Last weekend while driving down the highway I
spotted some prime, fresh road-kill lying all along the median. Not wanting to
pass up this opportunity for a free meal I threw each carcass into the back of
my pickup and drove along. When I arrived back into town I invited several of
the resident homeless individuals that lined the streets over for supper.
We shared the same plates, forks, spoons,
cups, and cooked the road-kill only slightly. We roasted it over some old tires
we almost threw our backs out digging from a ditch. Everyone loved the medium
rare opossum, and you almost have to cook it that way. After all, wouldn’t want
to sacrifice all that succulent tire tread flavor.
By now I hope you realize I’m kidding.
This never happened. Not because I hate the
destitute and wouldn’t feed them (quite the contrary in fact) but because I do
not make a habit of inviting disease into my home. Sharing the same tableware
as an individual who hasn’t had a physician’s visit since signing up for the
Vietnam “lottery” is probably not the most sanitary way to go.
So if I don’t invite disease into my home,
why would I invite it into my body?
Vaccinations have a terrible stigma
surrounding them these days. Some argue that the chemicals being pumped into
the body shouldn’t be as they are carcinogenic, others (using scientific
evidence mind you) tirelessly refute these claims as the levels one is exposed
to during inoculation are far less harmful than the ones incubated should one
acquire the associated disease naturally or through variolation.
While I believe some diseases need to be
inoculated against, I also agree with some parents that the sheer number of new
“recommended” vaccinations is getting rather high, and yearly exposure to new
strains of the flu vaccine may be more detrimental than some would like to
agree.
If you came here today to read about the correlation of Autism to Vaccination however you came to the wrong place. Hundreds of studies have been conducted and not one of them has proven there is a link to autism so TI&IT will not even indulge this radical claim. They don't cause autism. Plain and simple.
If you came here today to read about the correlation of Autism to Vaccination however you came to the wrong place. Hundreds of studies have been conducted and not one of them has proven there is a link to autism so TI&IT will not even indulge this radical claim. They don't cause autism. Plain and simple.
What we will explore here today is both sides of this delicate coin. We’ll talk about some of the diseases
vaccinations have prevented for hundreds of years, and why their continued use
is crucial.
First and foremost, the big question. What is
a vaccine?
This
Won’t Hurt A Bit
So how does a vaccine work? Basically it’s a
weakened version of the disease that they are trying to prevent against being
injected directly into your bloodstream. Your white blood cells, the defenders
of your immune system, are called to respond to this threat. Since the bacteria
or virus is in a weakened state they easily purge it from the body. A small
number of cells, called memory cells, remain behind in case the virus should
ever show its face again.
Think of it like this, you’re on a military
base in the Green Zone but in a hostile environment nonetheless. Suddenly
you’re attacked. It isn’t a huge force so they are quickly overcome but it is a
group of fighters you’ve never seen before. You’re tacticians immediately
devise strategies in the event a larger force of this unknown enemy should
return in order to protect the base from the invaders.
There’s plenty of proof that vaccinations
work, so why are so many people against it? Well, there are a number of reasons
and I see both sides of the argument.
See the pharmaceutical companies weren’t
exactly forthcoming with the information regarding the contents of their
vaccines. As such when the ingredients label leaked and everyone googled what
was in it, the entire populace freaked. Everyone stopped vaccinating their
children because it contained chemicals like Mercury and formaldehyde, not
understanding how all these worked together in conjunction.
They just saw big scary freakin’ words and
embalming fluid.
In order to really understand why these
inoculations aren’t even mildly frightening we need to know a little more about
them. As always here at TI&IT we like our history, so let’s begin by
delving into a little bit of background on how vaccination has always been
around, and for all that time there has always been someone to oppose it.
Rhazes, The Prophetic
Physician
That is an
excellent point Mr. Cartoon Caveman. And disease probably played a huge role in
all of that (that and Pterodactyl predation…but mostly viruses). See, for as
long as human and animal life has existed on this planet, we are still a
twinkle in the Universal eye compared to the existence of micro-organisms. Some
of them are extremely beneficial to our existence; others can be harbingers to
our destruction.
For the full picture
we need to go back in time to around 800 B.C. to the Middle East and focus on a
fellow that came to be known by us as Rhazes, his full name, Muhammad ibn
Zakariyā Rāzī. The father of pediatrics and a fine author, Rhazes established
observations that were crucial to the development of modern immunology and
other fields to this day.
