Staying Vaccinated: Protecting You, Your Children, and Those Around You

Posted: June 10, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Information for The Center for Disease Control and Prevention

 
    
     It is much easier and safer for the health of the public to prevent diseases than to treat them.  Vaccines are the most efficient way known to prevent disease.  Vaccines prevent disease and, therefore, save lives.  Vaccines control the numerous infectious diseases that, at one time, ran rampant throughout the United States, such as polio, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, and pertussis. Infectious diseases that are vaccine preventable are very financially costly.  Doctors visits and hospitalizations cause a financial burden on families, as well as time a family member may need to take of to care for a loved one. 
 
Being immunized protects communities by:
  1. Keeping rates of disease down
  2. Not spreading disease to groups of people who are unable to be fully vaccinated, such as newborns or those with a certain medical problem 
 
 

Myths About Immunizations

Posted: June 7, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

MYTH #1: The development of vaccines was not substantial.

  • Before the start of immunizations 150 years ago, 4 million people were effected every year by diseases that are now preventable, including 30,000 deaths.
  • In the United States 98% of these cases have been eliminated.
  • Vaccines are considered one of the greatest developments in modern medicine.

MYTH #2: Childhood diseases occur throughout the world, but not in the United States.

  • Diseases can be easily carried from country to country through travel.
  • Un-immunized or under-immunized child or adult travelers can pick up a disease abroad, become infected with it, and spread it in the United States.
  • Disease outbreaks have occurred in recent years in the United States due to diseases being brought back into the country.

MYTH # 3: Receiving the required or recommended amount of immunizations will overwhelm a baby’s immune system, suppressing it so it does not function properly. 

  • There is no evidence that suggests that childhood vaccines can overload the immune system.
  • The amount of toxic antigens in vaccines today are not that great. 20 years ago the amount of toxic antigens that entered the body were 10x greater.
  • Breast milk may contain more toxic antigens than current immunizations do.
  • New toxic antigens enter into a child’s body as bacteria or other microorganisms through food or hand to mouth contact every day.

MYTH #4: Children receive disease immunity from breast milk.

  • The benefits from the immunity infants receive from breast milk only last for a short duration (1 month – 1 year).
  • Some diseases, such as whooping-cough, are excluded from immunity.
  • If the mother does not have immunity to a certain disease, the immunity will not be provided in her breast milk.

MYTH #5: It is safer for a child to wait to be vaccinated at a later age.

  • Babies and younger children are more susceptible to vaccine preventable diseases such as diphtheria, whooping-cough, and polio.
  • If a child is not vaccinated, and, therefore, never exposed to a certain disease, the child may not be strong enough to fight the disease off.
  • An infants body is better at responding to antigens int the immune system. From the time they are born babies are exposed to thousands of germs and develop ways to respond to them.  

Sparking Controversy

Posted: February 23, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment

For decades, vaccines have efficiently been able to either eradicate certain diseases or significantly decrease their incidence.  The process of vaccinating introduces a foreign antigen to the immune system evoking a response of immunity.  Despite how effective vaccines have been towards so many diseases, to this day, many controversies arise based on the idea that vaccines are unsafe.  There is no medical product can ever be 100 percent safe or efficient, and, in anything, there is always a chance that something bad will come from something good.  Even with that being said, vaccinations have been the safest and most powerful and efficient tools at preventing deadly disease for years upon years. 

Throughout history, vaccines have carried a significant amount of controversy; varying from religious, moral, effectiveness, and safety implications dating back to the late 18th century.  Anti-vaccination groups have existed for centuries, claiming that vaccines are detrimental and should not be mandatory. Despite the world of good that vaccines have contributed to public health, the controversy lives on today.

One of the most recent vaccine controversies results from the 1998 study of the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine performed by Dr. Andrew Wakefield.  The study examined the correlation between the MMR vaccine and Autism.  The Autism Spectrum Disorder is a developmental disorder where social and communication skills are affected typically in the first 3 years of life. It was claimed in the study that the preservative Thimersol found in the MMR vaccine was toxic and would cause Autism in children.  After the claim, Thimersol was rapidly removed from vaccinations, hoping to potentially decrease the rates of Autism.

However, even after Thimersol was removed, Autism was still on the rise.  The study by Dr. Wakefield was later claimed fraudulent in early 2011. Resulting from the hypothesis that Autism is caused by the MMR vaccine, many parents, out of fear, are choosing not to vaccinate their children.  The rates of vaccinations are down, while the rates of childhood diseases are on the rise.  The incidence of once almost completely eradicated fatal diseases such as measles, pertussis, and whooping cough are now on being seen more and more every day.  By letting pseudoscientific beliefs manage the decision to withhold from vaccinating children, there is strong potential for a global epidemic of- once controlled- diseases. The implications of not vaccinating are real.  It is essential that the truths behind the controversies are exposed.