[Week 5 6.05-12-05] What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
Source: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/06/12/not-vaccinated-no-kisses/#.XLWrV6Qwg2w
Source: https://www.thedrum.com/news/2018/10/19/anti-vaccination-ad-goes-viral-billboard-owner-concedes-error
About a year ago the Polish media rose alarm
that there had been measles epidemy in the
Czech Republic and even an army had helped in coping with the problem. Although this was only fake news and the Czech
Republic Embassy in Poland officially denied it, the matter of inoculation was
in the centre of attention again.
The founder of the first successful vaccination
was Edward Jenner and it took place in 1976[1], so immunization has
long history. For many decades people believed that vaccinations were one of
the most important invention in medicine. We were assured that they had been safe and
protected us from illnesses, which may cause serious complications.
And still pharmaceutical industry convinces
that there is nothing to be afraid of. On the other hand,
there are more and more organizations around the world (also in Poland), which
mission is to inform people about the dark side of immunization.
Side
effects were reported already at the end of 19th century[2], but as Italian researchers said in their report
“it seems that they have increased in number and seriousness” [3].
Vaccines are linked with allergies, SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), autism,
multiple sclerosis and year after year new reports appear and deny their
safety. Today it is
said that they may not always prevent but make illness milder and I even read
somewhere that some people even after immunization don’t create immunity. Italian researchers mentioned above made investigation to check
quality of vaccines (they checked 44 types of vaccines) and found out that there
were polluted, which means that producers
lost control of the production and its quality.
Vaccinations are obligatory in Poland and parents, who decide not to
fulfil the obligation, may bear consequences, but in some countries they are
voluntary or only a few are required. Irrespective of vaccinations, contagious
diseases are monitored in every country and by European Agencies. In April 2019,
European Centre for
Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) produced a report[4], with
conclusion that measles spread across Europe because “[…] vaccination coverage in many countries is suboptimal.”
To interrupt measles circulation vaccination coverage must be at least 95% in
each country, but only in four achieved that level.
Figure 1.
Vaccination coverage for first and second dose of measles- and
rubella-containing vaccine [4].
So we have two
points of view: official that vaccination is necessary and they have more
profits than harms and unofficial that they make more harm than good.
Who do you
believe? Are you for or against it?
Do you vaccinate yourself? Do you (or will you) vaccinate your children?
Do you vaccinate yourself? Do you (or will you) vaccinate your children?
Sources
(access 15.04.2019):
[2] Vaccines and the Peanut Allergy Epidemic
https://thedoctorwithin.com/vaccines-and-the-peanut-allergy-epidemic
[3]New Quality-Control Investigations on
Vaccines: Micro- and Nanocontamination https://medcraveonline.com/IJVV/IJVV-04-00072
[4] Monthly Measles and Rubella Report https://ecdc.europa.eu/sites/portal/files/documents/monthly-measles-rubella-monitoring-report-april-2019.pdf
[5] http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/06/12/not-vaccinated-no-kisses/#.XLWrV6Qwg2w
[6] https://www.thedrum.com/news/2018/10/19/anti-vaccination-ad-goes-viral-billboard-owner-concedes-error
I think that this topic should not really be mentioned because it's very touchy for many people, especially when during last year polish society splitted in half due to this. Who do I believe? I don't really want to share my personal views on this topic, had a lot of discussions about that and don't feel really comfortable arguing and still commenting on this. On my own I've always been vaccinated and I'm for it.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry, that I touched your sensitive point, but I find this topic socially important. I started to interest in it after hot discussion in my family. I had little knowledge than, but what caught my attention was that talk was very emotional.
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ReplyDeleteIt's hard for me to say because this is for people who are related to medicine have the biggest opinion and right to vote. I think that a large part of people make decisions even though they have no idea about the topic of vaccination. Personally, I grew up in a generation of vaccinations and now I havent problem with this for this moment.
ReplyDeleteMost of people don’t have knowledge to decide, but even if they are not experts, every year they make decision, for example if they get vaccinated against flu. Maybe you never consider flu vaccination, but it’s also a vote. Every year Polish authorities encourage us to get this vaccination and also others are recommended e.g. against tick-borne encephalitis or whooping cough. If you don’t follow recommendation, you express your opinion as well, despite you aren’t educated in that issue.
DeleteBut in such cases you take opinion, on which responsibility of lack of knowledge bare only you. On the other side if all people shall vote on the topic, the lack of knowledge could affect even those who has knowledge and it isn't quite right and wise I think...