Rhazes hailed from
the city of Rey, in fact, his surname translates into that directly. He was
born along the Great Silk Road (We’ve talked about that before. Want to read
more? Click here.)
and as such had access to the entire world from East to West as people of all
cultures traveled through.
He moved to Baghdad
to study medicine and actually became so proficient that even after moving back
home to Rey to practice; he was called back to Baghdad to run his own hospital.
He contributed many manuscripts on the topic of medicine and healing and was
revered by many and spent his later year’s blind. In fact, at one point he was
approached by a “healer” peddling a tonic for his blindness. Rhazes asked him
how many layers the eye had and when the man failed to answer responded no
thank you, adding, "My eyes will not be treated by one who does not know
the basics of its anatomy"
Aside from his
quick wit and plucky personality, Rhazes helped usher in immunology inadvertently.
He described the differences between Smallpox and Measles. At the time, both murderous diseases were thought to have been one in the same. While this may not sound groundbreaking it led to some
very important research by two men named Jenner and Fewster.
Vaccinations Can Turn
You Into A Cow
While an alien race
wasn’t being hypnotized into bovines, cowpox was being used as a way to
inoculate. As I mentioned before there have always been people campaigning
against vaccinations, and during a man named Edward Jenner’s lifespan (17 May 1749 – 26 January 1823) , this was
no exception. Even all the way up into the 20th century vaccines remained a hot button topic.
Laws were put into
place forcing people to get inoculated against Smallpox. As you can imagine,
most people weren’t very happy when the government was poking its nose in their
business, secondly they were even more infuriated when they discovered what was
actually being used to vaccinate them. Cowpox. In fact, some propaganda of the
time even drove around the fear that inoculation by Cowpox would turn one into
a cow themselves. Today we obviously know this not to be the case but yet,
there is still widespread panic, for other reasons.
But before we get
into those we need to talk about the elephant in the room (or cow rather). In
1763 a man named John Fewster noticed that two men who had been intentionally
infected with Smallpox exhibited very different signs. One was suffering from
the disease full blown but the other showed no sign of infection. Upon
examination and questioning he discovered that one of the brothers had
previously had a brush with Cowpox. This immediately turned a light on in
Fewster’s head.
During a dinner
with the Convivio-Medical Society he discussed his findings with the other
patrons. Among those in attendance was Dr. Edward Jenner. A man who would later
come to be known as the father of Immunology.
He was intrigued by
Fewster’s observation. Vaccination with the aide of Cowpox disease was already
a standard practice in England. It had been brought back from Istanbul on one
of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s journeys. It was an effective practice, but like
all pioneering methods, there were serious risks involved. Using Variolation to
induce immunity meant fully exposing the patient to the disease. This could
prove fatal; after all, you’re being infected
with the disease in order to hopefully never acquire it again.
Jenner sought to
improve upon the methods used therein and set out with a series of experiments.
Eventually this led him to creating a vaccination against Smallpox. In the
coming century it would be improved upon further to the point that in 1979, the
World Health Organization (WHO) declared Smallpox an eradicated disease. Dr.
Edward Jenner is said to have saved over 530 million lives with his incredible
discovery.
So why are people
fighting these miraculous medicinal marvels so virulently?
“Warning! May Contain Trace
Amounts of Words You Don’t Understand”
Okay, so there’s a lot of scary sounding
stuff in a vaccine. But despite what the creators of the poster above would
like you to believe, your doctor isn’t mistaking you for a Chevrolet. A lot of
the chemicals that are in your vaccination are naturally produced by your body.
The stuff that isn’t is mostly there to keep the virus from killing you. For
instance, mercury is used as a preservative to keep the vaccine from being
contaminated and to keep the bacterial agent inside the vaccine in check.
There is such a minoot amount of Mercury in
the vaccines that there are no long term effects from exposure at all. It isn’t
like the doctor is breaking open a thermometer and stabbing you in the neck
with it. Yes, huge amounts of Mercury can kill you. So can huge amounts of
Cheeseburgers, but I don’t see you picketing those. And for those of you
worrywarts out there, better stop eating fish, because there is more Mercury in
your salmon than in the 2ccs of Polio vaccine keeping you from dying in a
wheelchair.
Another one that raises concern is Monosodium
Glutamate, otherwise known as the Chinese Food Yummifier (Totally gonna
trademark that.) MSG has been around since 1908 and just be thankful they
settled on making it from salt. Extracts for it have been experimented with
Barium, Iron, even Copper, and Zinc. Luckily, they settled on salt.
