Essay about MMR Vaccine: Examining the Evidence

The argument encompassing whether or not parents should vaccinate their children is ongoing. It is a very interesting matter to learn about and I possess some strong feelings about the case. This issue interests me because there are parents who don’t have their children vaccinated, and there are parents who do have them vaccinated. But all these parents share one particular quality: they all would like for their kids to be safe.

To vaccinate or not to vaccinate? Parents with infants and young children have been tussling with this proverbial question for several decades now. With the advent of the internet and the World Wide Web, parents have been bombarded with a plethora of information about pros and cons of vaccines from all kinds of sources, some creditable, and some are not. To the non-scientific community, these conflicting information can create problems in the decision making process; thus, forcing parents to make the wrong choices and putting their offspring and others at risk. However, this article will attempt to address the importance of vaccinations, how vaccines work, why we should vaccinate, and why parents should not be afraid to vaccinate their offspring.

The controversy over the MMR vaccine started in the late 1990’s when Andrew Wakefield suggested that there was a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism in a scientific paper which he had published with several other co-authors. Although there has not been a proven fact that the MMR vaccine is the causation to autism it has brought concerns to parents and has caused a major drop in immunization rates. For example, Dannetun et al., 2005 states that, “Fear of side effects and beliefs

Although the negative claims behind anti-immunization stances are deceptive and discredited, some parents find it difficult to accept that vaccines are necessary and safe. Many of these reasons are due to personal or religious beliefs that have persuaded parents to bypass immunizations for their children. Consequently, health officials are seeing disquieting rises of diseases that are easily preventable. The CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) has reported hundreds of measles cases in the United States in 2011, the largest number in 15 years (Ben-Joseph, Elana). Essentially, almost all of these cases were in individuals who had not received a vaccine shot. Also found in the article was that a great amount of the quarrel over the shots comes from a 1998 study that tried to connect autism to a type of vaccine that defends against measles. However, there has been no scientific evidence that a vaccine or a combination of any of the shots induces autism. Undoubtedly, the doctor that wrote the article, calling vaccines a “deliberate fraud” ,lost his license for not submitting any evidence of his claim and causing people to neglect shots for that year. Sadly, due to that article, 1 in 4 parents still believe that vaccines are

​Over the past decade, the concern among parents regarding the safety and effectiveness of childhood vaccinations has become a concern in the United States and other countries around the world. A survey of physicians showed that 89% of the physicians who were surveyed reported at least one refusal of childhood vaccinations by parents each month (Gowda & Dempsey, 2013). Other researchers have noted that as many as 77% of parents have concerned about one or more of the childhood vaccinations that are recommended for children (McKee & Bohannon, 2016). However, organizations such as the World Health Organization (2017) note that not only are childhood vaccinations safe, the reduction in children receiving childhood vaccinations has brought back diseases such as measles that had been completely wiped out in the United States. It is clear that there are opposing viewpoints about childhood vaccinations that need to be understood and examined to determine which side has a better argument.

Some people oppose vaccinations and compulsory immunisation requirements, believing that parents should have the right to choose whether or not they wish to vaccinate their children. Some people also believe that vaccinations are potentially harmful due to the presence of toxic chemicals, such as mercury, formaldehyde and aluminium, within their make up (The Healthy Home Economist, 2010; International Medical Council on Vaccination, 2011). These theories were encouraged by a paper published in 1998 supposedly linking the MMR vaccine with the development of autism in children. However, it was later found that this paper had been falsified, and it was eventually retracted in 2010. It is thought, by some, that the pharmaceutical companies producing vaccinations cannot be trusted, as they are money oriented and have been accused of

