Another View | The Columbian: Anti-vax falsehoods fuel outbreaks of disease
Common sense — and centuries of scientific study — reveal the importance and effectiveness of vaccines. Numerous diseases that once wreaked havoc on society are now largely preventable thanks to researchers and broad public acceptance of medical advancements.
Over the past 25 years, however, growing segments of the population have embraced falsehoods about vaccines. This has led to public health officials — and the public — fighting a continuing battle that once was declared won.
The latest example is an outbreak of pertussis — commonly known as whooping cough — in Clark County. Officials have identified 60 cases of whooping cough in the county since the beginning of the year — four times more than at this point last year. They also report that in 78 percent of the cases, the patient has received none of the recommended pertussis vaccines.
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“Getting vaccinated is the best way to protect not only yourself but the babies and young children around you from getting whooping cough,” Public Health Director Alan Melnick said. “Many babies who get whooping cough are infected by older siblings, parents or caregivers who don’t know they have it.”
Whooping cough, which can be particularly serious for babies younger than 1 year, does not present the widespread public health emergency that can be found in outbreaks of COVID-19 or measles. But the current situation allows for a reminder of the importance of vaccinations and for a discussion about the absurdity of the anti-vax movement.
Most prominent among that movement has been a backlash against the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine. Measles once was considered eliminated in the United States; but the disease has made a comeback, driven by misinformation regarding vaccines.
That misinformation has been fueled by a 1998 “research” paper from British doctor Andrew Wakefield, in which he suggested a link between childhood vaccines and autism. What Wakefield didn’t mention is that he had been paid by trial lawyers hoping to cash in by blaming vaccines for their clients’ autism. Nor did Wakefield mention that he had applied for a patent on his own measles vaccine, and therefore had good reason to demean the current vaccine.
Since then, Wakefield has been discredited, with numerous studies finding no link between the MMR vaccine and autism. He is banned from practicing medicine, and by 2010, The Lancet had entirely retracted his findings.
Yet the damage caused is not so easily retracted. Paranoia about vaccines has persisted and played a role in political enmity over COVID vaccinations.
To be clear, vaccines are not perfect; some people who are inoculated still contract the disease in question. Yet it is clear that the development of COVID vaccines in late 2020 allowed society to return to some sense of normalcy after being upended by a previously unknown virus. And it is clear that vaccinations have reduced the global threat of smallpox, influenza, tuberculosis, polio and various other diseases.
Before Edward Jenner developed the world’s first vaccine in 1796, smallpox was responsible for an estimated 10 percent of global deaths. The World Health Organization reports: “It was one of the most devastating diseases known to humanity and caused millions of deaths before it was eradicated. It is believed to have existed for at least 3,000 years.” The disease was declared eliminated in 1980.
All of which provides indisputable evidence for the importance and effectiveness of vaccines. That is, if we allow common sense to prevail.
