Vaccines and fears

Vaccines make us afraid. They have always been and will probably keep us scared. We feel like being injected with a vial of something into our body, which is actually viruses that have died or are weakened with a scary purpose, not because of a beneficial motive.

Today we fear that the vaccine causes autism. Although many elaborate studies conducted over the past decade have failed to detect any link between the vaccine and autism, but fear still lingers. Hopefully we will soon understand the cause of autism as well as find treatments. But history shows that the fear for vaccines seems to continue.

In the early 1900s, people feared that the vaccine caused a new type of epidemic called cancer. In the 1950s, Americans believed that vaccination against smallpox and polio caused them to get these diseases. In the 1980s, many people believed that the vaccine caused Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. At that time, the vaccine was a crime.

Windy period

The relationship between vaccines and autism can exist. Research that understands this link has been heavily invested in finance. But according to an article in the American Journal of Public Health by Duke Medical University author Jeffrey Baker, the origin of this hypothetical linkage is less science-based, but it is mostly tied to separate cases. happened to have something in common:

• In the 1960s, mercury was identified as an environmental pollutant causing neurological disorders;
• Autism is considered a group of disorders in the 1970s;
• In the 1980s, the number of vaccines for children increased;
• The emergence of the internet in the 1990s.

(Photo: ehs.uky.edu)

Baker followed the observed increase in autism in the 1980s to determine the number of children with this disorder. As the number increases, it seems to indicate a raging epidemic - this is still a controversial hypothesis because at that time it is difficult to understand the incidence of disease until it is defined. get autism.

According to Baker, educated parents who have children with autism quickly become discouraged by the lack of treatment and public services. They began to meet and seek answers. Many parents learn Andrew Wakefield's most shameful transformation hypotheses. He thought that punctured intestines could release toxins that affect the brain. The article by Wakefield in Lancet in 1998 linked autism to regression and diarrhea following the injection to prevent rubella - mumps - measles (MMR) that sparked the vaccine movement. Please and autism. However, this study has since been completely rejected.

Problems with mercury

Meanwhile, environmental experts are worried about the concentration of mercury methylmercury in water sources as well as fish can cause many neurological problems. The US Congress together with the law has required FDA to assess mercury levels in many different products. Some vaccines contain ethylmercury-type mercury as a preservative.

Ethylmecury is not a poison like methylmercury. This difference is similar to the difference between ethanol (in alcohol) and methanol (also known as wood wine, which will make us blind and die). However, due to the lack of ethylmercury evaluation criteria, the FDA announced in 1999 that the vaccine would have a higher ethylmercury ratio than the safety level set for methylmercury.

However, that does not reduce fear. Debates surrounding autism continue, even when MMR vaccine does not contain ethylmercury. That's where the internet has jumped in. This is a repository of only partially true information with countless websites promoting the theory of Wakefield and propagating the dangers of mercury. At that time the internet was connected with just a single thought that vaccines, drug use and pollution were bad.

This seems reasonable: the incidence of autism is increasing, the number of vaccines also increases, a newspaper that actually publishes an article can actually affirm that there exists a relationship between vacc- Autism and autism, in the end, the mass media has never fully explained the compounds of mercury.

Next step

The vaccine movement and autism have transformed into a new form. Perhaps not mercury when mercury has been removed from the vaccine-making component many years ago. Perhaps that is not gossip. Perhaps it is the bombing of all vaccines against the immune system of children.

This is another reasonable hypothesis that is worth studying, but it doesn't seem to stand. While the number of vaccines is still increasing, the vaccine itself has a more complex component with fewer antigens - the substance that enhances the body's immune response, so that today our bodies less will have to train with high intensity.

So need to interrupt the doses of vaccine to prevent? It is a nightmare for public health. We will have to let children who are susceptible to deadly diseases or cause disability for a year or more, but maintaining the vaccination schedule is not an easy thing to do.

I cannot deny vaccination programs on a personal or religious level. That's what is happening in Nigeria with polio vaccine. As a result, polio spread from Nigeria to 23 other countries, mainly Muslim, Yemen and Indonesia countries, harming at least 1500 children since 2003 according to the World Health Organization.

Nigerians also have their own fears: Vaccines can carry HIV and cause malnutrition. Whatever our fear is, the polio virus is quite close to us.