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As soon as the first observations and experiments on vaccines came out in the 19th century, the opinions in favor and against vaccinations emerged.
The reasonings or arguments of anti-vaccination movements have logically changed and evolved as time passed by and in a certain way, they have modified and adapted to our times.
Far from being a minor issue, there is a global concern for the rise of the anti-vaccination movement.
The ethical, logistics, economics, philosophy, legislative, human and civil rights implications of vaccines are lengthy complicated issues subject to the judgement that each individual's opinion on the matter has and how their own beliefs, attitudes and values apply to the issue.
It is a medical fact that everywhere in the planet where the anti-vaccination movement has arisen, vaccinations rates drop and outbreaks take place.
Vaccinations produce more benefits for the general population than harm.
It is also certain that the tools that the medical practice has in its hands for the scientific evaluation of safety and efficacy have favorably evolved and become stricter for their interpretation.
As a university professor and a physician I have always endorsed vaccinations as a public health strategy to prevent infectious diseases. Every vaccine is associated with measured risks that allow us in the medical community to measure and weigh benefit or harm of it. There are international regulation standards with rigorous and strict controls on immunizations.
People use cars and airplanes all the time, and these activities are risky in their own way, but they are regulated by professionals, and vaccines are just the same. Don't underestimate the work of the medical community in this field.
I'll try to cover in broad strokes some of the arguments that the anti-vaccination movements hold and give you my opinion as a Public Health professor and former Ministry of Health official about them.
Political and civil rights issues
In 1853, the United Kingdom government, having seen the positive aspects of vaccination and the protection it created against disease decided to pass an act to make vaccination compulsory to which some groups protested against.
This was quite a challenge for lawmakers for they had to put on a scale the duality of community rights vs. individual rights. This controversy became the fertile ground for the birth of the anti-vaccination league. These organizations are the precursors of civil rights as a legitimate opposition for vaccination as a public health strategy.
In 1902 a large smallpox epidemic arose in Cambridge, Massachusetts and local authorities enacted a mandatory vaccination act to city residents. Then in, 1905 Henning Jacobsen sued the state of Massachusetts for the violation of civil rights that makes it all the way to the Supreme Court.
The highest court in America ruled in favor of the state allowing the enactment of mandatory laws to protect the public from disease.
In 1970, a non scientific report was printed that alerted about the possible neurological effects of the DPT vaccine that granted immunization against Diphtheria, Tetanus, and Pertussis (whooping cough). This report was widely made available thanks to the mainstream media and in consequence, vaccination rates in the UK tanked, resulting in three outbreaks of whooping cough in the UK. In light of these events, British authorities ordered the creation of an expert panel that evaluated the efficacy of the vaccine and came to the conclusion that there was no association between DPT vaccination and secondary neurological effects. So there were no reasons to legally compensate those affected. In spite of this, the anti-vaccination movement still pushed several lawsuits with no success.
In the 1990's, several TV networks in the United States broadcasted several shows to criticize and raise skepticism on the secondary effects of the DPT vaccine, causing a predictable drop in vaccination rates.
There's an ideological rift between civil rights movements that put the rights of the majority (the right to be vaccinated) above the individual right to decide on whether or not you're willing to get vaccinated.
Every polity in the world has its own opinion and legislature on the matter, even going to the depths of how governments are conceived on a liberal or conservative basis.
One would think that the risk of global pandemics would make every state compulsory to their citizens to receive vaccinations to protect the rights of the majority to live a healthy life, but there are a lot of groups with a lot of political power that are lawfully exercising their rights to decide freely on vaccination.
The scenario where this debate takes place the most is the educational one, as a physician and a public health professor I ask my medical students and my patients how far are they willing to go in regards of not vaccinating their kids.
Scientific aspects of the Anti-Vaccination movement
In 1998, Andrew Wakefield published a controversial article in The Lancet medical journal about the relation about the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine and its side effects, autism in particular. The impact of this publication was massive, everybody was talking about it and this is the most quoted scientific article by the anti-vaccination movement, it got so much traction because it contained a scientific exercise that was new at the time.
