Science Re-Views: Why learning about vaccines is important? more than just to make an educated decision… it saves lives!

Understanding the role of vaccines is important, hence this question really resonates with me. First of all, because it can save your life and the life of friends and family. Let me put in my personal hero words: “Vaccines are one of humanity’s most incredible accomplishments and they’ve saved millions of lives,” John Oliver (see the link to his show below).

Secondly, your understanding will allow you to make an educated decision about which type of vaccines you may get, for example, if you are allergic to eggs you should get the flu vaccine that has been produced in mammalian cells (cell culture-based) instead of the one produced in chicken eggs, and you would communicate this to your care provider.

I could continue explaining why having different types of vaccines and knowing more about their modus operandi is a fantastic idea; however here, I would like to explain some thoughts on why some people might think the opposite. Once upon a time (28 February 1998), there was a doctor called Andrew Wakefield, and 12 other medical doctors; they published in a prestigious scientific journal The Lancet, an article entitled “Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children”. In the article, they reported a study of 12 children with gastrointestinal disease and regressive developmental disorder. They claimed to have identified an associated gastrointestinal disease and developmental regression in a group of previously normal children, which was generally associated with possible environmental triggers. Their conclusions drew an association between the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine and autism. The article was retracted on 2 February 2010, in part, thanks to the fantastic work of the journalist Brian Deer, who discovered research fraud, unethical treatment of children, and Wakefield’s conflict of interest through his involvement with a lawsuit against the manufacturers of MMR vaccine. Other concerns about the study came from the parents of children involved in the study: one claimed that part of the data in the paper was not true, another parent claimed that “the data clearly appeared to be distorted”. Some subjects appeared to be “cherry-picked” to participate in the study, for instance, a boy who lived 5000 miles from the hospital had been flown to London and admitted to Wakefield’s project. Furthermore, there were multiple discrepancies (inconsistent data between the article and the actual medical records). For example, only one of the patients had “regressive autism” although the existence of this condition and the gastrointestinal disease was the bedrock of Wakefield’s allegations. Some conditions that were suffered by the children were also suffered by siblings that were not included in the study. There was another key issue: there were no controls (for example unvaccinated children) as this was just a case report, a big red flag in any medical study!

The study claimed that all 12 children were previously normal, but five had documented pre-existing developmental concerns. In the article, some children were reported to have experienced first behavioural symptoms within days of MMR, but medical records documented these as starting some months after vaccination. In nine cases, unremarkable histopathology results were changed, after a medical school’s “research review”, to “non-specific colitis”. The parents of eight children were reported as blaming MMR, but 11 families made this allegation at the hospital. The exclusion of three allegations, all giving time to onset of problems in months, helped to create the appearance of a 14-day temporal link. Patients were recruited through anti-MMR campaigners, and the study was commissioned and funded for planned litigation.

Why would Wakefield commit such terrible fraud and put people's lives at risk? It is thought to be for MONEY. He was recruited to support a now failed lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers and was paid £435,643 for being part of the lawsuit. BTW, after the fraud was uncovered Wakefield’s medical license has revoked.

On the other hand, multiple studies since then have shown that there is NO link between mental illnesses and vaccination. In 2002, a Danish study provided strong evidence against the hypothesis that MMR vaccination causes autism. They studied 537,303 children that had received the MMR vaccine. They reported no association between the age at the time of vaccination, the time since vaccination, nor the date of vaccination and the development of the autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). More recently in 2019, given the risks of a disease outbreak that the anti-vaxxer movements generated in the general population, the research team investigated another 657,461 children born in Denmark, comparing MMR-vaccinated with MMR-unvaccinated children. This study yielded a fully adjusted autism hazard ratio of 0.93, meaning no association between MMR vaccination and autism. In addition, no increased risk for autism after MMR vaccination was consistently observed in subgroups of children defined according to sibling history of autism, autism risk factors, other childhood vaccinations, or during specified periods after vaccination.

Since then there has been a call from researchers around the world to stop “wasting” time and resources trying to find a link between vaccines and autism, because these resources could be used to investigate other diseases and find treatments for them.

Despite claims of many unfounded vaccine damages, vaccines may have a protective effect from unintended diseases. In adults, a study including 4,000 people over age 65 found that people with previous exposure to vaccines for diphtheria, tetanus, polio, and the flu had a decreased risk for Alzheimer's disease. Another study in nearly 12,000 people with chronic kidney disease found that flu-vaccinated people had a 30-40% lower risk of dementia than the unvaccinated control, and showed that people who got their flu shots more regularly had a greater benefit in lowering their risk for dementia. There has been also no evidence that getting the flu shot worsens cognitive decline in people with Alzheimer's disease. However, individuals with dementia who contract the flu are at 1.5-time increased risk for flu-related mortality. These studies suggest that getting an annual flu shot may be one factor in maintaining a healthy lifestyle associated with promoting lifelong brain health.

It is heart-breaking to witness the antivax movement evolve in the last few years and take innocent victims due to misinformation and fraudulent conspiracy theories. Please help to educate everybody about vaccination programs and the important role that each member of the society plays in the wellbeing of the whole community. We are in this together, and only united we can defeat infectious diseases.

For more information about the development of anti COVID-2 vaccines:

https://sciencetechreviews.blogspot.com/2020/06/why-vaccines-are-important-and.html