Topic: Vaccine controversy: how one unreliable study produced long-lasting consequences?

Introduction
A vaccine is a biological preparation that furnishes active acquired immunity to a particular disease. It typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism and is sometimes made from weakened or killed microbes, its toxins or some of its surface proteins.

Vaccine controversies had occurred since almost 80 years before the terms vaccine and vaccination were known to humans, and continue till today. Opponents question the safety, effectiveness, and necessity of the recommended vaccines. They also debate that mandatory vaccinations dishonour individual right to medical decisions and religious principles. These arguments have brought down vaccination rates in certain communities,leading to outbreaks and deaths from preventable childhood diseases. 

Our society rarely looks at the safety and efficiency of the medical products that have great power to influence the decisions of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Although the public rarely hears of the catastrophes and side effects linked with vaccines, we still learn that vaccines promise to forbid a new condition.

The reality is that we are flooding the developing baby's body with a plethora of vaccines, often overwhelming the human immune system with the resultant negative effects. A full picture of the effects of immunisation has not emerged due to a deep-seated under-reporting of the adverse events associated with vaccinations.
Vaccine Safety Issues

The recent history of immunisation manifests the dangers associated with vaccines. A vaccine for infants was disposed of from the market due to its severe adverse effects in 1999. In 1998, RotaShield was approved by the USFDA for the control of rotavirus in infants but was backed out after reports of Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), and a consequent review showed that the vaccine was associated with intussusception, a bowel disorder. In 1991, an investigation with a high-titer measles vaccine in infants was stopped when reports found an increased death rate among female recipients compared to those receiving the standard measles vaccine. In the past few decades, certain studies suggest that an enhanced risk of some cancers is associated with polio vaccines administered to children between 1955 and 1963 that were adulterated with a monkey virus.

The sufferers of these adverse reactions to vaccines are often infants and children; forty five percent of reports of VAERS concern children of age six and below. The problems that arise as a result of vaccination go far beyond sore arms and transitory fever. Adverse effects such as anaphylaxis, Guillain- Barre syndrome, acute encephalopathy, thrombocytopenia, poliomyelitis, brachial neuritis, and hypotonic/ hyporesponsive events are linked to vaccines. Certain research also suggests that Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is associated with vaccination. An analysis by FDA from 1991 to 1994 found that most of the reported deaths were attributed to SIDS.

Unheard Principles of Vaccination
When children contract a disease such as mumps or measles, they usually develop a lasting protection against that disease. That isn't the case with vaccines. According to Jamie Murphy's observations, "The medical profession does not know how long vaccine immunity lasts because it is artificial immunity. If we get measles naturally, in 99% of the cases, we have lifelong immunity. If we have German measles, we will have lifelong immunity (with rare second infections). However, if we get a measles vaccine or a DPT vaccine, it may or may not prevent us from getting the disease.

The Vaccine Controversy mentions that by vaccinating infants and children, we shift upward the age at which people may fall ill due to an infectious disease. Mild illnesses of children can be devastating in adults. This is a problem far from resolved. Widespread outbreaks of mumps and pertussis in the past few years support the notion that decreasing immunity from childhood vaccines can result adolescent and adults susceptible to infection.

Case study:
Thiomersal controversy:
Thiomersal is an antifungal preservative employed in small quantities in some multi-dose vaccines to prevent contamination of the vaccine. In spite of thiomersal's efficacy, the utilisation of thiomersal is arguable because it contains mercury. Consequently, in 1999, the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) asked vaccine manufacturers to remove thiomersal from vaccines on the precautionary principle. Thiomersal is now removed from all common US and European vaccines, except for a few preparations of influenza vaccine. The action triggered concern that thiomersal could have been responsible for autism. That idea is now proven wrong, as rates of incidence for autism steadily increased, even after thiomersal was withdrawn from childhood vaccines. As on now, there is no reliable scientific evidence that shows, exposure to thiomersal causes autism. Since 2000, parents in the US have prosecuted legal compensation from a federal fund debating that thiomersal caused autism in their children. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) committee preferred rejecting any causal relationship between thiomersal-containing vaccines and autism in 2004.

Conclusion
Safety measures of vaccines have been published on the Internet and other forms of literature. These include speculations that vaccination can cause sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), epileptic seizures, multiple sclerosis, allergies, and autoimmune disorders such as type 1 diabetes, as well as suppositions that vaccinations can transmit bovine spongiform encephalopathy, HIV, and hepatitis C virus. These hypotheses have been examined scientifically, with the conclusion that currently employed vaccines meet high safety standards and that disapproval of vaccine safety in the press is not justified. Large-scale, well-controlled epidemiologic studies have been conducted, and the outcomes do not support the hypothesis that vaccines can lead to chronic diseases. Moreover, few vaccines are probably more likely to prevent or modify than stimulate or exacerbate autoimmune diseases and disorders.