So Why Not Vaccinate? by Warren Bull
Image by Laura Lee Moreau on Upsplash
A recent outbreak of measles hitting just north of where I live caused a public health emergency. But this is not the only place where vaccinations are not routine. Brooklyn, the lower Hudson Valley, and Atlanta are other places where the disease has shown up. In Europe 41,000 cases of measles were identified in the first half of last year, resulting in at least 37 deaths.
The Anti-Vaccination Movement
Julia Belluz wrote on Voxmedia. com on April 2, 2018
Twenty years ago in February, The Lancet, an esteemed medical journal, published a small study that has become one of the most notorious and damaging pieces of research in medicine.
The study, led by the now discredited physician-researcher Andrew Wakefield, involved 12 children and suggested there’s a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine — which is administered to millions of children around the world each year — and autism.
The study was subsequently thoroughly debunked. The Lancet retracted the paper and Wakefield was stripped of his medical license. Autism researchers have shown decisively again and again that the developmental disorder is not caused by vaccines.
The first thing to know about Wakefield’s paper is that it was very dubious science. It did not deserve to be published in a top-tier medical journal — let alone receive all the attention it has subsequently gotten.
Wakefield drew the association between the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism based on a study involving only 12 children.
What’s more, when British investigative journalist Brian Deer followed up with the families of each of the 12 kids in the study, he found, “No case was free of misreporting or alteration.” In other words, Wakefield, the lead author of the original report, manipulated his data.
Wakefield also had major financial conflicts of interest. Among them, while he was discrediting the combination MMR vaccine and suggesting parents should give their children single shots over a longer period of time, he was conveniently filing patents for single-disease vaccines. The General Medical Council (the UK’s medical regulator) when deciding to take away his UK medical license, said Wakefield acted with “callous disregard for the distress and pain the children might suffer.”
In 2004, 10 of his co-authors on the original paper retracted it. Wakefield didn’t join them, and he has since continued to push his views, including doing the rounds on the anti-vaxxer speakers’ circuit and publishing books.
Wakefield Is Not The Only One Responsible
In a column for the Guardian, and in his book Bad Science, Ben Goldacre pointed out that journalists were complicit in helping perpetuate the notion that vaccines cause autism.
The media repeatedly reported the concerns of this one man, generally without giving methodological details of the research, either because they found it too complicated, inexplicably, or because to do so would have undermined their story.
Aftermath
Taking your child in for inoculations is not a pleasant experience. They can hurt. The child, if not the parent too, is going to cry. We all want the best for our children. Submitting them to a painful procedure is not intuitively helpful. Anxious parents can find plenty of misinformation about inoculations online. Some people are skeptical about experts. News reports about what are touted as “scientific breakthroughs” are often contradicted by later accounts of “the latest scientific findings.” Some people do not like to be told what to do and what not to do with their children.
Addressing concerns of parents without “preaching” or blaming would help persuade reluctant parents of the value of vaccinations against measles.
Very timely article, Warren. Parents are so concerned about their children developing autism that they are willing to risk their children's lives. Thank you for helping to address this issue.
ReplyDeleteYes, the debate continues. One of my childhood schoolmates died of measles encephalitis. My kids had their vaccinations on schedule.
ReplyDeleteGrace, You're welcome
ReplyDeleteMargret, Good for you
ReplyDeleteNot so long back, we were almost free of these horrible diseases, and now ...
ReplyDeleteThank you for this timely report, Warren. I don't understand why people STILL insist vaccines cause autism. They don't. People who don't get their children vaccinated are putting their children and a WHOLE lot of other people at risk. Grrrr.
ReplyDeleteWarren, if vaccines cause autism, all four of my children, my grandchildren and me would have had autism. As an adult I'm still taking some vaccines, too, for pneumonia, etc.
ReplyDeleteThanks for a look at a timely problem. People become so enamored of their opinion that it is pretty much impossible to get them to reconsider, whatever the cost.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. Thanks for being another medium for spreading the word. I seem to remember reading a couple years ago that Wakefield admitted to falsifying his data, but your post cues me to go back and see if that is true. It is true that local news anchors are part of the problem; I have heard many science stories that they misreported.
ReplyDelete