5 Misleading Myths About Vaccines
Although it is already introduced since the early 20th century, until today vaccination coverage in many places have not yet reached 100 percent.
Vaccination has proven to be a cheap and effective way to prevent morbidity and mortality in children due to infectious diseases.
Well, here are five misleading myths about vaccines and facts behind the myth, according to LiveScience.
1. Vaccines are not important
Until now the disease which are successfully eliminated are smallpox. Other diseases, although the vaccine was discovered decades ago, still exist. For example, polio, chicken pox or whooping cough.
2. Children receive too many vaccines and too early
The vaccine is most effective ways to prevent infectious diseases faced by children every day.
“The body of a child continues to face many things that make their immune systems work hard, ranging from bacteria in our own bodies and also bacteria that comes from food, drink and the air,” said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center of the Philadelphia Children’s Hospital.
Immunology experts from the University of California, USA, examined the amount of vaccine that can be responded by a person’s body at a time. After considering various types of components in the vaccine, including bacterial proteins, they found that infants and children can safely respond to 100,000 vaccines at a time. Whereas the average child get s14 kinds of vaccine within two years.
3. MMR vaccine cause autism
This myth began developing in 1998 when Dr.Andrew Wakefield and his team published the findings in The Lancet journal. They observe the health of 12 children, who 8 of them had a developmental disorder which, according to the children’s parents was caused by MMR vaccine. The study has caused panic around the world and caused the number of children immunized fallen dramatically.
And earlier this year the editors of The Lancet had officially declared to withdraw the research result for spreading false information. After lengthy research, experts, including physicians in the WHO said the MMR vaccine is not associated with increased cases of autism in the world.
Various studies have been conducted and found no link between MMR vaccine with autism. One of the largest and long-term study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2002. The study looked at 537,000 health of children and found rates of autism between children who got the vaccine which turned out to be different.
4. Vaccines are not 100 percent safe
This myth may have a point. However, even walking does not guarantee we are 100 percent safe. In fact it does not make people so afraid to walk.
Most vaccines are given via injection can cause pain, redness and swelling on the skin at the injection. Other side effects are fever and allergic reactions. Even so, the nature of the side effects are individual. Moreover, the risk is greater if the child is not immunized. Vaccine technology became more sophisticated so that the reaction to the vaccine are much less frequent and lighter.
5. Vaccines are not effective in preventing diseases
Most vaccines which are currently in circulation already exists for 50 years, so most parents do not recognize the kinds of diseases which can be prevented by immunization.
For example, before a vaccine is available in 1963, nearly all U.S. children had chicken pox before the age of 15. In that country, this disease each year kills 450 people, mostly children. But after the vaccine was introduced, cases of chickenpox dropped to only 37 in 2004.
Unfortunately, since 2006, the number of children who had chicken pox increased to 130. According to CDC data, most children are not vaccinated at the request of the patient’s own parents.
The same trend also occurred in England where the number of people with chicken pox increased from 56 cases in 1998 to 1,324 cases in 2008. The reason is because parents did not want vaccinate their children.
Tagged with: Immune Systems, infectious diseases, misleading myths, mmr vaccine, morbidity and mortality, vaccination coverage, vaccine cause, vaccine education center,
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