Anti-vaccination groups have pushed a scare campaign on the public for years now, claiming that vaccines harm, not help kids.
At the time of publishing this paper, which has been confirmed to be fraudulent, Wakefield himself submitted a business prospectus for a new autism testing kit (of a strain of autism that he actually created) which would earn him $44 million A YEAR! He didn’t claim this conflict of interest, nor others that he had (including being paid £435,000 by lawyers to falsify the study – they were trying to win a lawsuit against vaccine companies and resorted to bribery, risking millions of lives in doing so) and now, he charges tens of thousands (some have claimed hundreds of thousands as he’s seen a resurgence in support, largely thanks to Trump’s anti-vaccine sentiments) in speaking fees.
It’s FRAUD
Prior to that vaccinations were seen as a godsend. Probably because before that we actually had children dying in large numbers in front of us, unlike the thousands who die every year without having an organisation that makes MILLIONS in donations behind them, due to their kids, or other kids, NOT BEING VACCINATED. Anti-vaccination/Pro-Disease movements have actually been listed in the top 10 threats to humanity by the World Health Organisation.
1) Anti-vax campaigns and groups, though they may have arisen from actual concern, are now powerful. They keep providing funding to enhance their agenda, making people think those who support them are doing good, when in truth they’re unknowingly being led by people who know this information to KILL thousands of dollars a year.
Now they, either by accident or, more likely, purposefully, have created a whole conspiracy theory around the idea that the government is trying to cover something up or make people sick on purpose. They invest millions into this and are making millions off it too… while 30,000 adults in America alone – a developed nation – die of diseases that would never had affected them had they been vaccinated.
2) There is not enough conversation between scientists and ordinary people about why things are necessary and what different studies mean (or the studies don’t get publicised enough) because doctors/scientists don’t communicate well enough with the wider public and the public can’t get access of easy to process information.
Well, to stop the anti-vac campaigns, we need to raise awareness.
Make videos like this, blog posts like mine that expose these campaigns as the frauds they are go viral to the people who don’t know better and the people who question the necessity.
To do this, we need to EDUCATE PEOPLE on why vaccinations are necessary. What the REAL side effects and chances of those happening are. Research has shown that explaining to them the risks as opposed to trying to hide them, and conversing with people, with effective, respectful communication strategies, as opposed to making memes about them or calling them idiots is more effective.
And we have to communicate this information to the public, with as little jargon as possible, at levels that ANYONE WHO CAN READ CAN UNDERSTAND.
Interestingly, evidence also shows that trying to persuade people is less effective than reminders for people to vaccinate.
Vaccinations are why we, in the developed world, don’t have to worry about diseases like polio, smallpox and measles. 2 of those 3 still plague the developing world, by the way, and kill MILLIONS of people, a lot of them kids, every year.
To make sure they’re effective, a certain percentage of the entire population needs to be vaccinated. This level, which we call “herd immunity” will ensure that the population can’t spread the disease that’s being vaccinated against easily. The number varies among different diseases depending on how easily it spreads and other factors, but for the flu vaccine in Australia this year, that number was 95%.
And if you’re skeptical about the effectiveness of these programs, a few of these stats should indicate how important they are.
So they are necessary. And you can see from that video and my data above, they DON’T cause autism, like some groups would have you believe.
They do have side effects in some patients (less than 1%), but most of them are minor, and they save more than they harm.
You can do your part by sharing that video, or this blog post with those less aware than you so that you can save your kids’ lives, as well as THEIR KIDS’ LIVES.
My facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/musingsofamedstudentpatient
An addition to the original post – A guide to educating those who think vaccinating isn’t safe:
“But what about the toxins and insets on vaccinations which outline worst case scenarios and the vaccination court? Doesn’t that PROVE vaccines do cause harm?”
In preparing vaccinations to ensure they’re safe, some chemicals are added to some vaccines. The most common ones espoused by anti-vaxers are things like formaldehyde and mercury. However, you get 10-60x more formaldehyde when eating an apple as compared to the traces of formaldehyde left in vaccines after their preparation. Similarly, the use of thimerosal has also been criticized, but most modern vaccines no longer have ANY mercury or mercury derivatives (indeed, many of these mercury derivatives are passe through via stool as well) – and you get a higher dose of mercury in an 85g serve of tinned tuna than you do from any vaccine too.
“But can’t vaccination make me sick?”
Most vaccines out in the market are inactivated ones. The flu vaccine is the most famous, common example. Viruses are killed and there is literally no way that they can cause you to catch the disease. Live vaccines are out there too. But they utilise a severely weakened version of the pathogen they’re immunising for, or even, in some cases, use similar viruses or pathogens which are nowhere near as dangerous as the actual vaccine, but confer good rates of protection nontheless.