Social Media Assignment 1 PDF

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https://thepeopleschemist.com/reasons-dont-vaccinate-children-vaccine-supporters-shouldnt-give/...

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Daniel Kohen

Social Media Assignment #1 Article: https://thepeopleschemist.com/reasons-dont-vaccinate-children-vaccine-supporters-shouldntgive/ The site and article I have chosen is titled: “Herd Immunity: Three Reasons Why I Don’t Vaccinate My Children… And Why Vaccine Supporters Shouldn’t Care That I Use Vaccine Exemption Forms” and can be found in People’s Chemist. To me, People’s Chemist sounds like some kind of blog for parents to post things on, including anti-vaccination articles like this one.

The article and topic I have chosen to talk about in social media assignment number 1 regards vaccines. In the article, the writer mentions multiple reasons why herd immunity is a myth, hypothesis, theory, stating that “These attacks [against anti-vaccine parents] are based on the theory of “herd immunity.” This hypothesis was plucked out of an old college textbook”. Just from one of the first lines, we can see the stance that this writer has towards vaccines, and it’s disgusting.

This is truly a heated debate among Americans especially, but worldwide as well. Many parents believe that vaccines can cause serious developmental problems in their children, like autism. However, it is clear that the pros of vaccinations completely outweigh the cons, and all of this doubt was simply cast on the use of vaccines by a false and skewed test by a doctor named Andrew Wakefield in 1998 (Rao, T.). Since, Andrew Wakefield’s paper trying to connecting the MMR vaccine to autism has been retracted and disproven several times, and he has been guilty of fraud, falsified facts, and unethical behavior/tests on children. Yet, with his paper, he has

instilled this notion within millions of Americans and people worldwide, and for some reason, 20 years later, it has stuck.

The author of the article is not so clear. Although at the bottom there is a description of the author and his background, the author’s name is not clearly written at the top of the article, where most people would see it. There is no contact information for the author himself, but there is an “About” and “FAQ” for the website, which is People’s Chemist and advertising to “Start protecting yourself and loved ones”. The website is a .com website, and does advertise/try to persuade us to buy something which is their vaccine exemption forms and book on how to do it. Even more so, in the article, I don’t see any factual comments/arguments, and definitely no footnotes or bibliography at the bottom of the page. The information does not seem accurate, based on what I know about vaccines and herd immunity. For example, in the beginning the author incorrectly writes: “They use them [herd immunity arguments] to attack anti-vaccine parents, accusing them of ‘putting vaccinated kids at risk due to a breakdown in herd immunity.’ This is fuzzy logic. And it’s borderline stupid. After all, if vaccines truly worked, then why would vaccinated kids be at risk?”. The argument that this author is making is the thing that’s borderline stupid, and clearly he doesn’t know what herd immunity actually is. Based on what I know from it, herd immunity is the concept that if enough people who are able to get vaccines, get those vaccines (about 85-95% of a community’s population), then those who cannot get those vaccines, like people who have a suppressed immune system (i.e. – cancer, diabetes, children/elderly), will be protected from the disease because virtually their entire community is vaccinated. So it’s not about putting the vaccinated people at risk, it’s about putting the people that can’t get vaccinated at risk (U.S. Department…). Idiot. This is a specific misinformation of

herd immunity that this author is spreading. The US Department of Health says, “That means even people who can’t get vaccinated will have some protection from getting sick. And if a person does get sick, there’s less chance of an outbreak because it’s harder for the disease to spread. Eventually, the disease becomes rare — and sometimes, it’s wiped out altogether” (U.S. Department…).

So one main, key point that I would counter this paper with is the fact that herd immunity is extremely important to those who are unable to get vaccines because of suppressed immune systems, which actually amounts to a lot – all the people with HIV/AIDS, organ transplants, cancer, malnourished, older adults and infants, combined.

Below is a website animation that allows you to tinker with the unvaccinated and vaccinated populations before and after a vaccine (“Herd Immunity”). This is a great solution to teach kids in schools, like public schools, so that they can get educated on the subject and not listen to fraudulent people like Shane who claims to be a chemist writing for a random blog. It’s also a fun way to educated people, and it really simplifies the whole issue to make it understandable. Another thing would be to maybe teach children in schools and have seminars for parents to learn more about why vaccines are important, as detailed in Vaccines & Immunizations below, from the CDC. The problem is, a lot of people who don’t believe in vaccines are the same people who have trouble trusting the government, so anything the government, or scientists from the government like CDC says, they will not believe. Tragic.

Sources

ARTICLE: Ellison, S. (2018, March 03). Chemist Gives 3 Reasons He Doesn't Vaccinate and gives vaccine exemption forms for all states. Retrieved from https://thepeopleschemist.com/reasons-dontvaccinate-children-vaccine-supporters-shouldnt-give/ Herd Immunity. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/herdimmunity-0 Rao, T. S., & Andrade, C. (2011, April). The MMR vaccine and autism: Sensation, refutation, retraction, and fraud. Retrieved April 28, 2018, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3136032/ U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2006, October 11). Vaccines Protect Your Community. Retrieved from https://www.vaccines.gov/basics/work/protection/index.html

Vaccines & Immunizations. (2017, August 18). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/howvpd.htm...