DeleteIt’s quite interesting topic and argument that it’s “very touchy” just makes me laugh. It’s not the question of personal beliefs but the question of science. Andrew Wakefield, British doctor and the father of anti-vaccine movement had tampered results of his research. Investigation revealing this fact was conducted by Brain Deer. It’s worth mentioning that Andrew Wakefield lost license to practice. I was looking for some medical studies confirming negative impact of vaccines but these materials were unreliable and didn’t convince me at all. In 2014, study conducted on a group of 1.2 million children did not prove any correlation between vaccination and autism. My parents vaccinated me when I was a child and I believe I’m not autistic so far. If nothing change I will vaccinate my children.
ReplyDeleteI’m far from laughing at people, who say, that it’s touchy topic. If your wife refuses to vaccinate your child, this issue might be really touchy.
DeleteYou inspired me to look for some information about Wakefield, because I haven’t interested in his history before and I find very interesting interview with him: https://youtu.be/Sh8yjUqzhNs
He explains how his research was conducted and what was its aim (actually not correlation between autism and vaccinations as most think). We can believe him or not, but hearing voices from both sides is a better source of information than Wikipedia, which you quoted.
Honestly I really hate discussing about this topic. Personally I believe that as long as people vaccinate themselves in order to avoid getting sick on some serious illness, I am okey with this. Many huge epidemics of dangerous diseases were taken down thankfully to vaccines and do you know any other more preventive source? It might be true that many of them have not 100% quality and maybe they can even lead to some side effects. After all it is just a very tiny percent of the total effectivness of vacines. I've taken all the vaccines that were mandatory and for my own children I would do the same. It is always good as long as it doesn't concern you personally, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteI talked to a person, whose child had had serious side effects, try to say him, that it concerns only tiny percent. On the other hand we have parents, whose child died after smallpox-party (as we could read in mass-media some time ago). Probably they regret now that they didn’t vaccinate their child and had come up to such stupid idea. As I wrote under post written by Łukasz, I think that problem concerns all of us, because we as adults are also encouraged by authorities to vaccinate against some viruses and we have to decide if we will do it or not.
DeleteI believe that every human being should be vaccinated against infectious diseases, even if he is against it. Penalties should be imposed for each day of delay. So many years of confirmed research and so many years the lack of an epidemic of infectious diseases should be enough proof that you should be vaccinated. Every post on the internet against vaccinations should be removed. Maybe this is not a tolerant approach, but stupidity must be eradicated in the bud. It is very sad that in the 21st century, humanity is retreating in development, undermining so many years of science and research.
ReplyDeleteAre you supporter of censorship? And do you refuse people to decide about themselves (and their children)? Aspect, that you mentioned is a different problem, but very important: how far the control over our lives should be, where is the limit of letting the state to decide instead of us. Some countries, for example Great Britain, let parents to decide. Are their governments wrong? They have the same researches and the same knowledge as Polish authorities.
DeleteNo, I am against spreading stupidity. I think the limit is where people who have no idea about medicine are starting to decide if their child should be vaccinated and tell other people that it causes autism. Diseases that may have killed as many thousands or even millions of people in the world have been stopped by vaccines, and now the problem is coming back again because of ignorance of people. I think that such people also think that the Earth is flat. Now I see that the saying "history repeats itself" has a deeper meaning.
DeleteI’m against spreading information that vaccinations cause autism. It makes more harm than good, but occurrence of side effects is a fact and even authorities admit that, so I’m also against telling people that vaccinations are totally safe.
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ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, but I won't take part in this discussion. Not because this topic is sensitive to me or if it touches me in some way, but on a daily basis I don't like to express my opinions on the Internet where everybody can read it and react to it in any way. I can only say that yes, I've been vaccinated.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment anyway. On both sides we can hear voices, which are not acceptable in debate, so I understand your point of view.
DeleteI don't understand this whole discussion about vaccines. I was vaccinated and I'm a healthy young man. It wasn't proven in any official researches that they make children autistic, or make them sick in any way, those opinions are mostly from shamans like Jerzy Zięba and other self-appointed "doctors". Many of them are not doctors at all or lost their license already. It's just the next way of misinforming people and to propose own supplements for such people. Just business, and a very bad one.
ReplyDeleteI also didn’t understand what was the problem, but after reading about it I understand a little bit more than before. Side effects are fact and there is no dispute about it. In European countries there are systems, which collects data about them and also pharmaceutical industry is obliged to manage such data. In many countries there are systems of compensation for children, whose health was destroyed and producers pay for it. In Poland situation is different, because there are no compensation, furthermore authorities force parents to vaccinate their children. So we are forced to do it, but when our child is disabled after that, government says: we are not responsible for it, that’s your problem, not ours. Of course it’s not the only one point in this battle, but the one, which seems reasonable.
