As if the Antivaxxers aren’t getting enough attention, now I have to write more about them?!
As I have mentioned in previous posts, there are many people around the globe that do not believe in vaccinations, but I never mentioned the actual anti-vax movement. This movement likely began soon after Andrew Wakefield’s study was published, falsely linking autism to the MMR vaccine. People have come together over the years and have rallied around their belief that vaccines cause a variety of different health problems. This movement is growing on the daily and has contributed to many people contracting different illnesses and spreading it among those who have also yet to be vaccinated. Because of this movement, it has come to attention that young children are dying due to their parents’ lack of accurate information. It is harder for health care providers to change people’s views, but they are working with everything they can in a world like today.
Proved False But Still Believe?
In an article published on Quartz, an online magazine, the author mentions that the anti-vax movement is reversing the progress in disease prevention from hundreds of years. This article, published in September 2019, indicated that the World Health Organization announced that it “no longer considers measles to be eradicated in the UK.” This is due to there being measles outbreaks around the country because people are refusing to get their vaccines. Although Andrew Wakefield’s study was retracted and was discredited, people still chose to believe his accusation and no longer vaccinated their children. A survey of 2,600 parents was published by the Royal Society for Public Health and it indicated that 21% of parents thought that the MMR vaccine causes negative side effects, while 10% of parents didn’t vaccinate their children due to their fears of the side effects.
The Unfortunate Ones
Unfortunately, children of anti-vaxer’s are getting the worst of their parent’s beliefs. Because these people are getting misinformed by the public about vaccines and what they do, they choose not to vaccinate their children in fear of their lives. Ironically, these parents are putting their children more in danger by making them more susceptible to illness/disease. Recently, there was a news article that came out on NBC News, saying that Facebook is now vowing to combat vaccine misinformation after a 4-year-old child died from the flu. According to the article, there is a Facebook group named “Stop Mandatory Vaccination” where people spread false health information. It was on this page where the mother of the 4-year-old child posted about her son running a fever and having a seizure, later posting that the doctor had prescribed Tamiflu for everyone in the house and she failed to pick up the prescription. Of all the comments on the post, none of them suggested medical attention and the child was eventually hospitalized and died four days later.
This is probably one of many stories like it where children have died due to their parents’ ignorance. The spread of false information isn’t doing anything but hurting those who have no control over their lives yet. It is crucial for the anti-vax movement to end and doctors to try to get parents on board about vaccinating their children. It is stories like these that break my heart and make me wish even more there was something I could do to help these parents change their minds. Hopefully, with the spread of accurate information from doctors and health care professionals, the anti-vax movement will eventually come to an end.
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