Vaccines: helping to eradicate terrifying, fatal diseases since 1796
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The largest measles and whooping cough outbreaks in the past 50
years are taking place in California and 17 other states thanks to the
anti-vaxxer movement.[1] Ironically, these diseases are especially
prevalent in rich areas of the state. As
Jeb Lund opines in his Rolling Stone editorial, “if you're doing well enough,
your bad decisions will probably only hurt someone else.”[2] And he’s exactly right: choosing not to
vaccinate your child against historically common, dangerous, and costly
epidemic diseases comes from a position of privilege in which one’s opinion is
weighed against and valued over others’ safety.
That’s what makes this movement especially insidious. Beyond all the misplaced paranoia regarding “Big
Pharma,” completely refuted claims of autism risks,[3] or
aspirations for “natural” parenting, this problem is rooted in a very
dearly-held American value. Anti-vaxxer’s
personal freedom of choice has led to a public health nightmare that affects
not just their own children but children of others. Interestingly, the insistence of personal
freedom outweighing the public good was the impetus for previous waves of the anti-vaccination
movement.
This issue has continually reared its ugly head ever since Edward
Jenner’s first vaccine in 1796.[4] England’s medical community quickly realized
the potential that compulsory vaccination had for public health initiatives and
in 1853 the country instituted The Vaccination Act. Arguments against it along with occasionally
violent protests immediately erupted.
This original anti-vaccination movement employed rhetoric uncannily
similar to today. Likewise, the medical experts
of the day reacted similarly to today.
Expressing frustration, the editorial staff of the British Medical
Journal published this in 1869:
“We fear it is not possible for any
argument or any form of suasion to stay the tide of folly and ignorance which
is now raging against one the most beneficent discoveries ever permitted to
man. The chief actors in the anti-vaccination movement are men upon whom all
statements of fact and argument would be wasted.
The platform spouters on
this question are beyond our hope, and almost beyond our pity. They must be
left to hug their darling folly; but for their deluded followers we do feel
real commiseration. The arguments which the agitators so boldly state are very
specious; they refer to matters concerning which their hearers have no real
experience; and they seem to be supported by a certain class of facts.
Numerous excellent
pamphlets and tracts have been published, with the hope of enlightening the
public mind. It is most unfair to those who have readily adopted the chance of
immunity which vaccination gives, that they should be exposed to risk on
account of their less careful or crotchety neighbours. If the immunity were
absolute and life-long, we might perhaps afford to let the foolish part of the
community do as it likes; but, unfortunately, such is not the case.”
Many of the anti-vaxxers were concerned with intrusive government
action on civil liberty. Misinformation
abounded, faulty statistics quickly spread, and irrational distrust of the
medical government grew.[5] Hmm, sounds familiar…
There’s one glaring difference between then and today. The “Big Pharma” that today’s detractors continually
cite was not present in mid-19th century England, yet the same fears
plagued the country. Right or wrong, the
anti-vaccination movement predates large drug companies. This is indicative of the movement’s shoddy
logic base. Lynchpin arguments of the
contemporary movement, like “Big Pharma,” are completely absent from the
original movement yet today’s abstaining parents hold the same apprehensions
and haughty claims of medical concurrence.
In an anti-vaxxer’s mind, one’s
personal fears, misguided or not, should or at least be allowed to take
precedence over statistically proven society benefits. And so the modern United States is facing
outbreaks of once conquered diseases.
Let’s hope polio and smallpox don’t come back like the measles and
whooping cough has.
[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/should-anti-vaxxers-be-shamed-or-persuaded/385109/
[2] http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/anti-vaxxers-enjoying-the-privilege-of-putting-everyone-at-risk-20150219
[3] http://www.vocativ.com/culture/science/no-link-autism-and-vaccines-mmr/
[4] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1200696/
[5] http://io9.com/19th-century-documents-show-how-little-the-anti-vaxxers-1658381223
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