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History of vaccines essay
The importance of vaccinations in children
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Janice Flood will never forget what polio did to her twin brother Frankie on October 30, 1953. Just days after the twins were picking out their Halloween costumes and fantasizing about the amount of candy they would receive, Frankie’s life was taken by an organism 500 times smaller than the width of a human hair. When he began experiencing trouble breathing, his parents immediately rushed him to the hospital where he was tested for polio and put into an iron lung, a 500 pound machine designed to work paralyzed muscles to aid breathing and swallowing. Within sixty hours of being admitted to the hospital, Frankie was dead. The first vaccine for humans was created in 1796 by Edward Jenner for cowpox. This led to him discovering the vaccine for …show more content…
They state that, “Vaccines save 2.5 million children from preventable diseases every year, which equates to roughly 285 children saved every hour” (ProCon.org). These statistics show how vaccines are successfully saving the lives of children every year. If vaccines are saving 285 children every hour, that means that roughly five children are saved every sixty seconds. Imagine a scenario in 2004, after the polio vaccine was introduced. A poor single mother is raising her three young children who she cares deeply about. She decides to not get them vaccinated because she believes it is irrelevant and is concerned that vaccines are not safe. What she does not know, is that a transfer student from Nigeria has joined her children’s school, and brought polio with him. A few weeks later, all her children come down with polio. But with a mortality rate of up to 75%, not all of her children survive, and the one that did is paralyzed for life. While some believe that polio is no longer an issue in America, it only takes one person to bring the disease …show more content…
Such as in the yearly report by the CDC titled, “Reported Cases and Deaths from Vaccine Preventable Diseases, United States, 1950-2011,” states, “There is no reason to vaccinate against diseases that no longer occur in the United States. The CDC reported no cases or deaths from diphtheria between 2003 and 2011 in the United States. Fewer than 51 cases and 10 deaths per year from tetanus were reported between 1994 and 2011” (ProCon.org). While some like to believe that this means that children no longer need to be vaccinated, they ignored another study done by Consultant Live in the article, “Top Six Vaccine-Preventable Diseases still deadly to children,” which reported, “The bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae, also known as pneumococcus, was the leading cause of severe disease and deaths in children under 5 years of age in 2004. Approximately 1.6 million persons, including more than 700,000 children, died of pneumococcus disease that year, mostly pneumonia. This bacterium can also cause meningitis and sepsis. In 1983, the “polysaccharide” vaccine Pneumovax was introduced. It contained 23 capsular polysaccharide antigens that accounted for approximately 85% to 90% of severe pneumococcal disease in industrialized countries” (Consultant Live). This shows that even in our current day in age, vaccines are still being produced to help combat diseases. Just 12 years ago, a
In the United States there was a vicious enemy everyone feared. In the 1950s the United States was under attack by the ruthless Poliomyelitis virus. Americans lived in constant fear of their children contracting this horrible virus that left many children paralyzed. During the outbreaks in the 1950s foundations were created to fund research and create awareness to help find a way to eradicate the virus. Americans become focused on doing anything in their power to fight this virus off. Jonas Salk’s Exploration of Medicine and research led to the creation of the Polio vaccine that united the country, prevented further outbreaks, and introduced a new form of treatment which has limited the fatality of polio infections today.
At first polio was a troubling prospect when it first reared its ugly head in the United States of America. In a noble effort to be rid of polio, America as a whole was to adopt stringent sanitation measures. Everywhere, especially the home was to be spotless and clean in order to try and prevent the contraction of polio. This coupled with the view that America as a western nation seemed impervious to such a lowly disease tried to assuage American fear of the disease. Despite the measures commonly adopted throughout the myriad of cities and towns, polio still managed to spread around the country and wreak havoc taking thousands of lives. An outbreak that ravaged America claimed nearly 27,000 lives in a terrible reckoning before it finally subsided. This and several other troubling outbreaks
State vaccine mandates for children entering schools and daycare facilities to be up to date or they are not allowed to attend for the safety of other children (billington). Since 2008, global immunization levels for essential childhood vaccines have remained constant around the 80% mark. Over 1.5 million children die annually from diseases that can be prevented by vaccines. One in five babies around the world are missing out on basic vaccines and may die from weak health systems and insufficient funding. UNICEF and its partners are working to change these numbers and ensure that all children are successfully protected with vaccines.
The article’s information is presented with the goal of informing a reader on vaccines. The evidence is statistical and unbiased, showing data on both side effects and disease prevention, providing rates of death and serious illness from both sides. This evidence is sourced from a variety of medical organizations and seems reliable, logical, and easily understood, no language that would inspire an emotional response is used. The validity of studies is not mentioned in the article, but it does encourage readers to investigate further to help make a decision. The article allows a reader to analyze the presented evidence and come to their own
The effectiveness of vaccinations continues to be proven (Malone and Hinaman n.d.). For example, after development of the measles vaccine and the implementation of the vaccination program, the number of reported measles cases declined from 57,345 in 1977 to 2587 in 1984( CDC 2010 ). However, even though vaccinations have been proven safe and effective; there are still risks as well as the implication that not every person who is vaccinated will obtain immunity. That being said, serious damage from vaccination is a rare occurrence (Malone and Hinaman). A Glanz study (2013) from the Vaccin...
"History of Polio." poliotoday.org. Salk Institute for Biological Studies, n.d. Web. 1 Feb. 2014. .
Each day researchers are finding out about vaccines and are realizing that there are a lot more risks than benefits. Dr Phillip F. Incao explains: “Today, far more children suffer from allergies and other chronic immune system disorders than from life-threatening infectious disease. It is neither reasonable nor prudent to persist in presuming that the benefits of any vaccination outweigh its risk” (qtd in Spaker). While infectious diseases are becoming uncommon there is no need for any person to get vaccinated. There have been many issues surrounding vaccinations all around the world.
