents who don’t vaccinate their children – in some cases it made them even more misinformed.

So how is it that even when faced with the hard facts about the effectiveness of vaccines and the dangers of vaccine-preventable diseases, parents who do not believe in vaccines don’t change their minds, and sometimes are even drawn harder to the false?

The key word here is “believe” – those objecting vaccines do not have any evidence to base their claims about the alleged ineffectiveness or dangers of vaccines. They rely solely on their faith that vaccines are bad, and when presented with information proving otherwise, experience what’s called “cognitive dissonance”: mental stress and discomfort experienced by people when presented with new information contradicting their existing beliefs or values. When experiencing it, the options are either accepting that one’s long held beliefs are wrong, or denying the new information and trying to find excuses to justify it. Rather unfortunately, the latter is the easier and almost always taken choice.

Whooping cough is back
The damage done by the anti-vaccination movement is not limited only to debate. The following graph shows the amount of cases of pertussis, better known as “whooping cough”, in the US between the 1920s and 2010. As the graph shows, the number of cases decreased massively in the 40’s. This is when the first effective vaccine against pertussis became widespread.

Petrussin in the USA. Image by A Train Education

The various vaccines developed over the years against whooping cough have lowered the amount of cases per year in the US from around 150,000 in 1940 to less than 3,000 in the 70’s – a reduction of 99.98%. Whooping caugh was on its way to be eradicated from the US. Until recently.
With the rise of the anti-vaccination movement, communities in which the amount of vaccinated people isn’t high enough to stop the spread of the disease, i.e herd immunity, have emerged. Not long after, local epidemics followed. In some cases, unvaccinated children have already died because of whooping cough. Similar trends are seen with mumps, measles and various other diseases that were nearly eradicated from the western world.

Comic by Jason McDermott at Red Pen/Black Pen

Ultimately, the objection to vaccines comes from an inherent privilege – today’s parents are too young to remember the days before vaccines, days in which children became paralysed or even died because of polio, left deaf or brain damaged because of meningitis or rubella, and other vaccine-preventable diseases caused death and suffering.

But for some, these days have not passed. Not only does the anti-vaccine movement not remember the past, they also do not know the present. For instance, in various central African countries mothers do not name their babies until they are 6 months old and have suffered (and survived) through most of these diseases. The WHO estimated that 1.5 million children under the age of 5 have died from vaccine-preventable diseases in 2008 alone, mostly because of the lack of funding and health care professionals to distribute and administer vaccines.

Fight through the false information
To justify their belief, the anti-vaccination movement has thrown a myriad of false claims about vaccines. They state that vaccines are not effective, not required anymore, causing sickness or even causing the same diseases they in fact prevent.

For example, a common claim is that vaccines contain formaldehyde, a toxic substance. While true, it’s worth noting that a single pear has over 100 times more formaldehyde than a vaccine shot. Even in these levels it’s not toxic, and the body uses it for many purposes. The anti-vaccines movement ignores these facts, continuing to spread fear and disinformation. Or maybe from now on the anti-vaccination movement would like to oppose pears as well?

Debunking all of the disinformation spread by those claiming to “do their own research” will take years, and would prove futile. Although claiming to do their research, they ignore simple facts, and by doing so, rely on fear mongering tactics.

They have developed expertise in posing their claims as sincere concern, and by using conspiracy claims against doctors and public health bodies have given a false sense of legitimacy to their unsubstantiated claims.
They say they’ve done “their own research”, while ignoring every credible piece of evidence from the thousands of studies done on the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. And by doing so, they’re actively endangering the lives of the children they’re claiming so fiercely to allegedly protect.

The take home message?
The facts speak from themselves. Vaccines save lives.
Don’t let anyone who thinks otherwise based on mere belief scare you or your loved ones from making the right decision: vaccinating your children and potentially saving their lives.
And if you have any concerns – consult actual experts, doctors and public health workers, instead of believing lies spread by celebrities on the internet.

Yuval Novik is an undergraduate researcher in molecular biology and a lover of all things medicine, science and technology. He is also a full-time sceptic and occasional daydreamer.