170). Thimerosal was first introduced in the 1930’s and is a preservative that eliminated the bacterial contamination in vaccines, but could possibly sit in the brain and cause neurological damage (Mooney, 2009, p. 60). Before 1989, American preschoolers had to only receive three vaccines; for polio, diphtheria-pertussis, and MMR. In 1999 the FDA and CDC decided that vaccine users should reduce or even get rid of the amount of thimerosal used in vaccines. The CDC also recommended that newborns should wait to get the Hepatitis B vaccination until a thimerosal free vaccination became available (Miller & Reynolds, 2009, p. 170). According to head of the chemistry department at University of Kentucky, Dr. Boyd Haley, “‘You couldn’t even construct a study that shows thimerosal is safe, it’s just too darn toxic. If you inject thimerosal into an animal, its brain will sicken. If you apply it to living tissues, the cells die. Knowing these things, it would be shocking if one inject it into an infant without causing damage’” (Kennedy, 2005, p. 59). With the being said, vaccine manufacturers began working to find a way to make a thimerosal-free vaccination, and eventually they made one. Then a decade later, children were receiving a total of 22 vaccinations by the time they started first grade. As the number of vaccines that children needed went up, the autism rate stayed

Do vaccines cause autism is a question that has been bouncing around for over twenty years. The increase in the number of diagnosed cases of Autism Spectrum Disorder has increased significantly and due to the impact this has in people’s lives several studies have been done in an effort to determine the cause. More specifically the MMR, Measles, Mumps, and Rubella, vaccination has been accused of being the cause of autism. This accusation then contributed to families not vaccinating their children. Even though science disproves the link between vaccines and autism in several studies done in the United Kingdom, California, and Canada, many people cling to the vaccination-autism connection (Gerber, 2009).

Thimerosal is arguably the most debated ingredient that is contained in vaccines. Thimerosal is a “mercury-based preservative” and is used in order to “prevent contamination of multidose vials” (“Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism”). Anti-vaccinators argue that the mercury contained in the preservative is the culprit for causing autism to

One such factor helping to manifest these large-scale epidemics is a study from 1998 by Andrew Wakefield, which claimed that there was a direct link between autism and the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine (Smith 1). As a result, many parents refused to vaccinate their children out of fear, and vaccine-preventable diseases like measles began reappearing more in both America and Britain, the place where Wakefield conducted his study (Cohen 2). Although a later investigation by the British Medical Journal discovered that Wakefield had distorted or altered the medical records of all twelve of the study’s participants and that he had been paid $674,000 USD by lawyers attempting to sue vaccine manufacturers, the atmosphere of apprehension surrounding vaccines is still strong among many individuals, and especially parents (Cohen 1-2). But despite all the controversy and the scientifically unsupported arguments of anti-vaccine sympathizers,

Many parents stress over the choice of deciding whether or not to vaccinate their children. The reason why deciding to vaccinate children is so difficult is due to the wide range of myths and side effects that are connected with vaccinations. Myths spread to parents all over the United States that the diseases don’t even exist anymore, rumors of vaccinations weakening a child’s immune system, and the risk of a child becoming autistic due to thimerisol in vaccinations. Side effects also scare parents out of getting their children vaccinated like brain damage, seizures, or allergic reactions, but then parents are pulled back to the thought of the possibility of

In their informational article “Thimerosal in Vaccines”, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) analyzes

This problem statement is a twofold issue, because it is a concern for parents and healthcare providers alike. In recent years, many parents have argued that the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella shots are causing their children to develop autism or other adverse medical issues. As a result of this, many parents are refusing to vaccinate their children, fearing vaccines will do more harm than good. Consequently, this blatant refusal of parents to vaccinate their children can lead to other risks factors that can place their unvaccinated children at risk of dying from vaccine-preventable

This topic is extremely significant to my audience because a growing number of parents do not vaccinate their children due to fear of side effects. Parents today have lost confidence in in the vaccination industry as a consequence of sensationalism brought about by false evidence published and the celebrities that latched onto that claim. Sadly, some people have taken to considering the strong opinions and may not research vaccinations before making decisions

As time progressed, scientific innovations have led to the development of vaccines for various types of infectious diseases. Diseases that were once feared by the American public such as smallpox, whooping cough, and polio have now become rare. Smallpox has even been eradicated with the last naturally occurring case presenting itself in 1980. Vaccines were once welcomed with open arms by the citizens of the United States, but that all changed in the late 1990s when Dr. Andrew Wakefield and his collegues published a report the linked the MMR vaccine to autism. The MMR (measles, mumps, and rubuella) vaccine is usually administered to children 12 months and