DeleteI don't have to beleive that vaccines work. The evidences are clear. Many diseases are pretty much extinct now only because everybody got vaccinated.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing to discuss about really. Of course we need to constantly study and improve vaccines but they are efective and safe already.
There are many people that think they know something but they really don't. They try to take the stand in fields in which they dont have basic knowledge and try to discuss with people that spend their entire life studying some subject. They read something on the internet and believe that's true. Thanks to the internet people can easily spread missinformation and stupidity. Look how much we can hear about the people that believe that earth is flat! It's nonsense!
I do and will vaccinate myself and my children.
I see that some voices (not only yours) are about effectiveness of inoculation, but my intention was not to ask if it works. I didn’t want to question the effectiveness, I wanted to point, that there are some doubts about safety. In many countries parents get compensation if their child are disabled after vaccination, so existence of side effects is fact not invention.
DeleteI am vaccinated and if I ever have then I will mandatory vaccinate them as well. I don’t understand how some people can be that stupid that it’s worth taking a huge risk, not for themselves but also for the whole mankind around them. Please do not let us go back to the dark ages with stupid assumptions.
ReplyDeleteEveryone should be vaccinated and it shouldn’t be an option that let’s you do otherwise.
As I wrote before, an occurrence of side effects is a fact. It’s why in European countries (also in Poland) they are registered and people get compensation. In US there is National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/index.html) . On their web side you can read: “Vaccines save lives by preventing disease. Most people who get vaccines have no serious problems. Vaccines, like any medicines, can cause side effects, but most are very rare and very mild. Some health problems that follow vaccinations are not caused by vaccines. In very rare cases, a vaccine can cause a serious problem, such as a severe allergic reaction. In these instances, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) may provide financial compensation to individuals who file a petition and are found to have been injured by a VICP-covered vaccine.”
DeleteIf you vaccinate yourself you also take a risk and people are afraid of it, the same as others are afraid of illnesses.
My parents vaccinated me when I was a child. I want to get vaccinated myself against tick-borne encephalitis.
ReplyDeleteWill I be able to snatch my children? If I ever have children :) I think so. I believe that the vaccines protect us.
Although an unhappy polio vaccine caused a hiv epidemic, I believe that in such times such mistakes will not happen again.
Science is moving forward, I also hope that there will be more knowledge than mistakes or speculations.
DeleteI'm probably more for vaccinations. I believe that they are needed and help our body fight some diseases. It's important to take care of some disease, not after we get sick of it. The principle of eradication at the beginning, or preventive. When the disease begins to develop, it may be too late and it is not worth admitting it.
ReplyDeleteI do not have children, but I'm vaccinated myself. As I wrote above. I hear more about problems with children who are unvaccinated than those who had their vaccinations at the right time. Anyway, the time we survived, our parents vaccinated us regularly and today we are healthy. It seems to show something.
Probably it is specific for my situation, but about consequences of not vaccinating a child I heard only from media. The problem of side effects I know from life: I met two parents, whose children were disabled because of inoculation. For this reason for me it’s not just theory or case 1 for million.
DeleteI am vaccinated and I did vaccinated my son. I haven't found any hard proof of actual negative effects of vaccines and on the other hand thanks to vaccines many diseases were stopped. That's why I'm supporting vaccination.
ReplyDeleteThere are countless cases of medical practices that have no scientific bases or have high risk of failure. However vaccination is not one of this cases. While any medicine can potentially cause side effects, serious vaccine side effects are very rare. I believe the benefits of preventing disease with a vaccine far outweigh the risks. It is widely believed that immunization is one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century. However this is a very sensitive and controversial topic. Personally I intend to vaccinate my childrens.
ReplyDeleteWhile writing my presentation I didn’t predict it’s so sensitive and controversial. I started looking some information after a hot discussion in my family, so I knew that topic is very emotional, but comments under my post really surprised me.
DeleteAs soon as I read the first sentence, I already knew that the discussion in the comments would be interesting;)
ReplyDeletePersonally, I am definitely a proponent of vaccination. I have been vaccinated and I will surely vaccinate my children.
In all of this history, I strongly believe doctors and science.
Being aware of the storm that can cause this topic, I will not argue my choice.
