When’s the last time you’ve met someone with polio? How about measles, mumps, or rubella? Chances are, in all likelihood, you haven’t. Polio was once a global terror, even in the United States. In the timeframe from the 1940’s to the 1950’s, the viral disease infected, on average, over 35,000 people each year in the United States. Polio caused widespread panic and was one of the most feared diseases that our country has ever known. People were afraid to travel, people were quarantined, and people were too scared to even go outside. So, you might be asking yourself, what changed? Why is polio no longer a viable threat to our lives? The answer to that question is simply one word: vaccine. The polio vaccine deserves all the recognition when it
…show more content…
Much of the worldwide public health achievements are due in large part to vaccinations, stemming from the small pox vaccine, the measles vaccine, the tetanus vaccine, the influenza vaccine, the HPV vaccine, and the chicken pox vaccine. All of these vaccines have been extensively studied and all of these vaccines were proven to be efficacious in those studies. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), vaccinations are the most effective method for preventing infectious diseases. The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that there are currently twenty-five different licensed vaccinations that prevent twenty-five different infections. On the other hand, with every success, comes an opposition. In the world of ethics, there have been many debates regarding vaccine regulation, development and use, more specifically in terms of mandates, research/testing, informed consent, access disparities, and thanks to a 1998 research article by Andrew Wakefield, vaccines link to autism in children. At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself this one question: Are the policies and procedures held into place regarding vaccines morally …show more content…
In 1998, a paper published in The Lancet by Andrew Wakefield offered evidence that the vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR vaccine) is linked to the onset of autism spectrum disorders. This lead to the ethical question as to if it was ethical to vaccinate your children if there was a chance for it to cause autism. Although the paper was subsequently retracted 6 years after its publication due to the lack of scientific evidence and Wakefield was cited with fraud, the paper had a huge impact on the community, especially with the anti-vaccinationers. According to Scientific America, even after the paper was shown to be fraudulent, 25% of Americans still believe that vaccinations can cause autism, leading to parents refusing to vaccinate their children. Another belief is that the diseases that people get vaccinated for are no longer relevant, so there is no reason to have the possibility of causing autism if there is no real threat. This seems to be disproven by a few outbreaks that have occurred since the paper has been published. There was the worst whooping cough outbreak in America’s history in the last 50 years in California in 2010, where parents openly chose to not vaccinate their children due to the autism scares. Moreover, in Texas in 2012, there were twenty-one people who contracted measles because they chose to
Much of the worldwide public health achievements are due in large part to vaccinations, stemming from the small pox vaccine, the measles vaccine, the tetanus vaccine, the influenza vaccine, the HPV vaccine, and the chicken pox vaccine. All of these vaccines have been extensively studied and all of these vaccines were proven to be efficacious in those studies. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), vaccinations are the most effective method for preventing infectious diseases. The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that there are currently twenty-five different licensed vaccinations that prevent twenty-five different infections. On the other hand, with every success, comes an opposition. In the world of ethics, there have been many debates regarding vaccine regulation, development and use, more specifically in terms of mandates, research/testing, informed consent, access disparities, and thanks to a 1998 research article by Andrew Wakefield, vaccines link to autism in children. At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself this one question: Are the policies and procedures held into place regarding vaccines morally …show more content…
In 1998, a paper published in The Lancet by Andrew Wakefield offered evidence that the vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR vaccine) is linked to the onset of autism spectrum disorders. This lead to the ethical question as to if it was ethical to vaccinate your children if there was a chance for it to cause autism. Although the paper was subsequently retracted 6 years after its publication due to the lack of scientific evidence and Wakefield was cited with fraud, the paper had a huge impact on the community, especially with the anti-vaccinationers. According to Scientific America, even after the paper was shown to be fraudulent, 25% of Americans still believe that vaccinations can cause autism, leading to parents refusing to vaccinate their children. Another belief is that the diseases that people get vaccinated for are no longer relevant, so there is no reason to have the possibility of causing autism if there is no real threat. This seems to be disproven by a few outbreaks that have occurred since the paper has been published. There was the worst whooping cough outbreak in America’s history in the last 50 years in California in 2010, where parents openly chose to not vaccinate their children due to the autism scares. Moreover, in Texas in 2012, there were twenty-one people who contracted measles because they chose to