Vaccination In The 19th Century

In his book, Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All, Paul A. Offit, M.D. presents us with a thoroughly in-depth look behind the veil of the vaccine controversy. Specifically here in the United States. Offit starts us off with the history of vaccinations giving insights into not just their creation but the controversy that has surrounded them since the beginning. We learn how these questions around safety and personal rights started and who have been the major decision makers in history. We hear about the groups and people that support vaccinations and those that do not.

Requiring vaccinations is a highly debatable topic in the United States today. An article by Ronald Bayer, “The continuing tensions between individual rights and public health,” is one of the most reliable sources in the case study. The author has a PhD from the University of Chicago and focuses his research on issues of social justice and ethical matters. Bayer has also previously been a consultant to the World Health Organization on ethical issues related to public health. This makes him very knowledgeable about the topic and a highly credible source.

Sometimes the smallest things have the biggest impact. What was infinitesimal but so widespread that no part of North America was untouched by it? The devastation of Smallpox in the 1700s played a key role in the outcome of the revolutionary war and also in shaping modern medicine and in how we handle diseases. But these medical advances didn 't come without terrible sacrifice. Nearly 30% of europeans living in the Americas during the epidemic would succumb to smallpox totaling thousands.

Have you ever questioned why public schools are making kids get vaccinations? Vaccines are enforced in public schools in order to prevent virus spreading and potential danger. March 4, 1918, it started with an American soldier who reported sick with a flu and hours later hundreds were infected. Known as the “Spanish Flu” or “the epidemic of 1918” it is ranked as one of the most deadliest epidemics and had death tolls higher than that of World War 1. The impact of the epidemic on the 20th Century is that it provided insight on treatment of the flu, created the influenza vaccine, and a controversial topic for further research.

Over a hundred years ago, small pox affected over 48,000 people just in the U.S. Today smallpox has been eliminated because of immunizations. Immunizations are implemented in order to prevent diseases, decreasing the chances of diseases, building herd immunity, and prevention of diseases in children. The need for vaccination has eliminated infectious diseases. However, public health mediations have some risk.

There has always been resistance against vaccination, even when it was first developed by Edward Jenner. Despite the millions of deaths that been avoided through the use of vaccines, people have always found ways to criticize this medical breakthrough. However, it was not until recently that the fear of vaccinations began to re-emerge and confuse the minds of the general population. With the growing concerns about vaccinations, parents are becoming more reluctant in vaccinating themselves and their children. Consequently, infectious diseases that were once contained (such as measles) are now resurfacing as outbreaks.

Two controversial backgrounds of immunization are the medical and legal backgrounds. The major components of the medical history with vaccinations include the small pox and polio vaccinations; the most successful vaccination and the earliest vaccination. Smallpox was the earliest disease scientist successfully created a vaccination for. The earliest vaccination created to eliminate smallpox was called variolation. “One of the earliest reports for successful vaccine came from the sixteenth century in central Asia; then the process was called variolation.

Vaccinations have come to believe as the most effective, life-saving medical innovation of all time. They have cleared the way of numerous diseases, and they are saving the lives of children and adults every day from infectious diseases. With every lifesaving innovation, critics seem to be required to put doubt in people's mind. A new debate has risen from the minds of the skeptics, and the debate is costing people their lives. The book Vaccine, written by Mark Largent about the recent controversy, states that “about 40% of American parents today have chosen to delay certain vaccines or outright refuse to allow their children’s physicians to vaccinate their children” (Largent 1).

As pharmacists, their job is to sell the medicine, not create it. Thus, making parents believe that the vaccine in

Required Immunity Mandatory vaccinations for children in public schools have been the center of much debate since laws were first developed to regulate immunization. Fears from parents about side effects and adverse reactions have steered many away from wanting to vaccinate their children despite the numerous infectious diseases they prevent. These debates have gotten in the way of progression in schools for preventing the spread of disease. To me, the risks of not vaccinating children are far greater than the risks of adverse reactions.

Indeed, some have called this controversy “the most significant setback for the cause of immunization since the smallpox vaccine debates of the previous century” (Baker, 4003). The paper’s publication, coupled with the fact that the pertussis vaccination at the time contained bacterial cells and was considered retrogenic, which lead to a widespread fear amongst parents. The United Kingdom’s Department of Health and Social Security found the pertussis vaccine to be particularly harmful to infants less than six months of age, well below the age at which the DTP immunization was being administered at the time (1981). Thus, it was not those children that received the vaccination that received the benefit of the immunization, but rather it was the younger infants that older children might be in contact with that were benefitted because of the provided herd immunity. The very serious complications thought to be associated with pertussis vaccine therefore seemed too risky to many parents who felt that their children were being put at risk for the sake of protecting someone

2.1.3. Pharmacists have served varying roles related to vaccines dating as far back as the 1800s (Hogue, Grabenstein, Foster & Rothholz, 2006). According to Weidman-Evans and Mohundro (ND), pharmacists were already recognized to be able to assist in the areas of immunization education, distribution, administration, and tracking systems way back in 1993 by the Department of Health and Human Services in the United States (US). At present, pharmacists have the authority to administer vaccines in all 50 states of the US and the District of Columbia. The impact of this implementation was shown through the increase of vaccination rates (Steyer, Ragucci, Pearson & Mainous, 2004).

Modern medicine provides people with the ability to protect themselves from the world’s most fatal diseases. Merely a century ago, it was not uncommon for a child to die as a result of diseases such as polio, pertussis, and tuberculosis. Today, it is highly unlikely for a person to contract these diseases, let alone die from them. However, refusal of vaccinations has been increasing throughout the years due to the anti-vaccination movement. This movement declares mandatory vaccines unconstitutional and vaccinations overall as the cause of autism.

The year of 1853 deemed obligatory for all children born after the first of August to receive routine immunizations. By 1898, one hundred years after Edward Jenner’s unveiling of the vaccine, smallpox in London had fallen dramatically – to one in every 100,000 (less than 50 people per

Vaccines are very controversial as some people fear that they cause the disease that they are trying to prevent. The vaccines must go through rigorous testing before distribution to the general public but the challenge with this is that not enough people are willing to offer their time for the trials, so they never get accurate results for the side effects. The task is to make safer vaccines just as effective but with less data: These consist of the current smallpox vaccines that cannot be given to immunocompromised people without causing harm; the tuberculosis vaccine, which is not suggested for HIV-positive infants; and the yellow-fever vaccine, which puts elderly people at risk of a yellow-fever-like illness. Surveillance on vaccines has