It's all about facts: Why you should vaccinate your child

The vaccine, a cornerstone of routine immunisation programmes, will protect children from five major infections.

The vaccine, a cornerstone of routine immunisation programmes, will protect children from five major infections.

Published Jan 23, 2017

Share

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble it’s been doubling, doubling and now there is trouble.

Celebrity, businessman, Donald Trump who was sworn in as president of one of the most influential nations of our time breathed new life into debunked conspiracy theories linking autism to vaccines, and thus endangering the lives of children.

Trump, whose Twitter posts you only need to look at certain automobile company share drops to see the repercussions off, tweeted back in 2012, “massive combined inoculations to small children is the cause for big increase in autism.”

Trump's opinion on vaccinations have long been out of sync with science. He made the same assertion at a 2015 debate.

He once again raised the ire of the medical community last week when he met with anti vaccer Robert Kennedy Jr,a sceptic described by The Washington Post as a leading proponent of conspiracy theories about vaccines, someone who, by the way, holds a law – not a medical – degree.

The old debunked theories continue to dog society and lower and lower numbers of vaccinations are being reported around the globe.

In places such as Texas tens of thousands of children are going without vaccines, a 20-fold increase since 2003 according to The Washington Post.

A recent Reuters report labelled France – the birthplace of immunology pioneer Louis Pasteur – as among the least confident nations in the world of vaccine safety, with 41 percent of those surveyed disagreeing that vaccines are safe.

What this has served to do is increases the risk of children dying from preventable illnesses such as chickenpox and measles.

This while organisations such as the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) and the World Health Organisation (Who) are constantly working to cut high costs of vaccines and distribute it in countries where children – and adults – are dying unnecessarily.

In 2016 Unicef announced the procurement of a 16 year deal to provide a combined vaccine against five deadly childhood diseases for half the price it currently pays.

An estimated 5.7 million deaths a year could be averted under the deal to send 450 million doses to 80 countries between 2017-2020, they said.

The vaccine, a cornerstone of routine immunisation programmes, will protect children from five major infections in one shot: diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B, and Haemophilus influenza type b known as Hib – a bacteria that causes meningitis, pneumonia and otitis.

The South African government often runs campaigns along roll outs. Late last year the focus was on polio, vitamin A supplements and Mebendazole deworming.

The aim of the campaign is to increase population immunity against polio, which is a potential deadly illness.

Polio is a highly infectious disease and mainly affects children under three years of age. The polio virus is excreted in stools and spreads rapidly from one person to another. One in every 200 children infected with the virus becomes paralysed; any infected child can infect other children. There is no cure for polio therefore vaccination against this disease is imperative.

And still I take my child to a birthday party on the Berea and meet a mom who tells me sheepishly that she doesn’t believe in vaccinating her kids!

A little niece of mine and most of her class had chickenpox last year.

For the longest time most of the fairly developed world were routinely vaccinated. To the extent that in December when my baby fell ill we went through two courses of antibiotics to no avail, and nearly onto a third, to discover after a number of days the telltale bumps behind my son's ears, that more than likely indicated mumps. 

None of us at home on both sides of the family had ever had it and failed to recognise all the symptoms. Our pediatrician told us tests to confirm would not be very conclusive and isolation and care was all we could really offer.

It was a chance to be regaled with tales of mumps – one parent said she lost the hearing in one ear after a bout of the disease.

For boys and men mumps can have serious but rare complications, such as an inflammatory condition called orchitis that can cause swelling in one or both testicles.

My other child is a preschooler and I learnt via the grapevine of at least two other chickenpox incidences that were bad enough to have the entire class sent home.

Vaccinations were always a socioeconomic issue – with those in poverty stricken regions often dying of entirely preventable diseases. While the rest of us, used Government facilities or forked out to protect our family.

These days the most affluent families, feel that what is for the masses is not for them.

Now thanks to Trump and the like a simple preventative medical advancement is a convoluted conspiracy theory.

Vaccines aren’t guaranteed to work and the rare child will react but herd immunity and routine innoculations will offer control.

A few years ago I met Jodi Picoult, one of the world’s most prolific bestselling authors.

She was in Durban and had just written House Rules, a novel that pivoted on autism.

She was intelligent, eloquent and her arguments were compelling. It was the first time I had heard about moms claiming to have had “normal babies” who after vaccines became autistic. A seed had been planted.

Years later when my own child, after a vaccine swelled at the point of the jab, ran a fever and broke out in bumps, and in his weak state I began to see the non responsive traits I’d heard of in autism.

It was a lonely fearful moment in time that seemed to stand still for us. No one had answers for me. He wasn’t old enough to speak and I wondered if he ever would.

I was told days later that there were no other problems with ‘the batch’ and that born two weeks premature I should have had him vaccinated two weeks after the recommended time.

He got better.

Adverse reactions are rare.

But yes, some children do react to vaccines. It’s a reality.

But history proves that vaccines can save lives.

Children who cannot be vaccinated will be protected by the herd and when a critical portion of the population is vaccinated it is unlikely that an outbreak will occur.

The American Academy of Pediatrics conducted 40 studies that showed no links between autism and vaccines.

This after the Andrew Wakefield scandal. In 1998 The Lancet published Wakefield’s research paper suggesting the combined measles, mumps, and rubella(MMR) vaccine was linked to colitis and autism spectrum disorders.

It was a journalist that exposed his multiple undeclared conflicts of interest and the paper was later retracted.

Wakefield was found guilty by the General Medical Council of serious professional misconduct in May 2010 and could no longer practice as a doctor in the UK. Of course the damage has been done, with what has been described as "perhaps the most damaging medical hoax of the last 100 years".

Since then it's been more conspiracy than common sense.

What I know as the mother of two small children is that they are more at risk of harm without the vaccine than with it.

It’s not a chance I’m willing to take – its decision based on scientific fact.

* Omeshnie Naidoo is national Family Editor for Independent Media.

Related Topics: