In the News

April 2017

Hennepin County, Minnesota

After the hospitalization of two infants for what was determined to be measles, the CDC was notified of a potential outbreak. Since the infants were both from the same Somali-American community, there was a deeper investigation into the cause of this disease. If the outbreak sprung up pre-2000, although rare, it would not be so shocking, and easily treated. The problem is, this outbreak happened in May of this year, 2017. Measles had been eradicated from the United States since the early 2000's. Until now.

The Cause

The cause of this outbreak did not stem from general lack of care for children. It is legally required that children under the age of 2 must have the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine before entering into any daycare or preschool, unless the parent is able to provide sufficient medical reasoning as to why their child cannot be vaccinated. However, these Somali-American parents were not vaccinating their children. Why? The anti-vaccination movement. Lynn Bahta, a nurse of the Health Department nurse in Minnesota, commented in the article "Despite Measles Outbreak, Anti-Vaccine Activists in Minnesota Refuse to Back Down" that white, upper-class women had been canvassing the Somali-American residents in the summer, claiming the outbreak was introduced by the health department to convince these parents to vaccinate their children, which according to these women, caused autism. Even though this study has been debunked several times, the anti-vaxxers have been targeting Somali-Americans, and other immigrants for decades, producing a general decline in the number of vaccines given in Hennepin county over the years.

The Response

Once the media got wind of the outbreak and the tenacity of the anti-vaccination groups, there was a large outpouring of support for the parents of the children affected by measles. Not only were the parents put in contact with greater resources for vaccinations, but they were also met with greater community involvement. Imams (religious leaders) in mosques within the county began promoting vaccinations after collaborating with health professionals. The fear that the anti-vaccination groups instilled in the parents was deeply rooted, and created a fear of health professionals. However, when religious leaders began to be adamant about the safety and necessity of vaccinations, the county (which reached a vaccination rate of 42% in 2014) began to see a rise of more than triple the number of vaccinations given in the latter years. The effectiveness of the anti-vaccination movement is undeniably strong, and shows no sign of slowing, however the media response towards the outbreak and movement shows an increase of trust in scientific movements and the overall social conclusions about the necessity of vaccines. 

All information within this article is derived from both the CDC and Washington Post. Any bias that may exist is within the Washington Post, and my own personal opinion. 

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6627a1.htm

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/despite-measles-outbreak-anti-vaccine-activists-in-minnesota-refuse-to-back-down/2017/08/21/886cca3e-820a-11e7-ab27-1a21a8e006ab_story.html?utm_term=.9accd34c41d3

About Vaccines

Welcome

Hi guys! I'm going to start out by stating that I do have an absolute bias about vaccines. I believe that vaccines, unless physically harmful for patients (i.e. those with compromised immune systems), should be administered to everyone. Socially, I do not believe that the world should be reduced to the way that it was 100 years ago, where people died of smallpox and measles. That being said, I will do everything in my power to maintain both my composure and scientific standing and remain (mostly) unbiased about what is published. So, welcome to Vaccine Vaniloquence, I hope you enjoy!

A BRIEF HISTORY

Vaccines (and their archaic predecessors) have been around since the 17th century, especially in China. Since the plague, smallpox had been a reigning infectious disease throughout the world, and the Chinese used blood transfers between bovine with cowpox (the cows literally had cowpox) and humans (think "blood sisters" from middle school) in attempt to gain immunity from the disease. Although the effectiveness of such is questionable, it showed an understanding of the immune system, and boosting it through outside influence. In terms of modern vaccinations, Edward Jenner is known as the father of vaccinology after doing the same (but scientifically!) in 1796, producing a mass movement and actual vaccine in 1798, according to the Immunisation Advisory Centre, based in New Zealand. Due to the early implementations of the vaccine, the disease was eventually eradicated in 1979! Vaccines gained a lot of ground with the development of the polio vaccine in 1950, and the subsequent eradication of the disease in many countries soon followed. Due to the (denounced) research of Andrew Wakefield, proposing a connection between vaccines and autism, as well as the use of small amounts of formaldehyde as a preservative, there has been a large social movement to stop all vaccinations in children, creating a large social disparity between scientists and the general public and a disbelief of the sciences as a whole that has yet to recover.

SO HOW EXACTLY DO THEY WORK??

(Most) every living being on Earth is born with an immune system that is strengthened with exposure. Viral strains have specific markers on the outside of their shell/cell membrane, called antigens. When the infection is introduced and overcome by the immune system, a specific cell (called a memory cell) within the immune system is modified to detect the specific antigen and fight it, using the white blood cells to engulf the intruder. Vaccines expedite this process by introducing the disease manually, instead of allowing the body to come across it naturally. The risk, obviously, is that the disease will compromise the immune system, instead of allowing it to adapt. To reduce this, a "dead" version of the strain is introduced, at smaller concentrations than would be found naturally, to allow the immune system to mark the antigen, and thus more easily overcome it when it is introduced. Those that do not have a functioning immune system (i.e. those undergoing chemo, AIDS patients, or those with autoimmune disorders) must then rely on a phenomena introduced by vaccinations: herd immunity. This is a sociological circumstance where, if a majority of the population is vaccinated (and thus immune) from a specific disease and strain, then the probability of an unvaccinated person getting infected is lowered by the sheer number of immune population surrounding them.  

SO THERE YOU HAVE IT

 If you want to read more about this topic, here are some helpful links:
http://www.immune.org.nz/vaccines/vaccine-development/brief-history-vaccination
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/how-vaccines-work