Shortly after this article in The Lancet was published, the autism association and the vaccine research community tried to confirm these findings.
Oddly enough, the results of other researchers weren't the same as Wakefield's and it cast a shadow of doubt on his findings. A study found that Wakefield's results were totally false. This wasn't a methodology or interpretation matter, Wakefield's data was totally made up.
The peer-reviewed research community constantly runs checks on databases in order to guarantee that conclusions from research papers that are published are truthful, but Wakefield's study slipped through the cracks. Further investigation on Wakefield's work discovered that he had received financing from anti-vaccination groups to come up with his outlandish conclusions.
This charade was not as widely known as the original publication. In fact, it wasn't up until 2004 when The Lancet published Andrew Wakefield's conflict of interests from and in 2010 Wakefield publicly retracted his findings.
In 2011 the British Medical Journal published a report with the results of the investigation, despite Wakefield's medical license was revoked there are still some groups that use his bogus 1998 paper to justify their reluctance to vaccines.
Religion and the Anti-Vaccination Movement
Religious opposition to medical procedures has always existed, the main argument was that disease was a divine punishment to chastise sins committed and in that sense, any intervention that modified the natural course of untreated disease would be considered sinful and diabolical.
Nowadays most religions accept vaccinations as a strategy to prevent infectious diseases. Vaccination isn't attacked by most religious groups but rather encouraged by most religious leaders.
There isn't much literature on the influence of religion and its opposition to vaccination, only a few experts have published the generic aspects of faith regarding vaccines.
Muslims enforce compulsory vaccination. the Dalai Lama has supported mass vaccination campaigns against polio and there is no buddhist literature condemning vaccinations.
Hinduism advocates for the respect of life and supports the use of technology for a better, healthier life.
Jews advocate for vaccination as well and enforce the health of the community above individual health.
Orthodox jews favor vaccination and lifted a veto on vaccinations during the shabbat. Although judaism has had an open view on vaccinations, there a few jewish groups that criticize vaccines' for their side effects more than they criticize the act of immunizations itself.
The majority of christian churches don't object to vaccinations neither from the pulpit or based on scriptures, this includes Catholics, Christian Orthodox, Amish, Anglicans, Baptists, Episcopalian, Mormons, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, and Seventh Day Adventists.
Christian Scientists believe that diseases aren't real and they can be healed through prayer and enforce vaccination, when it comes to side effects, they recommend prayer to get rid of any negative side effects of vaccination.
The Dutch Reformed Church has a strong position against vaccination because of adverse reactions, and believe that vaccination stands in the way of their relation to God. This reluctance to vaccination is one of the causes why there was a measles outbreak within the reformist community in 2013 with severe complications of the disease (encephalitis, pneumonia, and otitis).
Jehova's Witnesses instruct their followers not to accept blood transfusions, from the 1920's to 1940 they opposed vaccination but in the fifties they changed their position to a more neutral one and accepted the clinical value of immunizations.
It seems hard to understand that in light of scientific evidence the anti-vaccination movement continues to influence in a negative way the opinion of the public on immunizations.
The association between the rise of naturalist, holistic medicine and the anti vaccination movement isn't just a coincidence, they're in cahoots arguing pseudo-scientific reasons for the way they behave.
Final thoughts
Few things in this world have been proved to work in the history of science like the fact that vaccination works, for they protect the community and prevent infectious diseases. It is also important that this protective effect on a large scale against epidemics is highly related with the fact that more than 90% of the population should be vaccinated to create an effective shield against infectious diseases, this is the main reason why a drop in vaccination rates raise the alarm within the healthcare community.
In socialist Venezuela, gross mismanagement of the national budget and corruption took a toll on the immunization program and the vaccination program came to an abrupt halt, causing infectious diseases like diphtheria and measles to re-emerge.
My final message for you is to encourage vaccination, get vaccinated, by doing so you're helping in strengthening your health and the health of your community.
Don't fall for the lies of the anti-vaccination movement.
Thank you for reading.
Have a nice day.