Vaccines have been used to prevent diseases for centuries, and have saved countless lives of children and adults. The smallpox vaccine was invented as early as 1796, and since then the use of vaccines has continued to protect us from countless life threatening diseases such as polio, measles, and pertussis. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2010) assures that vaccines are extensively tested by scientist to make sure they are effective and safe, and must receive the approval of the Food and Drug Administration before being used. “Perhaps the greatest success story in public health is the reduction of infectious diseases due to the use of vaccines” (CDC, 2010). Routine immunization has eliminated smallpox from the globe and led to the near removal of wild polio virus. Vaccines have reduced some preventable infectious diseases to an all-time low, and now few people experience the devastating effects of measles, pertussis, and other illnesses.
Mumps, Measles, Whooping Cough, Smallpox, Polio and, Diphtheria are all deadly diseases that were once a death sentence to children and adults around the world, but there is something that can help combat these fatal diseases. Vaccinations can change the course of these lethal diseases, but some families are still refusing to vaccinate the future of the world. Vaccinations can not only be beneficial to the child itself but to rest of humanity as well. There is evidence that goes against false claims bashing vaccination and the positive effects of vaccination overrule all of the negative. Vaccination can have a positive effect on the world due to its life-saving properties, effects on humanity and the extensive amount of safety and care that
The history of vaccinations does not begin with the first vaccination itself but rather an infectious disease that had greatly affected the human population. In 1796 Edward Jenner created a successful composition using cowpox material that created immunity to the ongoing growth of the small pox disease. Jenner’s method underwent 200 years of medical and technological changes until it had finally resulted in complete elimination of the smallpox disease. Vaccinations have been a controversial medical topic for many years and although it is proven to be an effective means of preventing serious effects, including fatalities from childhood illnesses the controversy remains that the side effects from the immunizations outweigh the risk of contracting the disease. According to the College of Physicians of Philadelphia they state that “innovative techniques now drive vaccine research, with recombinant DNA technology and new delivery techniques leading scientist in new directions. Disease targets have expanded, and some vaccine research is beginning to focus on non-infectious conditions, such as addictions and allergies” (“The History of Vaccines” College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Web. 10 January. 2014). While public health officials insist that vaccines are the best way to protect public health. Over the past thirty years the vaccination schedule has tripled and since then there has been an alarming rise in the infant mortality rate in America. The problem is not the vaccination itself, but the quality of the vaccination.
Vaccines have been around for hundreds of years starting in 1796 when Edward Jenner created the first smallpox vaccine. Jenner, an English country doctor noticed cowpox, which were blisters forming on the female cow utters. Jenner then took fluid from the cow blister and scratched it into an eight-year-old boy. A single blister came up were the boy had been scratched but it quickly recovered. After this experiment, Jenner injected the boy with smallpox matter. No disease arose, the vaccine was a success. Doctors all around Europe soon began to proceed in Jenner’s method. Seven different vaccines came from the single experimental smallpox vaccine. Now the questions were on the horizon. Should everyone be getting vaccinations? Where’s the safety limit? How can they be improved? These questions needed answers, and with a couple hundred years later with all the technology, we would have them(ncbi.nlm.nih.gov).
The first discovery was made in 1952, in the developing field of virology. Virology is the study of viruses and how they behave. To develop the vaccines for the viruses, researchers infected the HeLa cells with many types of infections, such as measles, mumps, and the infamous poliomyelitis virus, also known as Polio. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), whose mission is to save lives and protect people’s health security, Polio is a "crippling and potentially deadly infectious disease caused by a virus that spreads from person to person invading the brain and spinal cord and causing paralysis" (Freeman). Jonas Salk, who was a virologist at the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP), used inactivated viruses (virus particles grown in culture and then killed by a form of heat) to create a polio vaccine. Salk drew blood from about two million children, which the NFIP checked for immunization.Through the collection of many HeLa cells and trial and error, the polio vaccine wa...
Vaccinations have significantly reduced the disease rate throughout the world. Usually, vaccines prove to be between 90 and 99 percent effective. This reduces disease and mortality rate by thousands every year (Jolley and Douglas 1). On average, vaccines save the lives of 33,000 innocent children every year (“Vaccines” 1). In addition, if a vaccinated child did contract the vaccine’s targeted illness, that child would, in general, have more mild symptoms than an unvaccinated child that contracts the same illness. These vaccinated children will have less serious complications if they do contract the disease; they will be much more treatable, and have a lower risk of death (Jolley and Douglas 2). The risks of not vaccinating greatly outweigh the small risks of vaccination. Diseases like measles and mumps can cause permanent disability. While there i...
The discovery of the polio vaccine was an important medical and scientific breakthrough because it saved many lives since the 1950s. In the summer of 1916 the great polio epidemic struck the United states. By the 1950s hundreds of thousands of people had been struck by the poliomyelitis. The highest number of cases occurred in 1953 with over 50,000 people infected with the virus.
This enables a significant percentage of individuals who oppose vaccines to reconcile with those who do not, as this eliminates the concern regarding adverse reactions. According to an article titled “Vaccine herd effect,” herd immunity has pervaded many communities to help minimize the spread of disease. For example, in the 1990s, a vaccine was introduced that targeted a strain of disease known as streptococcus pneumoniae, which can potentially cause pneumonia. The CDC discovered a fifty percent reduction in pneumonia cases among the elderly despite the vaccine being offered primarily to children (Kim, T. H., Johnstone, J., & Loeb, M., 2011).