This is an article I wrote for my cousin’s blog on her business website http://www.natus-physiotherapy.co.uk/info-hub.php which is specialist physiotherapy for pregnant women and new mothers. I’m posting it here because it links in with some things I’m working on at the moment for Bristol 24-7 and here on sciamour as well. Stay tuned 🙂
Vaccinations – what’s the fuss?
Starting off life as a new mother is full of decisions. Which school do I plan to send him to? Am I feeding her the right amount of the right type of food? Should I vaccinate them?
A lot of people are concerned about vaccinations. A quick look at mumsnet.com and other sites for parents shows dozens, if not hundreds of threads from people worried about making the wrong choice for their new child. It is a shame that such a brilliant innovation in science and medicine has caused such worry amongst people.
To demonstrate what vaccinations have achieved for humanity: we’ve totally eliminated the smallpox virus (google image if you have a strong stomach) from the wild in an amazing feat of international participation and co-operation. The crippling disease polio is also on the way out – but as I reported in a previous article, resistance to vaccination some certain members of certain countries mean there is a risk of resurgence. Every vaccinated child provides a dead-end for the viruses, preventing their spread. If your unvaccinated child only comes into contact with other vaccinated children, the risk of infection is very low, but if too many parents opt out, we could see a big rise in infection rate.
So where have these worries come from? Talking to my own mother, she explained how she is of the age where children were pretty much expected to catch measles and mumps, and she remembered how horribly unpleasant they were for her. Due to the overwhelming success of the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella combined) vaccine, which are also available separately, these diseases are so much rarer now, so new parents will probably not have felt the pain of these potentially debilitating diseases. This can make the threat seem quite distant, but the high rate of complications associated with catching the diseases (see here for the complications associated with mumps) are far higher than the chances and severity of side-effects associated with the vaccine, which are listed here.
Vaccinations were also the centre of one of the biggest scandals in science of the decade. Very bad research was done by Dr Andrew Wakefield, who claimed there was a link between MMR, autism and bowel disease. He is now banned from practising due to the unethical nature of his study and his unscientific approach. A huge number of other studies have been done which disprove Wakefield’s findings and show that the vaccinations we use today are safe and good for the public. Even if this man’s name has been forgotten, the murmurings that vaccinations are somehow dangerous are still being passed around. The Public attitudes to Science survey 2011 shows that 5%, or one in every twenty people, thinks vaccinations are more dangerous than beneficial. I really hope that number goes down in the next few years.
There are a lot of resources out there on the Internet, see here, here and here. Of course, no information you find on the Internet is a proper substitute for a conversation with your GP. They will be happy to talk to you about it with relation to your child in particular.
Emily
Sciamour 