Autism and Vaccines
Through the project, I managed to learn a number of facets. To begin with, the project has made me understand that vaccines are the most common and cost-effective medical drugs that have led to a significant reduction in the health complications and child mortality. However, there has been an alarming outcry concerning the negative impacts of vaccines because of the increase in the case of autism (Jain et al., 2015). Autism is a frailty described by deficiency in interaction, repetitive behavior, as well as communication. Consequently, this outcry has led to a significant reduction in the number of children receiving measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccines for fear of autism. Nonetheless, the research has revealed that there is no relationship between the vaccine and autism since a number of antigens produced by the vaccine were the same for children with and without autism.
In addition, the belief that MMR cause autism has resulted in more harm such that majority of parents have decided to keep their children away from vaccination. Indeed, this has uncovered kids to further severe outbreaks such as the 2014 California measles epidemic. As a result, it has led to an attempt by doctors to make vaccination non-optional whereby legal measure are supposed to be taken against parents who do not have their children immunized (Mitchell, & Locke, 2015). It is important that parents ensure their children are vaccinated to avoid exposing to severe outbreaks.
Consequently, getting a well description about the likely origin of autism and the achievement will be a step forward towards curing the misconception concerning vaccines as the root cause of autism (Uno, Uchiyama Kurosawa, Aleksic, & Ozaki, 2015). Therefore, there is need to carry out public awareness campaigns to let the public know that there is no relationship between autism and vaccines since it is not an immune-related illness.
References
Jain, Anjali, et al. (2015) “Autism occurrence by MMR vaccine status among US children with older siblings with and without autism.” Jama 313(15), 1534-1540.
Mitchell, G. E. & Locke, K. (2015). Lay beliefs about autism spectrum disorder among the general public and childcare providers. Autism 19(5), 553-561.
Uno, Y., Uchiyama, T., Kurosawa, M., Aleksic, B., & Ozaki, N. (2015). Early exposure to the combined measles–mumps–rubella vaccine and thimerosal-containing vaccines and risk of autism spectrum disorder. Vaccine, 33(21), 2511-2516.