Ethical Issues That Arise In Jenner’s Vaccination Against Smallpox

The history of vaccinations begin with Edward Jenner, the country doctor from Gloucestershire who found, growing on cows, a nearly harmless virus the protected people from smallpox. Jenner’s vaccine was safer, more reliable, and more durable than variolation, and it is still the only vaccine to have eliminated its reason for being-in 1980, when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the disease extinct. For nearly a century and a half, smallpox was the only vaccine routinely administered, and it saved millions of lives . But the controversy that marked the return of the vaccine, amid bioterrorism hysteria in 2002, was only the latest twist in the remarkable, mysterious life of vaccines.

Vaccination was first introduced globally for small pox and later on extended to other communicable diseases which are now known as vaccine preventable disease. Vaccination is beneficial both for individuals and community. This bring us to the ethical dilemma - Vaccination of a healthy child with the intention of protecting both the individual child and the community at the same time exposing the child to the theoretical risk of exposure to disease products whether live, attenuated or killed. There was a time when people never questioned the government or their physicians. Now because of more public awareness and accessibility to medical information, they are questioning the safety aspects of vaccines.

Edward Jenner and the Discovery of Vaccines Edward Jenner (1749-1823) trained in London, under John Hunter, and was an army surgeon for a period of time. After that, he spent his whole career as a country doctor in his home county, Gloucestershire (West of England). His research was based on careful case studies and clinical observation more than a hundred years before scientists could explain what viruses and diseases actually were. His innovative new method was successful to such an extent that by 1840 the British government had banned alternative preventive treatments against smallpox. [IMAGE]

1853- Vaccination for smallpox was made compulsory and started by Edward Jenner; this was because a great amount of people were getting ill and dying from it.

Edward Jenner invented a vaccine by using a naturally-acquired and mild cowpox to prevent smallpox. More than one thousand people were vaccinated in England alone within three years. The print media played an important role in spreading the word about these vaccinations and smallpox was finally eradicated in 1980 (Bouldin, 2010).

The practice of Inoculation is used to prevent a more serious infection by introducing a small amount of disease into the body to build immunity. The individual may be slightly ill but after the fight off the disease the person will be entirely immune to the disease. In 1776 Edward Jenner, a british scientist had a revelation. He noticed Cowpox, which is similar to Smallpox but not as deadly, protected the dairy maids from Smallpox if they contracted the disease from their cows. Cow Pox caused small blisters to form, and a low grade fever but nothing worse. The Cowpox virus was close enough in structure to Smallpox that the antibodies made by the infected person successfully defended against the 25-75% lethal Smallpox virus. Jenner hit upon the idea of breaking open a Cowpox blister on a cow and scratching the liquid inside into the arm of a person. He found that this, indeed did give the person Cowpox. Now all he had to do was to place the person next to someone with Smallpox and see if his theory was correct, were they immune. I noticed that Jenner didn’t use himself to test this theory, but an eight year old boy named James Phippsthankfully he was

However, Jenner’s invention became a common practice only a few years after he released it to the public, and according to The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia, “By 1890 smallpox had virtually been eradicated from Britain.” (“Jenner, Edward (1749-1823)”) From the information about the first vaccination, we can see that vaccinations have been proven to eliminate deadly diseases, whether they receive opposition or not. Without immunizations, we would be overcome with diseases, such as smallpox, polio, and measles.

The year is 1721, and the up and coming port city of Boston is stricken with a massive outbreak of the smallpox disease. Within months, hundreds upon hundreds of colonial Bostonians were wiped out as a result of contracting the disease, and panic soon engulfed the city. In due course, the technique of inoculating (which involved cutting into a healthy individual and inserting the flesh of one with a particular disease, in an attempt to build up antibodies against the pathogen) was introduced as a viable solution. It is important to note, however, that not all of the city’s leaders agreed that this was the best course of action to be taken. Also, the important issue of individual rights versus the welfare of the general public (which has been

Jenner’s discovery of the link between cowpox and smallpox was significant to the development of a vaccine for smallpox. However, it can be argued that Jenner and his discovery were not enough on their own to bring medical progress. The factors Scientific thinking, Government Communication and Changing attitudes played a major and important role to bring medical progress.

Jenner’s vaccine was so successful that the World Health Organization declared the word “entirely eradicated” of human smallpox on December 9, 1979 (Spier, 2015). As a consequence of this monumental success and other successes like it, people forget how deadly diseases like this can be and fail to attribute their lack of a crippling disease to vaccinations. Other diseases that have been considered eliminated in a similar manner to smallpox are: diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis A & B, yellow fever (Spier, 2015).

The means of dealing with infectious diseases that endanger individual and public health have evolved over the years. In 1789, however, the most protective technology used to prevent epidemics was introduced by physician Edward Jenner; vaccination. Vaccine efficiency continues to develop and become more advanced, producing immunity to infectious diseases from 90 to 100 percent of the time today. Because of inoculation, millions of people worldwide are immunized from fatal epidemics. However, because of unsubstantiated fears, many parents have been withholding vaccines from their children. Despite this, parents should not have the right to withhold vaccines from their children for philosophical reasons. Vaccines are the best way to prevent disease, vaccine exemptions endanger individual and public health, and without widespread inoculation, controlled diseases will rebound.

Although most people think Edward Jenner was the first person to attempt a vaccination, this is not true. The earliest vaccinations started in the 7th century when snake venom was drank by Buddhists to try to gain immunity from snakebites. In 1796, Edward Jenner, a doctor in England, discovered he could give people immunity to smallpox by injecting them with material from cowpox lesions. Smallpox was a significant disease in most countries and killed millions of people in Europe and Mexico. Steps had already been taken to eradicate smallpox but it was Jenner who discovered using cowpox to immunize against smallpox as being the safest method. Using smallpox to create the vaccine was not safe so Jenner’s idea helped to save many people. This was the beginning of developing vaccines to keep people safe from diseases that were capable of wiping out entire populations. This

For approximately three-thousand years, smallpox has ravaged and plagued the four corners of the globe. In fact, in the 17 th and 18 th centuries, it was claimed to be the most infectious disease in the West, with an astounding 90% mortality rate in America. It wasn't until 1796, with English surgeon Edward Jenner's smallpox vaccination, that the world saw relief from this devastating virus. However, even with this inoculation in use, the world continued to witness death from both the virus and the vaccine. In the year 1966, it was estimated that 10-15 million infected citizens world wide had passed away from smallpox that year alone ( “History” 12). As a result of these devastating numbers, in the following year, 1967, the World Health

Edward had to do some shady stuff to save people. In 1796 Edward Jenner conducted his famous experiment where he tested injected children with cow pus and see if they contracted the disease. Though he only did one at first, it was a success, if it hadn’t been though the child would most likely died. He did this experiment again, but on 8 children,ncluding his own son. Now a days people say that testing on people, especially children would be morally wrong, but is it really that wrong if the breakthrough scientists might make could save 300 million

Today most children in the United States live a much healthier life and parents live with much less anxiety due to vaccinations. More than 200 years ago, Edward Jenner conducted an experiment that would be one of the most astounding breakthroughs in medical history. Jenner noticed that milkmaids didn’t catch the smallpox, a disease rampant across the English countryside. He reasoned that the blisters on the milkmaid’s hand must contain something that was protective. He tested his theory by taking fluid from a blister on the wrist of a milkmaid and inoculating it into the arm of a local laborer’s son (Offit and