As it turns out, getting vaccinated isn’t just for yourself, it’s also a social responsibility.
An anti-vaccination person can stock up on a series of “scientific” arguments to convince someone who opposes vaccination like them. The tactics of these people are emotional, spreading unfounded fear about vaccines.
Without real scientific knowledge, many people will probably nod when they hear that vaccines are pathogens, they also contain aluminum and mercury and therefore vaccines will be harmful.
But is that the truth? Let’s decipher the 7 anti-scientific views that anti-vaccination people talk about most often:
In fact, toxicity is a quantitative concept, meaning it is determined by the dose, not the chemical itself. It’s just that the dose required to cause toxicity is different.
For example, filtered water is also toxic, if you drink up to a dose of about 5 l / day, it will cause hyponatremia even death. More dangerous substances are more toxic, just because their toxic doses are lower. For example, with mercury, at a dose of 1mg/m3 the air is toxic.
Although many vaccines contain chemicals such as aluminum, mercury, and formaldehyde, the doses of these chemicals are very, very small, well below the toxic level.
For example, vaccines contain small amounts of aluminum to help make the shots more effective. But the dose of aluminum contained in one shot of the vaccine is only 0.125 mg, far below the safe daily intake of 30 to 50 mg.
Mercury was used in the past, but since 2001 it has been removed from most vaccines for children.
Vaccines do not weaken your immune system. True to its definition, vaccines strengthen the immune system, and anything that can strengthen the immune system is called a vaccine.
Usually, vaccines contain an inactivated (non-pathogenic) form of the pathogen. It is injected into the body to train the immune system to recognize this pathogen and develop defenses against the real pathogen in the future.
Anti-vaccination advocates often argue that the elderly and children, who have weakened immune systems, can contract the disease immediately after receiving a vaccine containing the pathogen. But in fact, on the contrary, the elderly and children are the subjects that need the most protection with vaccines, because their immune systems are vulnerable.
In 1997, scientists began to question whether vaccines could cause allergies. Research since then has yielded strong results, saying vaccines have the opposite effect: they protect you from allergies.
A vaccine is born that could end a pandemic, prevent millions of people, save their lives and the risk of permanent disability from disease.
For example, the smallpox pandemic of the 1960s caused millions of deaths. But just two decades later, smallpox was almost wiped out because of the availability of a vaccine. As of today, it has been completely wiped out worldwide.
In the 1990s, a scientific paper was published showing an association between autism and the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. However, this study was later proven to be fraudulent. Many scientists have done many comprehensive and long-term studies to disprove the relationship between vaccines and autism.
Additionally, 10 of the 13 authors of the paper from the 1990s self-refuted and retracted their original claims.
Vaccines not only protect you, but also protect the whole community, especially the most vulnerable 2-5% of the population. For example, a cancer chemotherapy patient can’t get the vaccine, but thanks to everyone around them being vaccinated, the pathogen can’t spread to them either.
This is called herd immunity, and it affects everyone’s health – not just you. It is the responsibility of all healthy people to be fully vaccinated, because if we bring the rate up to 95-98%, we will protect 2-5% of the most vulnerable population.
Of course, pharmaceutical companies make money from vaccines, but that doesn’t mean they have to hide something dangerous. In the United States, between 1994 and 2013, vaccines saved direct health care costs about 5 billion, and .3 trillion in social costs.
The pharmaceutical industry has been plagued with many scandals related to hiding side effects of drugs, but vaccines are one of the most protective medical tools for humans. A vaccine from research to use can take 10 to 25 years. After that, it continues to be carefully monitored.
In fact, your chance of having a reaction to the MMR vaccine is 1 in 1,000,000, which is 10 times lower than your chance of being struck by lightning. The odds clearly give you the edge, so get vaccinated when necessary.
The role of vaccination in the pathogenesis of autoimmune disease (by activating the autoimmune system) has long been a matter of controversy. Although the etiology of autoimmune diseases is unclear, several factors play a role, including: genetic factors, environmental factors, and infectious diseases.
The relationship between vaccines and autoimmunity is still being studied; However, to date, there is no clear evidence that vaccines are the cause of autoimmune disease. Most of the data showing the association between vaccines and autoimmunity come from case studies, which means they are inconclusive. To date, no large epidemiological studies have been performed to provide us with clear clinical evidence of this relationship. Due to the spontaneity and heterogeneity of autoimmune disorders, such studies are difficult to perform.