The 1958 polio outbreak alone killed 3,145 Americans and paralyzed 21,269 others. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, an average of 35,000 polio cases were reported annually. Across the country, Americans lived in fear of the terrible disease. Then, in 1955, the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) was introduced. By 1957, the number of polio cases reported dropped to below 2,500. In a moment of scientific and national triumph, the disease was declared eradicated in the United States in 1979. Yet, many of today’s parents are turning away from vaccination. The internet is overflowing with people who have never been to medical school making claims that the process is dangerous, unnatural, and can even cause autism. None of these ‘facts’ are true. Instead
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Before the creation of vaccines, people lived in constant fear of illness. Great epidemics would sweep across the country, killing thousands. Parents were left childless and children were orphaned. In 1940 sixty-thousand cases of diphtheria were reported in the UK, resulting in 3,283 deaths. There were six cases in 2008, all of them imported. Assuming that the disease would have continued killing at the same rate, the vaccine has saved approximately 246,225 lives in the past seventy-five …show more content…
None of these studies showed any connection between the two. Much of the hysteria over vaccines and autism can be attributed to Dr. Andrew Wakefield. He conducted a study in 1998 that linked the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine with autism. It was later discovered that the doctor misrepresented and altered the medical history of every one of the patients involved in his study in a deliberate attempt to reach the results he did. Of the twelve patients involved in the study, five had already showed developmental issues before taking the vaccine and three never had autism at all. In addition, it was discovered in 2004 that Wakefield had been paid over six-hundred thousand dollars by a law firm seeking to sue vaccine manufacturers. Wakefield has since been stripped of his medical license and his paper has been discredited. There have been no studies since Wakefield’s to positively link autism and
Before the creation of vaccines, people lived in constant fear of illness. Great epidemics would sweep across the country, killing thousands. Parents were left childless and children were orphaned. In 1940 sixty-thousand cases of diphtheria were reported in the UK, resulting in 3,283 deaths. There were six cases in 2008, all of them imported. Assuming that the disease would have continued killing at the same rate, the vaccine has saved approximately 246,225 lives in the past seventy-five …show more content…
None of these studies showed any connection between the two. Much of the hysteria over vaccines and autism can be attributed to Dr. Andrew Wakefield. He conducted a study in 1998 that linked the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine with autism. It was later discovered that the doctor misrepresented and altered the medical history of every one of the patients involved in his study in a deliberate attempt to reach the results he did. Of the twelve patients involved in the study, five had already showed developmental issues before taking the vaccine and three never had autism at all. In addition, it was discovered in 2004 that Wakefield had been paid over six-hundred thousand dollars by a law firm seeking to sue vaccine manufacturers. Wakefield has since been stripped of his medical license and his paper has been discredited. There have been no studies since Wakefield’s to positively link autism and