Ah, this is another populist topic that brings a lot of heat :)
ReplyDeleteI'm definitely a supporter of vaccinations and I'm usually not as harsh for people with different opinions as in this case. Just read some history and see how diseases decimated populations across last millennia, or event kill nearly hole civilizations like in case of Incas. So please stop being paranoid before we reach the critical point and deadly diseases will reveal themselves again. This is not a fantasy, just look at measles outbreak in the beginning of this year, if you want see what smallpox can really do look at quite modern history and check year 1963 and epidemic in Wroclaw.
Smallpox is a very serious disease, but today we are not vaccinated against it anyway. There is only vaccination against chickenpox, but in Poland it’s voluntary.
DeleteThe controversy surrounding vaccines arises from the specificity of the field of knowledge, which is medicine. Unfortunately, medicine will not answer any question like:
ReplyDelete- why am I allergic?
- why I got sick with MS?
It is in the nature of man to seek the answer to every question. Leaving an unanswered question is uncomfortable for the human psyche, hence the diseases are accused of: environmental contamination, conspiracy of companies or in this case a vaccine.
Lack of transparency of procedures (in Poland, eg lack of a system of registering side effects after vaccination) additionally arouses distrust in many people.
I would vaccinate my children, but I would like to know more about the vaccine in advance.
Thank you for pointing out other problems like transparency and conspiracy. It obviously makes discussion more difficult.
DeleteHehe, I knew that comments will be interesting. As far as I know vaccination has more benefits than drawback. I think, that we all know that. Because of vaccines many diseases were stopped e.g. tuberculosis, diphtheria, typhus, rabies, cholera diseases that previously decimated human communities. I’m vaccinated.
ReplyDeleteVaccination is a really hot topic nowadays. The true problem here (in my opinion), is that sometimes vaccines (around 1 in the 1000000 or even less) caused illness or dysfunction as children weren't checked for what they're allergic to or some vaccines were outdated or damaged somehow. It's really hard to say what should be the proper solution here, but I cannot say more as I don't have much knowledge in medicine.
ReplyDeleteOnce I watched a Netflix's documentary named Behind the Curve. Every time the vaccination topic is invoked, it reminds me of it. The facts are the facts, what's there more to say? Such a strange period in humanity, we are going to fail in problems, that we have solved already in a past. Measles is coming back because of ignorants. Now we share herd immunity, but we can lose it. I've been vaccinated and I will vaccinate my children. It will be such an injustice, if they won't be allowed to be vaccinated because of other possible illness. The others will not take responsibility for my loss.
ReplyDeletePeople in favour of the so called “anti-vax” movement who promote abstaining from vaccination should be considered a danger to society. Recently, the WHO placed vaccine hesitancy in the top ten threats to global health in 2019. Diseases such as measles, which had already been, to a large extent, eradicated throughout Europe are returning due to inconsiderate parents who choose to believe pseudo-science and who have no understanding of basic immunology. Due to their lack of expertise in medicine, they should not be allowed to make the decision whether or not to vaccinate their children.
ReplyDeleteWhen vaccination rates fall below the coverage levels, “herd immunity” is no longer effective. This puts in danger immunocompromised individuals who cannot be vaccinated, or neonates who are yet too young to be vaccinated.
Moreover, vaccines are also the most cost-efficient ways of fighting infectious diseases. It is much cheaper to pay for a shot, than for weeks of hospitalisation, which is often required in the case of many of the diseases. This puts a strain on the public health system, which is why parents who refuse vaccination should be held responsible for the hospital bills.
Finally, vaccines are considered a special category of drugs, ones that can prevent the occurrence and spread of infectious disease. As with every drug, they must pass at least 10-12 years of extremely meticulous, expensive and complex clinical trials, involving hundreds of individuals. The utmost priority of any company developing a drug is its safety and efficacy. They cannot get market authorisation without it. Moreover, after the vaccine is released on the market, continuous surveillance is put in place to monitor whether any adverse effects occur. Like with every known drug, these may arise, but the probability is extremely small.
I will not hesitate to vaccinate myself, nor my children. As for the rest, either open up any scientific journal, or let natural selection take its course.
ReplyDeleteWow, quite a controversial topic. I'm used to commenting on more "light" topics (such as coping with stress). I believe that we should not reject the greatest inventions of medicine and just listen to specialist doctors - in fact, the advantages of vaccination outweigh the disadvantages (I know that in some cases it can be harmful, like everything). In our society, we generally do not trust doctors (of which they can certainly be immoral and controlled / bribed by pharmaceutical companies, eg. Prescribe antibiotics, to cure practically everything, only to make large companies earn more, etc.) Have you watched "Root cause" "movie.
