The ‘Ill’ Effects of Vaccine Misinformation

February 16th, 2020

I talk a lot about the important of vaccines and diseases that can be prevented by them in my previous posts, so I think it is important to discuss the counter view to this. Anti-vaxxers are people who are against vaccines, and also are against vaccinated their children, if they have any.

Anti-Vaccination Movement

Despite there being a lot of proven results and loads of scientific evidence around the effectiveness and safety of vaccines, many people chose to vaccinate their kids out of ‘fear’. These people are known as anti-vaxxers, and are apart of the Anti-vaccination Movement. This movement is one that spreads information about the “harmful” effects of vaccines and tries to get people not get vaccinated and to not vaccinate their kids. Many diseases, like measles, were almost eradicated off the face of the Earth, but because of this movement it has grown in prevalence. Because parents started to not vaccinate their kids due to the fear, the disease was able to infect these susceptible hosts and be able to spread to others who have not gotten the vaccination. This is why I think that anti-vaxxers are a health threat because they are inhibiting herd-immunity which is salient for the health of the immunocompromised, and because they are inhibiting us from eradicating diseases that plague many.

Misinformation and Anti-vaxxers

One way that this movement has been sustained and able to grow is due to misinformation. Misinformation is simply just inaccurate/ false information that gets circulated as if it were factual. Vaccine misinformation is especially damaging as it causes many parents to become anti-vaxxers. A study done out of my college, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, shows the negative effects of the misinformation about the HPV (human papillomavirus) that spread through Denmark’s media outlets. The findings showed there being a 50% drop in HPV vaccination rates and that 26,000 Danish girls were unvaccinated. Researchers theorize that this will lead to 180 cases of cervical cancer and about 48 deaths, that could have otherwise been avoided if they were vaccinated. In 2017, the vaccination rates started to improve, thanks to a subsequent campaign to correct the misinformation that was spread. Misinformation is the foundation of many of these anti-vaxxer’s fears and beliefs. This example shows how these groups, and media outlets, can take an unreliable story and create a false equivalence between these striking claims and scientific facts. This is why I think it is very important that people do not believe everything they hear on the news or read in one article, but go out a look for the information yourself, from multiple sources. This is one reason I like to link the sources I use so that you guys can go and look at them yourself and gather more information about it and form your own thoughts and opinions.

Effects of Anti-vaxxers

I have previously mentioned how some diseases have almost been eradicated but due to anti-vaxxers they have increased in incidence and prevalence. Research has shown that there has been an increase from 1% in 2002 to 2% in 2017 of vaccine exemption rates. This number might not seem like a lot, but we are talking about 2% of 500+ MILLION people, which is a lot. It is proven that children who do not receive vaccines are more likely to contract these vaccine-preventable diseases. Research has shown that children who have not received a vaccine are:

• 23 times more likely to contract pertussis 
• 8.6 times more likely to contract varicella
• 6.5 times more likely to contract pneumococcal disease 

This is just to name a few of the diseases that children who are unvaccinated get. There are many more that the children suffer from, that could be prevented with a vaccine.

Why Does This Matter?

You are probably why should I care what someone does with their child? Well, you should care because it could effect you, your child, or someone you know or love. As mentioned previously anti-vaxxers mess up herd immunity. Herd immunity, as discussed in my Microbiology class, is when a large enough portion of the population gets vaccinated against a disease then the whole population is protected. People who are immunocompromised cannot receive most vaccines, and are those that need the protection of herd immunity as it could be fatal for them to get infected with the disease causing pathogen. However, with the rise of the anti-vaccination movement, not a large enough portion of the population is vaccinated with many diseases, which causes there to not be herd immunity. Further, we are seeing children, yes CHILDREN, die from diseases that could be prevented with vaccinations. These are just a couple reasons why this matters.

I hope after reading this blog post you have a better understanding of anti-vaxxers, vaccine misinformation, and the harmful effects of both of these. I hope you understand the importance of vaccines not only for yourself, but for you children, you your loved ones. I urge you to do further research on this topic, and to reach out to me if you have any questions. As always, thanks for reading my post and keep a look out for next weeks!