Several celebrities and influencers worldwide have passionately taken an anti-vax stand on social media causing a snowball effect of people supporting the anti-vax movement which is further fuelled by fraudulent scientists. In this article, I intend on explaining how vaccines work and aim to debunk certain myths surrounding vaccination.
Understanding the function of vaccines is imperative to reduce fear or anxiety surrounding it, the process is rather simple. There are two types of vaccines, attenuated vaccines and subunit vaccines. Attenuated Vaccines are the vaccines used for diseases like yellow fever, chickenpox, measles, mumps and rubella. They comprise weakened forms of the pathogen (bacteria). This allows the body to recognize the pathogens and form memory cells against it. Since they are weakened the body survives the infection.In the case of an infection the body will be prepared to fight the infection as it knows how the pathogen looks and where it resides. Subunit vaccines fight against diseases like hepatitis B and tetanus. They contain adjuvants which modulate the quantity of immune cells produced and enhance their quality too. These vaccines have shorted memory and require boosters. Overall vaccines help our immune system produce highly specific antibodies, recognise forgeign bodies with ease and synthesise memory cells which prevent future infection.
The autism conundrum is one of the biggest anti-vaxx justifications. This claim stems from a paper titled “ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children” published in 1998, it suggested a link between the autism spectrum disorder and the MMR (measles mumps and rubella) vaccine due to malabsorption of nutrients in the gut. Firstly the paper had an incredible small sample size to back up its claim as it tested only 13 children. Secondly the data found by such clinical trials is known to be correlational. Furthermore 10 out of 13 of the authors refuted and retracted their original statement about the vaccine. This claim strongly lacks evidence and support which is why it shouldn’t be considered when one is concerned about vaccination. For further information about autism spectrum disorder and it’s connection (or lack thereof) with vaccines check out this website. (I would say it is reliable, especially since it is a .gov website).
Another concern among parents is that vaccinations contain “harmful” and “unsafe” toxins, this is a myth. Vaccines do contain some chemicals like formaldehyde, mercury and aluminum. These are only harmful in high quantities (which isn’t the case with vaccines). Using that logic, food substances and even water is harmful in high quantities therefore, children should not be given them.*
Another shocking yet common belief is that natural immunity is “better” than acquired immunity. This means that people believe catching the disease, getting sick and then recovering is “better”. Two factors to consider when arguing this is that babies take time for their immune system to develop when they’re very young, so in their case it is far too dangerous a risk to take and secondly most diseases vaccinated against have a high death rate (eg. measles has a 1 in 500 death rate).
To conclude, right now we are all in lockdown due to the absence of 1 COVID-19 vaccine, imagine what the world would be like without any vaccines.
*sarcasm
Federman, Ross S. “Understanding Vaccines: A Public Imperative.” The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, vol. 87, no. 4, 2014, pp. 417–22, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4257029/.
“Anti-Vaccination: Myths and Facts.” Www.Medicalnewstoday.Com, www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325371.
- Bhakti Almoula
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