In preparing this edition of The Learning Team, I was able to research the history of vaccines and also reflect on my own experiences with vaccinations growing up in Calgary during the 1970s.
When I was growing up, I do not recall vaccinations being a controversial issue in the same way we see today. I remember that, as kids, my friends and I compared our small pox vaccine scars on the playground and that mine, compared to others, was quite small. I also remember, in about Grade 6, lining up at the nurse’s office in our school for the German measles vaccine.
This was a meaningful opportunity for me because I had neighbourhood friends whose mother had contracted the German measles while pregnant with one of her children. As a result, the child was born deaf and the family had to learn sign language. In addition, because specialized supports were not available in schools in Calgary, the child eventually went to Edmonton to attend school at Alberta’s School for the Deaf.
I also recall my mother recounting stories of people she had known during the 1950s who had been afflicted with polio, a crippling disease that had a lifelong impact on many who were affected by it. In my years growing up, vaccines seemed to be a given and were considered to be a miracle of modern medicine, one that extended lifespans and negated lifelong disabling problems.
However, in our modern society, there has been a renewed skepticism around vaccines since the 1990s. This skepticism is not new. It also existed when the vaccine for small pox was developed by Edward Jenner in the late 1700s and early 1800s. However, scholars now identify the rise of social media combined with celebrity endorsements of inaccurate and false medical information to be key factors in some citizens rejecting vaccinations.
The current anti-vaccination sentiment we are witnessing can be traced back to 1998, when The Lancet, a respected medical journal, published a paper by Andrew Wakefield. Wakefield and his colleagues suggested that the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR vaccine) was linked to autism in children. Wakefield’s paper was later retracted by The Lancet and widely repudiated by the scientific community because it was false, scientifically shoddy, unethical and could not be replicated by other scientists.
Finally, in 2008, Wakefield was disciplined by his professional body in the UK, which removed him from the medical register, ending his ability to practice medicine in the UK. Unfortunately, even though the paper was fully repudiated and Wakefield was removed from the medical profession, the damage was done.
Wakefield’s paper was held up by celebrities like Jenny McCarthy, the parent of an autistic child, as being proof that MMR vaccines were dangerous for children and could cause autism. Many parents, afraid for the well-being of their children, followed McCarthy’s advice and chose not to vaccinate their children. Hussain, Ali, Ahmed and Hussain (2018) wrote that in the UK alone, “for example, the MMR vaccination rate dropped from 92 per cent in 1996 to 84 per cent in 2002.” The result of dropping vaccination rates has been numerous measles outbreaks in the UK, Ireland, France and the U.S. Some cases have resulted in death.
This issue of The Learning Team explores the issue of vaccination, how vaccinations work and their history and provides information about the relationship between vaccines and the current COVID-19 pandemic. Enjoy this edition; we hope it is informative and thought-provoking.
References
Hussain, A., S. Ali, M. Ahmed and S. Hussain. 2018. “The Anti-vaccination Movement: A Regression in Modern Medicine.” Cureus 10(7), e2919. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.2919 (accessed March 4, 2022).