While once again, overexposure can lead to a
host of medical problems the amounts used in certain vaccines are not harmful.
MSG is used as a stabilizer. If it wasn’t added any number of factors such as
light, heat, or jostling could affect the vaccine and change its properties.
Even slightly changed this could be detrimental.
There is less glutamate in one Influenza
vaccination then in ½ a cup of peas.
Formaldehyde, also known as embalming fluid,
is used to kill invasive bacteria that could contaminate the vaccine. You’ll
also find it in perfumes, mouthwash, shampoo, fingernail polish, and
toothpaste.
Another super “scary” one is Phenol. Phenol
is found in Antifreeze. It’s also found in lipstick. And blush, and acne cream,
anti-perspirants, lice shampoo, and many, many other products I guarantee you
use every day.
Now that doesn’t mean start throwing out
everything under the sink and letting the dirt pile up because you’re afraid to
clean. The levels in all of those things are far below the levels considered
toxic or even remotely harmful. The levels in vaccines? Even lower than the
levels of the levels in your toothpaste. (Say that five times fast).
I feel at this point it’s extremely important
to reinforce one quick fact. NO ONE
vaccine contains ALL the chemicals listed above, but may contain some of the
chemicals from that list (usually about 1 to 3 of them). Your doctor isn’t
trying to poison you, the opposite in fact.
So now that you know the history of them, the
chemicals and what they do, and that people have been fighting against them
since the days of Rhazes, (it’s rumored he took a beating or two) the biggest
question of all remains.
Why do we need them?
Going
Viral
Disease is the enemy of every physician. It
is unseen but can wreak havoc like no other. It is capable of crippling,
blinding, maddening, deafening, and killing. It can impede progress and it can
cause the downfall of entire civilizations.
And because of a ridiculous fear spawned by
mainstream media and a lack of education it may be the end of us.
No better example can be found then the
recent Polio outbreak the WHO alerted the world about just months ago. A
disease that spread through the United States and the rest of the world, and is
estimated to have during the 1940s and 50s killed over half a million people
worldwide every year. Now it has reared its ugly head again. How? We killed it.
We killed it dead.
In 1950 a man named William Hammon isolated
the antibodies produced in the blood of Polio survivors and was able to
engineer a vaccination against the illness. It was effective and to this day,
while in a much better understood and somewhat improved upon state, is still
used to immunize against the illness.
The recent Polio outbreak as some of you may
know happened overseas, and the WHO and United Nations are working to bring aid
and medicine to those people. It doesn’t mean that our vaccinations are
failing. It means these people never had the resources to receive the
vaccination in the first place.
The same can be said of Measles. In 2011 there
was a reported surge in cases submitted to the CDC. Some people said it was
because these people got too much Measles in their prevention needle. Others
said our vaccine wasn’t working anymore. The CDC investigated and discovered
something different altogether.
The people infected had never received the
vaccination, and those that had carried the disease were immigrants who likely
didn’t even know immunization for it existed.
And I see your concerns. There is a huge
number of recommended vaccinations on the list and no parent wants to subject
their pride and joy to the ritualistic stabbing of the Pediatricians Pre-K
visits, but alas in this day and age, it’s almost necessity.
With diseases evolving faster than we can
kill them, and a plethora of more and more being discovered every day we need
to come up with more, new, and better ways to combat them. Lack of immunization
is actually a bigger cause for the spread of disease then immunization itself.
Now I will say the amount of Flu vaccinations
that come out every year are preposterous and in most instances I would never
recommend getting a Flu vaccination unless a particularly strain of lethal
Influenza is moving through your area. Yearly inoculation however is a bad idea
because it allows the virus a chance to adapt to our methods of killing it.
(That’s why there’s a new animal with a new bug every new year.)
We need to all jump on board the immunology
train and do our own research. Find out what viruses are prevalent in your
area, what preventative measures you can take to safeguard yourself against
them, and any vaccinations that are available. If you live in Southern
California, chances are you don’t need an Ebola Vaccine, but you probably want
to get your Hep-B and Tetanus.
There are plenty of well written and
thoughtful articles out there on the web with just a simple Google search. Find
out what your doctor recommends and do some research. But above all, if you
want your kid to live to be older than the two cavemen in the comic above, you
should probably get them vaccinated.
-Ryan Sanders
If you would like to
know more about any of the topics discussed in the article above you can by
following any of the links below. Feel free to share this around on Facebook
and Twitter! Thanks for reading! And as always, Happy Learning!
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