Topical Taboo: Vaccinations

Image credit: New York Times

'Vaccine hesitancy' has been named by the World Health Organisation as one of ten threats to global health in 2019. This comes after the anti-vax movement has been blamed for measles outbreaks in countries that were close to eliminating the highly contagious disease.

In 1796 Edward Jenner undertook an experiment on a young boy, James Phipps, to find out if he could make him immune to smallpox. Jenner had heard the folklore that milkmaids who had caught cowpox did not catch smallpox, which was a much more serious disease. He took pus from a cowpox sore and put it into a cut on James Phipps’ arm. He proved with similar experiments on several other children that inoculation worked, and in 1798 the vaccine was born.

Despite this proof at a time of emerging scientific and technological development, some people still don’t believe that vaccines work to this day. This has culminated with the recent ‘anti-vax’ movement.

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In 1998, Andrew Wakefield published an article which has been disproved on numerous occasions and his theory and his work has since been completely discredited. He claimed that the MMR vaccine caused autism, which resulted in a vaccine scare. However, his evidence was not scientific and there has been no link found between the vaccine and autism.

Some ‘anti-vax’ believers still quote this research however, including United States President, Donald Trump, in what is becoming a damaging and dangerous trend.

This movement has reached the point that measles, which was eliminated from America in 2000, is facing one of its biggest outbreaks in the country. The World Health Organisation announced that measles cases in Europe tripled between 2017 and 2018. The measles vaccine is extremely effective, but due to parents choosing to not have their children vaccinated, this is now putting them and others at risk.

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The resurgence of this movement can partially be blamed on social media. Until recently, YouTube was found to be promoting misleading information on vaccines by a Buzzfeed News investigation. Since this came to light, the video streaming giant have said that they will demonetise anti-vax videos. Facebook is another social media platform that has come under pressure to do more to prevent misinformation relating to health issues on its platform. GoFundMe has pledged to remove anti-vax campaigns from its site, and Instagram has announced it will block anti-vax hashtags.

It’s not just social media sites that are tackling anti-vaxxers. Governments are now taking steps to halt it. In Italy, unvaccinated children have been banned from schools to help prevent the spread of measles. In the UK, MPs will launch an inquiry into the movement.

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Last month, we were looking for a medical professional to interview about the anti-vax movement. Our request (below) sparked quite a response after an Irish Times Journalist replied.

Here are some of the responses:

The argument that even raising or reporting on anti-vaxxers is damaging is interesting. Will reporting on vaccines educate anti-vaxxers on how they work and how valuable they are? Or will publicising anti-vaxxers simply give prominence to the idea that they don't work?

It's certainly worth considering this, seeing as someone's choice to vaccinate or not to vaccinate their child could literally affect public health. If a child is not vaccinated they are of course at risk, but they also pose a risk to other children who have not been vaccinated yet, such as newborns.

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In December 2018, American journalist Bre Payton died of what was thought to be swine flu and meningitis - both of which vaccines are available for. Ms. Payton, a Fox News commentator, had been outspoken in the past about believing that vaccines are 'from the devil'.

After her death, anti-vaxxers took to Twitter to accuse the flu vaccine itself of being the cause of her death. Some would argue that it is more likely that the cause of her death was that she hadn't been immunised - although there is no proof that she did or didn't receive the vaccine.

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It's thought that many anti-vaxxers base their opinions on misinformation that they read online. So we agree that it is important not to give the anti-vax 'argument' prominence - when science so clearly disproves it.

However, we don't think that people and journalists should give up on trying to educate anti-vaxxers on why what they have been told is wrong. Although they might not always listen to reason, surely we should be trying to remind anti-vaxxers of the risk they pose to public health?