Years before, in the north Europe countries, started a movement that it
seemed to be a regression. Women wanted their sons to be born at home. Nothing was
wrong with these wishes. It was already possible to do it in the households
with the best hygienic conditions.
A few years ago started to generalize the idea that vaccination was no more
necessary. It is curious that this movement had begun in the USA where the
immunization rates are very poor compared with European ones.
Immunization is not compulsory anywhere fearing exactly the no responsible
reasons of someone that can say it has the right to deny. But immunization is a
social responsibility. No one can refuse to be an extermination massive weapon.
It should be a severe crime. But, as RI Secretary General John Hewko writes in
the following text, it is happening too much. It is necessary a strong and
convincing campaign to stop it. As a physicien I can not go outside the principle of Evidence Based Medicine. This stupid refusal goes beyhond any evidence need.
Henrique
Pinto
«Supporters of the anti-vaccine movement question the
safety, efficacy and necessity of the very medicines that have so greatly
reduced our children’s risk of catching a host of once-common but potentially
very serious infectious diseases, such as mumps, measles and whooping cough.
And then there’s polio, the disabling, sometimes fatal
virus that was every American parent’s worst nightmare until effective vaccines
were developed in the 1950s — and which still infects children in the
developing world.
Some who oppose vaccines are well-meaning parents who
have come to believe — wrongly in the view of mainstream medical science — that
the medicines are to blame for their own children’s health problems, especially
in the case of autism.
What they don’t realize is that refusing vaccinations
jeopardizes not only their own children’s health and that of every unvaccinated
child in the community, it also undermines a core principle of global health:
that vaccines are essential to safeguard all children against disease.
The anti-vaccine movement is quick to publicly
criticize anyone it deems to be a shill for the pharmaceutical industry.
Which brings us to “Invisible Threat,” a documentary
produced by a group of broadcast journalism students at Carlsbad High School.
The film takes an unbiased look at the debate over vaccine safety. It includes
interviews with physicians; parents who believe vaccines are linked to autism;
and parents who have lost children to vaccine-preventable diseases. After
considering both sides and weighing the evidence, the students conclude that
vaccines are safe, effective and tremendously important. What slight health
risks vaccines may pose are vastly outweighed by the good they do.
A no-strings-attached grant of $60,000 from several
San Diego-area Rotary clubs in 2012 funded the project, and the sponsors are
proud of the results. Unfortunately, controversy delayed the film’s public
release until last month, when it was posted online.
Anti-vaccine groups say the film is propaganda for the
vaccine industry. In a press release, one group cited the Rotary grant as
evidence. Why? Because Rotary “receives large grants from the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation, a major investor in vaccines.” In truth, both Rotary
and the Gates Foundation are “major investors” in improving children’s health
worldwide. Since 2007, Rotary’s collaboration with the Gates Foundation has
raised nearly $763 million, funds that Rotary dispenses as grants to the World
Health Organization and UNICEF to fight polio worldwide. The oral polio vaccine
is the primary weapon.
As the students report, polio — now so close to
eradication — is still only the proverbial plane ride away, placing every
unvaccinated child at risk. Even kids in Southern California. In 1952, polio
paralyzed a record 21,000 Americans, most of them children. Do we really want to
relive that nightmare?
Opposition to vaccines is not unfamiliar to Rotary and
its partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, which since 1988 has
reduced the incidence of polio by more than 99 percent. It is true that
misperceptions and rumors about the polio vaccine sometimes cause parents in
developing countries to refuse immunization. Such challenges are anticipated
and overcome.
In recent months, however, religious extremists with political
agendas — most notably in Pakistan and northern Nigeria — have gone far beyond
fomenting fear and distrust. They have actually attacked polio vaccination
workers, killing dozens. This is reported in “Invisible Threat.”
A concern now is that the noise generated by the
anti-vaccine movement here will be heard by the extremists attacking health
workers abroad. The last thing needed at this critical juncture of the polio
eradication effort is for a violent fear-monger to point to a news headline and
tell families, “Look, even American parents fear the vaccines.”
Such a scenario would only further jeopardize the
health of children denied access to lifesaving vaccines, while increasing the
danger faced by the brave health workers dedicated to protecting them.
It is completely understandable that parents of
children with unexplained health problems are desperate for answers. But as
“Invisible Threat” reports, the weight of medical science comes down squarely
on the side of vaccines.
To quote astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, “The good
thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”».
John Hewko
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