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Prick or Panic: The great vaccination debate

What is your choice?

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Vaccine-preventable diseases of present day have been a major cause of illness, death, and disability throughout the history of mankind. The advent of the modern vaccine era has changed this significantly. If one can recollect a pre-vaccine era where diseases such as mumps and measles, not to say about smallpox or polio were common and often deadly. In more recent times, media is flooded with debates among public and medicos regarding vaccine safety.

The success of immunization programs depends on public confidence in their safety and acceptance of their efficacy. Concerns about immunization safety often follow a pattern: some researchers may suggest that a medical condition is an adverse effect of some vaccination and some premature announcement will be made about the alleged adverse effect. Whether some other group re-conduct the study is a question. Anyway, for the vaccine to obtain public confidence, it takes several years. A good example is the now discredited,1998 study by Dr. Andrew Wakefield that linked the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine and autism. After this UK saw a fall in immunization, but US did not have a significant impact.

Before the routine use of the measles vaccine (1963) and the MMR vaccine (1971), measles cases were as high as 500,000 and 500 measles deaths resulted every year in the United States alone. After hitting a record low number of cases in 2004 (with just 37 cases), it seems to be progressing to the highs over the last few years now.

The United States has experienced a record number of measles cases during 2014, with 644 cases from 27 states reported to CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD). This is the greatest number of cases since measles elimination was documented in the US in 2000.

A couple of autism activists like actresses Jenny McCarthy and Kristin Cavallari continue to promote the thought that immunisation is dangerous.

Anti-vaccine supporters argue that the reduction in infectious disease is a result of improved sanitation and hygiene rather than vaccination or in other words they say infections already started to decline before the introduction of specific vaccines.

Andrew Wakefield-father of anti-vaccination movement insists that we will all soon see that he has been right all along, however, important organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics and groups like Autism Speaks continue to emphasize the safety and efficacy of the MMR vaccine and urged the parents to completely vaccinate their children.

A New England paediatrician writing in the Daily Beast whose pseudonym is Russell Saunders has called the present situation "sheer lunacy".

"Unvaccinated children should be prohibited from attending public schools unless they have a medical reason", writes Phil Plait in Slate.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommend that healthy children get vaccinated against 14 diseases by age 2 (with boosters later for some), along with an yearly flu-vaccine. In fact, the government supports vaccines so strongly that even any uninsured child can walk into a clinic and get his or her shots for free. "Immunizations are simply one of the greatest public-health achievements," says Mary Glode M.D., professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado in Denver.

Okay guys, now it is time to decide whether to go for the prick or panic!


Watch the informational Video: How Vaccines are made?





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