World Today
Ben and Celeste
Despite the recent news about the potential risks of the Measles, Mumps, Rubella vaccine (MMR), there are many benefits of the vaccine, which seem to cancel out many of the risks. As with all vaccines, the most significant benefit is not getting the illness and the side effects are typically mild. Fewer than one in a million suffered a severe allergic reaction from the MMR vaccine. However, if one doesn’t vaccinated and, for example, does get measles the risks are; developing a rash, cough, and a fever. In a more severe case one may contract pneumonia, seizures, or even death.
In 1998 a British surgeon named Andrew Wakefield wrote an article that was published in the British Medical Journal where he claimed that there was a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism. Now scientists have concluded that this was a deliberate misrepresentation. It has now been shown that a law firm hired Dr. Wakefield to provide scientific evidence that the vaccine caused autism. That firm paid him $750,000 for his work, which it now has been shown was false. Mr. Wakefield, also known as Dr. Wakefield until the British General Medical Council stripped Mr. Wakefield of his doctor license, published an article in The Lancet in 1998 saying that the MMR vaccine could cause autism for your child. Last year in February, The Lancet retracted the article after all the controversy it was getting, but perhaps a little to late.
“When his article was published, all the parents took it very seriously,” said Alison Singer on CNN. “Taking away the vaccine didn’t lower the risk of autism, but made the children more vulnerable to other diseases.” After the article triggered a boycott of the MMR vaccine in Britain, the immunization rates crashed to 80 per cent.
Mr. Wakefield is now at the possible risk of criminal charges. In his study on autism, Mr. Wakefield had ‘in an unmistakably intentional way, altered the data to produce a result that wasn’t there,’ said the BMJ. Over two-dozen other studies prove that Mr. Wakefield must have changed something to get this false answer. Mr. Wakefield, though, continues to defend himself, saying that he didn’t transform the answer into something else, and that he would never do such a thing.
Dr. Richard Besser (my best friends dad!), ABC News Senior Health and Medical Editor, recently wrote an article entitled “The Fallout of Fruad” about Dr. Wakefield’s fraudulent study. Dr. Besser stated, “I’ve worked around the globe and have watched children die from measles, meningitis, tetanus and other diseases that could have been prevented had there been access to vaccines.” While Besser was clearly bothered by Wakefield’s study questioning the vaccine safety, he also stated that, “the journal had a responsibility to more thoroughly review a paper presenting such a novel theory.”
Even though Dr. Wakefield’s study has been shown to be false, there are parents of autistic children who will always believe that the cause of the autism was a vaccine or a combination of vaccines. A lot of research money is being spent on finding out the cause of autism and how to prevent and cure this disease. Hopefully, a cure and treatments will be found, and that not too many parents will shy away from giving vaccines to their kids. The benefits of vaccines have proven to far outweigh the risks.
It is hoped that parents will be reassured that vaccines don’t cause autism. Dr. Besser said, “study after study that tried to verify Wakefield’s hypothesis found no connection between vaccines and autism. Scientifically, the issue has been laid to rest. Convincing the general public of the safety of vaccines is a task that may fall to those experts who take up the cause in the popular media.”
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Editorials/1221024.html
http://amfix.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/07/the-mystery-of-autism/?iref=allsearch
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40930256/ns/health-mental_health/
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Autism/dr-bessers-notebook-autism-vaccine-link-fraud/story?id=12555692
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002026.htm
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