Vaccine War assignment PDF

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Watched "The Vaccine War" documentary and answered questions relating to the film....

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Ashley Lee Slogans Burke HSCI345 The Vaccine War 1. What was the most common killer of teenagers in the 1920s? Diphtheria 2. How many diseases are preventable by vaccination for children? 16 3. What disease has recently come back but had been eliminated from this country 15 years ago? Measles 4. Public health determined that what allowed measles to enter the community was what? Kids not being immunized because parents were getting around public school immunization rules by using “personal belief exemptions” allowed in certain states 5. How does this affect medically sensitive children? They can get sick from unimmunized children; there can be emotional issues. 6. According to Jennifer Margulis, what is the argument for not getting vaccinated (i.e. getting sick)? Getting sick is not a bad thing; there are reasons that children get sick. She’d rather see her child get a natural illness and contract illnesses how they have been contracted for the past 200,000 years. 7. According to Dr. Donna Bradshaw-Walters, what is the problem with being unimmunized (i.e. international travel)? Because Ashland has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country and it attracts international tourists, the possibility of an outbreak in Ashland is very high. She said that “it’s just a matter of time before someone comes to here from another area who is unimmunized and who has the disease and brings that disease into our community” (Bradshaw-Walters). 8. What do parents do if they want their children to be exempt from immunization? Sign an exemption. 9. Who is the vast public health infrastructure committed to preventing outbreaks? The National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 10. What has been so rare in this country that younger doctors have never seen a case? Polio 11. Pertussis is also known as...whooping cough 12. Can chickenpox also cause fatalities? Is there a vaccine for it now? Yes and yes. 13. What are the risks of injecting something into someone’s arm? Swelling and minor pain lasting for about an hour to a day 14. A very, very small percentage of people get what? An allergic reaction 15. What shot allegedly causes autism? List all names. Mumps, measles, rubella (MMR triple shot)

16. The fact that two events happen close might mean that they could be? Casually related or simple coincidence 17. What is the connection between the MMR vaccine and autism + walking/developing language? The MMR vaccine is given at an age where often the first symptoms of autism emerge. Around 15 or 18 months of age, children learn to walk and develop language. 18. What is the connection between thimerosal and the MMR vaccine? How is mercury connected to autism? Vaccines include many ingredients, which one of these include thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative. Mercury in tiny, infinitesimal amounts will cause profound neurological injury, like autism, in children. Mercury is a neurotoxicant, but mercury poisoning does not resemble autism at all. 19. What were the results of the MMR vaccine study by Anders Hviid and colleagues at the Statens Serum Institut? They found no difference in the two groups of Danish children who had received the MMR triple shot and those who hadn’t. Children who didn’t get the shot had the same risk of developing autism as those who did. 20. What other countries did similar studies? What were their results? Sweden, Britain, Finland, and the U.S. also conducted similar studies on the MMR vaccine and autism. They all discovered that there was no association between MMR and autism. The Japanese changed their vaccine schedule in 1993 by replacing the MMR shot with three separate shots. However, autism rates continued to rise, proving that the triple shot was an unlikely cause of autism. 21. Vaccine critics say more studies are needed before scientists can rule outside effects. What do scientists say to this? They say that undertaking dozens of more studies is not only pointless but also unethical. We already know that vaccines save lives. It would be unethical to assign half of the children a vaccine and the other half a placebo if the placebo children are at risk of very serious diseases. 22. The CDC is involved in SEED, which stands for? What is the purpose of this study? SEED stands for the Study to Explore Early Development. SEED helps identify what might put children at risk for autism spectrum disorders and other developmental disabilities. 23. Public skepticism of scientific authority seems to be growing, fueled in part by? The mother talking says that public health officials are looking at the good for all. Mothers are important to them. Public skepticism of scientific authority seems to be growing, fueled in part by a battleground where ideas fight for public attention, the Internet. Mothers at looking at the good for their own child- it’s their world. 24. What is “herd immunity”? Herd immunity is when an individual and other individuals within a population (herd) get vaccinated. If a certain percentage of a

population is vaccinated, that will stop infections from spreading because most of the people around the infected child are immune to the disease/virus. But, when enough people do not vaccinate, herd immunity then begins to crumble. The first to suffer are vulnerable populations, those who aren’t vaccinated due to age- young children- or illness. The more immunity in a community, the better and safer people will be....