Anti-Vaxxers: A Threat to Society

Alright, let's talk about another issue we're facing nowadays - Anti-Vaxxers.

What is an anti-vaxxer?

An anti-vaxxer is a person who is opposed to vaccination, typically a parent who does not wish to vaccinate their child.

Why do anti-vaxxers exist? 

A few years ago, some people started spreading rumors that vaccinations cause autism and other mental disorders among children on Facebook, Twitter and so on. This might seem extremely dumb, and it is. However, this news spread like wildfire and a few concerned parents refused to vaccinate their children. This is how the anti-vaccination "movement" started.

Why do I think anti-vaxxers are deluded?

Alright, think about this for a moment. Vaccinations were discovered to immunize people against fatal diseases like polio, measles and so on. Before vaccinations were discovered, almost every other family would lose a child to these diseases. When vaccines were made to immunize people against such diseases, people rushed to the hospitals, immunization centers and so on to get their kids immunized. That is the correct thing to do.

A hospital room in the US with patients in 'iron lungs' in 1952

Let's take the example of Polio. In 1905, a major Polio epidemic broke out in Sweden and Norway. In 1906, the disease reached Greece. Soon, the Polio spread throughout the world. 

For instance, the number of Polio cases in the USA alone increased from 5,861 in 1910 to 27,363 in 1916. However, this outbreak was localised and the United States Government was successful in keeping it under check. Polio rates did not increase considerably until the 1940s. As the second world war came to an end, the number of Polio cases increased at an alarming rate, to say the least.

In 1949, the number of Polio cases in the USA reached an all-time high of  42,033. This number increased to 57,879 in 1952. The epidemic showed no signs of stopping, but lo-and-behold, our saviour finally arrived. The medical doctor and virologist Jonas Salk put forward a promising vaccine and in the spring of 1953, the foundation rolled out a large-scale trial of the Salk vaccine for which 1.83 million children in 44 US states received either a placebo or the vaccine shot.

As you can see, the number of Polio cases started to decrease around the mid-1950s. Polio was eradicated and nowadays, it's excruciatingly rare to find someone with Polio. It was nothing but vaccinations that saved us from the grip of the monster called Polio.

This was just one example of the many diseases which have been eradicated with the use of vaccines. Recently, the Rubella virus came along. Why was it not a major catastrophe? Because it was detected early and vaccines were made to end the disease. This is the reason why we were able to eradicate Rubella in less than a year.

Think again, decades of scientific research and development went into producing vaccines to prevent the spread of any fatal diseases. Not getting your child vaccinated is nothing but a step in the wrong direction.

The Bottom Line

In my opinion, anti-vaxxers are extremely dumb. They put their own children in danger of falling prey to a fatal disease just to make sure that they don't get autism. They don't understand that correlation is not causation. Vaccinations cannot cause autism. Even if they did, would you rather your child have autism, or measles? There is absolutely no point in not immunizing your children against preventable diseases. If the number of anti-vaxxers continues to increase, we will have to suffer through another epidemic which will wipe a good percentage of the population off the face of the earth. Vaccinating your children is not a choice, it is a necessity.

That's all I have to say for today. Here's a pic of a hard-hitting notice I found on Reddit:

You can't.

Thank you for reading and have a great day ahead!

-Ritin Malhotra