The truth about vaccination

Neal Hasan, Correspondent

During the early 1960s, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that each year, three to four million people were infected with measles and that 400-500 of them died from the disease. However, by 1963 vaccines had become a routine part of American health care, and 37 years later, the United States had officially declared the measles virus eliminated with fewer than 100 people contracting measles in 2000. In a stroke of genius, American innovation and the powers of science had won a crucial victory over the forces of disease.

In 2014, all of that hard work started to be reversed. According to the CDC, no more than 220 cases were reported in any given year from 2000 to 2013, but in 2014, that figure jumped dramatically. Last year, 644 cases of the measles were reported stemming from over twenty outbreaks across the country, more than the previous five years combined. Not yet a full two months into this year, there have already been 102 cases of measles. What happened?

measles
Photo Source: Washington Post

In 1998, just as the measles were on the very verge of being eliminated, a British doctor named Andrew Wakefield published a study in the Lancet journal that linked vaccines with autism. The study suddenly became a holy text for the budding anti-vaccination movement. Dr. Wakefield was named the high priest of a baseless movement and the government became the profit-grabbing home of the devil.

The study, however, was a farce. Based on nothing more than twelve kids who had been administered the mumps-measles-rubella vaccine (MMR), of which nine had autism, Dr. Wakefield started an anti-immunization movement that has, thus far, stood the test of time. With this new-found “link” between vaccines and autism and the growing fear that the government created the MMR purely to turn a profit, parents became far less willing to vaccinate their children, citing religious or personal ideologies as reasons to refuse immunization.

Now, many of those who are against vaccinations live in clusters, meaning that large proportions of unvaccinated kids live in close proximity, vastly increasing the likelihood of major outbreaks like those we have seen over the past year. Children with serious medical conditions that cannot receive the MMR are also put at higher risk of fatally contracting measles if parents who actually can protect their children from these viruses refuse to do so.

Thankfully, the pseudo-science of Wakefield’s paper eventually became apparent; the public realized the study was based on just twelve kids and that Dr. Wakefield had taken $600,000 from attorneys fighting against the the safety of vaccines as incentive to publish a study in their favor. To compound this, the British Medical Journal announced that the doctor had manipulated the numbers to imply causation. Consequently, on Feb. 2, 2010, the Lancet retracted the study and Dr. Wakefield’s medical license was revoked.

Somehow, even after the “junk science” was exposed, the ideas of the doctor lived on. Americans citing religious, philosophical or anti-government sentiments have refused to vaccinate their children, leaving them susceptible to the measles virus and bringing the disease back to the fore, 15 years after it was eliminated.

Critics cite federal overreach as a roadblock to requiring citizens to get immunized, and some continue to insist vaccinations are purely made up by the government to generate revenue. Others, like celebrity Jenny McCarthy, label immunization as corruption of the pure human body or cite religious requirements to avoid having their children vaccinated. What do all of these people have in common? An unwillingness to protect themselves and a refusal to get over their own ignorant and self-absorbed denials of fact and science.

Politicians aren’t helping, either. Republican presidential hopefuls for 2016 such as New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky have both confirmed their belief that vaccines lead to autism. Senator Paul, having his M.D. and yet still not seeing sense, told CNBC’s Kelly Evans on Feb. 2 that “vaccines can cause profound mental disorders” despite the fact that those allegations made by Andrew Wakefield were proven utterly false. How is it that people who are so unwilling to meet the cold, hard facts are being elected as this country’s leaders?

Some congressmen are refusing to sit in the face of this failure. Democrat Bill Foster, from Illinois’s 11th district, addressed the House of Representatives on Feb. 4, stating that while other congressmen “remind us that they are not scientists”, they can’t “use this as an excuse for their advocacy of bad public policy”. He went on to say that “absent a valid medical reason for exclusion, vaccines are critical” for everyone. Frankly, you don’t have to be a scientist to see that vaccines can successfully protect the health of all Americans.

All the facts are on the table: vaccines work, and claims that they cause autism or other mental disorders have been proven utterly foolish and false. The trend of refusing to get kids vaccinated has led to the beginning of a big revival for the measles virus that will render forty years of scientific work to eliminate the disease absolutely useless. Until either the general population realizes this or our leaders in Washington can learn to look at the truth, preventable viruses like measles will continue to spread. All we can do until then is to be logical, be safe and implore all the parents we know to vaccinate their kids and start the rebuilding process of protecting America from preventable disease.