MMR Vaccine And The Onset Of Autism

Psychology

In 1998, the British Doctor Wakefield published an article in the British Medical Journal in which he proposed that the MMR vaccine, which was in the past given to children at the age of two, is related to the onset of autism. In his findings, which were essentially seen as an extreme concern, his method was flawed and failed to disclose the conflict of interest that seemed to be rising. However, the media took up the story and spread it so far, as well as the mainstream awareness. Parents have become so fearful on the vaccination rate in the US and UK dropped and the celebrities took up and advocated for the possibility of the link of autism. However, there a number of studies and researchers that has failed to support Wakefield allegation on the vaccine. A discussion is a risk vaccine persisting in the media when some people are convinced that vaccinating their children is a way of inviting a host of autism disorders (Autism Occurrence by MMR Vaccine Status among US Children with Older Siblings With and Without Autism, 2018).

The story about vaccines that can cause autism came into question in the year 1990s. To be specific, in the year 1995, a certain group of researchers who were from Britain published research that showed how individuals who have been vaccinated with the MMR vaccines are more likely to suffer autism as well as bowel compared to the people who have not received that kind of vaccination. Wakefield went to a further stage in studying what could be the possible link that relates autism with the MMR vaccines. In his research, he stated that eventually, he found the truth and the proof and in the 12 cases they have studied, most of these children have developed autism symptoms after receiving the MMR vaccine. However, they could not give a demonstration of how the two link, but he stated that the ones who have undergone multiple vaccines are at a higher risk compared to the individuals who have undergone a single vaccine. He, therefore, recommended that a combination of MMR vaccines be suspended in favour of single-antigen vaccination, which is given separately over time (Mann, 2018).

The media has created controversy by propagating the vaccine controversy, which has had a number of impacts on the health sector. The main reason why the media took the information to spread fast was to indicate the role of communication in the health sector and increase media health communication and health blogs. After Lancet was published in the year 1998, it gave a hint on why the MMR vaccine is associated with a number of unspecified diseases as well as the autistic type disorder. It raised a lot of questions from the parents, to be specific, who questioned if the vaccine is of more good or harmful to their children. Hence, this leads to a number of parents preferring to prevent their children from being attacked by measles rather than autism. The outcomes were a reduction in the number of vaccines administered to kids, with a higher percentage, and an increase in cases of individuals suffering from child measles compared to the past ten years (Richardson, 2005).

The outcomes came immediately after the Wakefield report, which was not good enough to provide adequate evidence. The number of individuals who were sampled for the testing was too small to prove it. Moreover, it had a methodological fall, such as a sample size of only a few subjects. It was an illogical short time span, which resulted in exposure to the vaccines as well as the development of behavioural symptoms. The study was so criticized, and many of the researchers, at least ten out of thirteen authors, have withdrawn from any association they had with the research. In the research carried out by the research by the National Institute Of Health currently believed that autism may be caused by the mercury poisoning since there a small mercury present in the vaccine and preservative thimerosal was tied in autism. The autism-vaccine controversy is one which grew legs and ran for a longer distance within the shortest term. The controversy led to a number of tensions as well as many parents failed to take their children to take the MMR vaccine. In health concerns issues, there must be health journalism, which ranges from the health journalist to the scholar of the science of journalism. There needs to be a guideline on how to guide health journalism to prevent it from becoming more problematic.

Many studies that have been carried out indicated that there is no link between immunization vaccines and autism spectrum disorder. Study after study has been carried out, but no link has been shown between the disease and the vaccine or any other vaccine, not only MMR. However, due to the fear that was induced by parents by the controversial media release, parents are still hesitating and refusing vaccinations for their kids due to misunderstandings and lack of clear communication. The decision which the parents have taken on the matter has caused a lot of negative impacts on the health sector. There are increased cases of kids with measles as well as other potential childhood infectious diseases which can be prevented by immunization. More so, the parents whose children have developed symptoms of autism are the ones who are avoiding the vaccines at a higher rate.

References

Autism Occurrence by MMR Vaccine Status Among US Children with Older Siblings With and Without Autism. (2018). Lewin.com. Retrieved 20 April 2018, from http://www.lewin.com/publications/publication/201504210462.html

Richardson, K. (2005). MMR and Autism. In Internet Discourse and Health Debates (pp. 130-162). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Mann, B. W. (2018). Autism Narratives in Media Coverage of the MMR Vaccine-Autism Controversy under a Crip Futurism Framework. Health communication, 1-7.