After Wakefield: Undoing a decade of damaging debate

[HuckleB]

http://sciencebasedpharmacy.wordpress.com/

Immunization has transformed our lives. This single invention has prevented more Canadian deaths in the past 50 years than any other health intervention. Our parents and grandparents accepted illness and death from diseases like smallpox, diptheria, and polio as a fact of life. Mass vaccination completely eradicated smallpox, which had been killing one in seven children. Public health campaigns have also eliminated diptheria, and reduced the incidence of pertussis, tetanus, measles, rubella and mumps to near zero.

The sickest and most vulnerable in society rely on the immunization of others to protect them from vaccine-preventable disease. When immunization rates are high, it’s much less likely a virus or bacterium will be carried and transmitted from person to person. But when vaccination rates drop, diseases can reemerge in the population again. Measles is currently endemic in the United Kingdom, after vaccination rates dropped below 80%. When diptheria immunization dropped in Russia and Ukraine in the early 1990′s, there were over 100,000 cases with 1,200 deaths. In Nigeria in 2001, unfounded fears of the polio vaccine led to a drop in vaccinations, an re-emergence of infection, and the spread of polio to ten other countries.

There are many reasons cited for refusing vaccination, ranging from fears of needles right through to bizarre conspiracy theories. But one reason that has experienced a dramatic upsurge over the past decade or so has been the fear that vaccines cause autism.

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After exhaustive evaluation from multiple, independent groups, the MMR vaccine has consistently been shown to be safe and effective, with no evidence it is associated with autism. Yet even as the BMJ articles receive extensive media coverage, the false balance continues. For example, CBC’s national radio news followed a story about the BMJ papers with a statement from a Canadian naturopath, linking asthma with vaccination (the data say otherwise).

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I don't know. I just thought a Canadian perspective was warranted.

:)