It's about root canal treatment that causes cancer - it sounds similar to the problem described in the article
Artur Mikolajewski
DeletePersonally I would like my children to be inoculate becouse vaccine in reality is a safe dose of disease that helps organism develop immunity. I don't see any correlation with autism besouse this is a genetic disorder and cannot be inherit by blood. I'm curious why we manage to avoid any plage so far if not for vaccine of course i mean in more developed countries. Still if someone prefer not to be inoculate be my guest. In my opinion this topic is similar to believe that planet is flat which also gaining popularity becouse of ignorance and myopic. Below I add link for in my opinion righteous topic exploration
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/qHSStN_fYs8
I’m vaccinated and my daughter is vaccinated too. I understand that some people could believe that vaccinating makes some serious diseases but when I’m trying to read something about it, I can’t find any reliable information. On the other hand, I have a lot of opinions given by doctors and professors whose says that’s very important to vaccinate children. I don’t believe in the global conspiracy to earn more money by clinical corporates.
ReplyDeleteI am standing for forced vaccination. Like human kind would be already on extinction if not that invention. All surveys made by objectors of vaccination are jokes. There is always second side of the medal beyond them and you can’t really believe them. For example there are donated by organisations who are against vaccinating so results are manipulated then. Some people says that people should be given free law to decide if to vaccinate their children. But it’s not best idea to be honest. There are some peoples who really can’t be vaccinated. There is something called as group immune system. By that people without vaccination can gain an antigens by just being born in society. But there is a need for that. Most of the people should already have that antigens from vaccinations. I do vaccinate myself and my children will also be.
ReplyDeleteI believe people who are for vaccination. I am absolutely for vaccination. I have always vaccinate myself and I think it is wrong not to vaccinate is never a good option. I have seen many articles with children sick of measles. Measles was a dead disease. In the last few years we can see increase in measles disease which is scary. When I will have children I don't want them to get measles and I will vaccinate them to prevent measles.
ReplyDeleteThanks to vaccination, many dangerous diseases have been eliminated and I am convinced that mandatory vaccinations are necessary. Of course, there are some "exceptions" like a flu virus that strongly mutates and if we get infected with a mutant virus that we are not immune to, we will probably have the worst flu of life. Despite this, I think that vaccinations, first of all on these most serious diseases should be mandatory, because the decision of some people about the lack of vaccination, can bring negative conservations not only for them, but also for many other people.
ReplyDeleteWho do I believe? Common sense. Both sides have some arguments, probably right. Generally speaking, I do not want to take sides, but rather I am against it. I was ill, e.g. with measles, and it's not something heavy, it's just mechanisms of evolution - the weakest one dies.
ReplyDeleteMan creating such vaccines interfere quite significantly with the course of evolution. And it is not known how it will actually end. Maybe it will happen that a person without any medicines or devices will not survive even a day.
Am I vaccinating? Currently I don't have to. And the flu? I do not feel the need to vaccinate against she. Especially since the flu virus is subject to mutation. What about children? I will let you answer when I have them :)
Good point with the evolution. People usually look know and not far ahead. But what with the future generations? That is the question...
Delete
ReplyDeleteWho do you believe? Are you for or against it?
Do you vaccinate yourself? Do you (or will you) vaccinate your children?
This is not a topic I want to discuss with semi-random people on an english conversatorium blog.
I am vaccinated, I am going to vaccinate my kids.
Who do you believe? Are you for or against it?
ReplyDeleteDo you vaccinate yourself? Do you (or will you) vaccinate your children?
Before I will answer the stated questions I must correct the date you posted. The founder of the first successful vaccination was Edward Jenner and it took place in 1776, not in 1976 ;) otherwise immunization hadn't have such a long history ;P
Getting into the questions... I do not believe neither one or the other statement. I think it is not a matter of belief, but a matter of knowledge. It is so important topic that nobody should let the outcome be dependent just on people's beliefs.
So as I am not a specialist in medicine I don't know if I am for or against. I am not an 'uncle good advice'.
I was vaccinated in childhood and happily I do not experience any wrong effects I suppose. Will I vaccinate my children? For now I don't know, but when I will have children I will have to get more educated in the subject for sure. But even then, I am not sure if I would be capable of understanding completely a complex biomedical theory, so maybe the best choice is to trust specialists? It sounds reasonable to do so but at the other side I do not trust in good intentions of governments, companies and other highly suited personas, so it seems we have to become a medicine specialists or we will deal with a life lottery, a Russian rulette ....
You are rigt, I made a mistake in date, it was a typo, but it changes a lot.
DeleteAfter analyzing your article you have to recognize what I surely have written here nutrition apple . This one is being written after you have a proposal from you.
ReplyDelete