Why are some countries making a vaccine U-turn?
More than a century before Facebook, anti-vaccination campaigners had another method for spreading their message — an eye-catching march through town with tiny children’s coffins emblazoned with the words: “Another victim of vaccination.”
The year was 1885, and smallpox vaccinations were compulsory in the UK — reportedly inciting 100,000 people to demonstrate in the city of Leicester, England, one sunny March day.
Fast-forward to 2019 and the anti-vaccination campaign is a global, multi-faced beast — spurred by safety concerns, religious and political beliefs, preferences for homeopathic approaches and widespread misinformation.
But one issue that has endured for some 150 years is the backlash not simply against vaccinations — but against compulsory vaccinations. Today, rising populism in Europe and the United States is part of a new wave of anti-vaccine distrust in the establishment, say experts.
British parents in the 19th century didn’t take kindly to government-mandated smallpox vaccinations although the gruesome process — a series of deep cuts in the arms of the child — was a world away from today’s sterile practices.
But the anti-vaxxers of the time were also joined by libertarians, who believed the compulsory vaccinations violated their personal freedoms.
Today, that anti-government control sentiment “continues to be a thread in the anti-vaccine movement — particularly in this era of mistrust in government,” Professor Heidi Larson, director of the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told CNN.
Larson said populism and the anti-vaccination movement were “totally related,” adding that it was a “symptom” of “underlying distrust” in the establishment.
Vaccine hesitancy, is one of the biggest threats to global health in 2019, according to the World Health Organization.
“Vaccination is one of the most cost-effective ways of avoiding disease — it currently prevents 2-3 million deaths a year, and a further 1.5 million could be avoided if global coverage of vaccinations improved,” WHO said.
But vaccine hesitancy, or the reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite the availability of vaccines, “threatens to reverse progress made in tackling vaccine-preventable diseases.”
This trend has been seen in a rising number of anti-vaccine groups in the United States and in some European countries.
Italy’s vaccination U-turn
Last August, Italy’s populist government shocked the scientific and medical community after it removed mandatory vaccination for schoolchildren.
The country’s Five Star movement and its coalition partner, the far-right League, claimed compulsory vaccinations — introduced in 2017 during a measles outbreak — discouraged school inclusion.
The ANSA news agency reported that League leader and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said in June 2018 the 10 obligatory vaccinations — which include measles, tetanus and polio — were “useless and in many cases dangerous, if not harmful.”
The law was first introduced by the Democratic Party a month earlier, amid an ongoing outbreak of measles that saw 5,004 cases reported in 2017 — the second-highest figure in Europe after Romania — according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Italy accounted for 34% of all measles cases reported by countries in the European Economic Area, the center said.
“Italy is part of a global trend of distrust in mediators — doctors and scientists — who can interpret and explain data,” said Andrea Grignolio, who teaches the history of medicine and bioethics at La Sapienza University of Rome.
“With the advent of the Internet, people have the illusion they can access and read data by themselves, removing the need for technical and scientific knowledge.”
Experts say the origins of Italy’s recent anti-vaccine movement can be traced to a 2012 court ruling that linked autism and the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccination. Although that ruling was overturned three years later, it added to the spread of anti-vaccination theories throughout the country — and the world.
Debunked ‘science’
Experts believe that the most modern anti-vaccination movement was reinvigorated by a paper published in 1998 in the respected Lancet journal by former British doctor and researcher Andrew Wakefield. It suggested a connection between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and the development of autism in young children.
The claims have since been debunked, and the Lancet retracted the article 12 years later — its editor called it “utterly false.” But the repercussions had already rocked previously vaccine-wary communities on both sides of the Atlantic.
In the United States, that anti-vaccine resurgence has been amplified by actors Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy — who said they believed vaccines could have contributed to McCarthy’s son’s autism — and high-profile celebrities such as then-real estate mogul and reality TV star, Donald Trump.
In 2012, Trump, weighed in on vaccines on Twitter, saying: “Massive combined inoculations to small children is the cause for big increase in autism….”
Read the full article at edition.cnn.com
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NecktopPC
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“So lets look at each one of these, and see how we can get this down to ZERO. Probably one of the these numbers is going to have to get near to ZERO. Now if we do a really great job on NEW VACCINES(?), HEALTH CARE(?) REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH SERVICES(?) we can lower that [P] by perhaps 10-15%”
SEARCH: “Bill Gates Admits Vaccines Are Used for Human Depopulation”
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DR JOHN COCKER
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The Anti-Science. Anti-Expert, Anti-Medicine, Anti-Doctor, Anti-Authority, (ASAEAMADAA) group are not to be swayed y any logic. Natural selection will take care of them. Too bad their children must suffer
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Alder
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If there were no data/evidence, we could believe the rantings of Hollywood celebrities where climate change and vaccination hysteria go together.
But there is data-
Data set 1
number of children who died after vaccination.
calculate dead/total vaccinations
Data set 2
number of children who died who were not vaccinated.
calculate dead/total not-vaccinated
Results show survival proportion with vaccination is higher than without, so vaccination works.
Note: For some conditions vaccination cannot be used on very young children. Having the
older children vaccinated helps the the younger as then there are fewer infected sources for spreading, this is known as ‘herd immunity’.
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Reidar Moberg
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Measles:
Dataset 1: Died after vaccination: 127
Dataset 2: Died of measles: 2
https://www.newstarget.com/2019-01-21-measles-vaccine-linked-to-127-deaths-in-last-15-years.html
Dream on, Alder…
You can add to this that vaccinated persons are not immune. It is well documented that they still get the disease and also spread it to others.
So much for “heard immunity”.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Reidar,
Your statistics do not offer a valid comparison. You need to compare the deaths of children per 100,000
from measles before there was a vaccination to the death rate for children per 100,000 from measles and vaccinations after vaccination became prevalent.
Have a good day,
Herb
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Reidar Moberg
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Hi Herb,
My guess is you know as well as I that no one registers death from vaccines. The closest you can get is the VAERS database.
As for deaths from measles you’ll find statistics from both before and after introduction of the vaccine. No significant change. The death rate was downed long before the vaccine was introduced.
“Between 1900 and 1963, the mortality rate of measles dropped from 13.3 per 100,000 to 0.2 per 100,000 in the population, due to advancements in living conditions, nutrition, and health care—a 98% decline”.
https://physiciansforinformedconsent.org/measles/dis/
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Alder
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A good example, thank you, showing the misuse of statistics.
It is necessary to know the total number in the study, then the number of adverse outcomes before any comment can be made. I prefer to use stats from medical science rather than political sources.
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Reidar Moberg
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Well, Adler.
A few facts was all it took to put down your statements. You got nothing.
Let’s see if you can find some unbiased medical science in favor of vaccines. Until then, please stop recirculating Big Pharmas marketing myths and nonsense.
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