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Vaccination is the administration of a vaccine to help the immune system develop immunity from a disease. Vaccines contain a microorganism or virus in a weakened, live or killed state, or proteins or toxins from the organism. In stimulating the body's adaptive immunity, they help prevent sickness from an infectious disease. When a sufficiently large percentage of a population has been vaccinated, herd immunity results. Herd immunity protects those who may be immunocompromised and cannot get a vaccine because even a weakened version would harm them. The effectiveness of vaccination has been widely studied and verified. Vaccination is the most effective method of preventing infectious diseases; widespread immunity due to vaccination is largely responsible for the worldwide eradication of smallpox and the elimination of diseases such as polio and tetanus from much of the world. However, some diseases, such as measles outbreaks in America, have seen rising cases due to relatively low vaccination rates in the 2010s – attributed, in part, to vaccine hesitancy. According to the World Health Organization, vaccination prevents 3.5–5 million deaths per year.
Mayo Clinic is a private American academic medical center focused on integrated health care, education, and research. It employs over 7,300 physicians and scientists, along with another 66,000 administrative and allied health staff, across three major campuses: Rochester, Minnesota; Jacksonville, Florida; and Phoenix/Scottsdale, Arizona. The practice specializes in treating difficult cases through tertiary care and destination medicine. It is home to the top-15 ranked Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine in addition to many of the highest regarded residency education programs in the United States. It spends over $660 million a year on research and has more than 3,000 full-time research personnel.
Thiomersal (INN), or thimerosal, also sold under the name merthiolate is an organomercury compound. It is a well-established antiseptic and antifungal agent.
Vaccine hesitancy is a delay in acceptance, or refusal, of vaccines despite the availability of vaccine services and supporting evidence. The term covers refusals to vaccinate, delaying vaccines, accepting vaccines but remaining uncertain about their use, or using certain vaccines but not others. Although adverse effects associated with vaccines are occasionally observed, the scientific consensus that vaccines are generally safe and effective is overwhelming. Vaccine hesitancy often results in disease outbreaks and deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases. Therefore, the World Health Organization characterizes vaccine hesitancy as one of the top ten global health threats.
The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), founded under the name Dissatisfied Parents Together (DPT) in 1982, is an American 501(c)(3) organization that has been widely criticized as a leading source of fearmongering and misinformation about vaccines. While NVIC describes itself as the "oldest and largest consumer-led organization advocating for the institution of vaccine safety and informed consent protections", it promotes false and misleading information including the discredited claim that vaccines cause autism, and its campaigns portray vaccination as risky, encouraging people to consider "alternatives." In April 2020, the organization was identified as one of the greatest disseminators of COVID-19 misinformation on Facebook.
Bernadine Patricia Healy was an American cardiologist and the first female director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The Vaccine Safety Datalink Project (VSD) was established in 1990 by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to study the adverse effects of vaccines.
The thiomersal vaccine controversy centers around public concerns and debates over the safety of thiomersal, a mercury-based preservative used in vaccines, with some fearing it could cause neurological disorders such as autism, despite extensive scientific research showing no credible evidence linking thiomersal to such conditions.
Paul Allan Offit is an American pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases, vaccines, immunology, and virology. He is the co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine. Offit is the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology, professor of pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, former chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases (1992–2014), and the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
The Office of Special Masters of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, popularly known as "vaccine court", administers a no-fault system for litigating vaccine injury claims. These claims against vaccine manufacturers cannot normally be filed in state or federal civil courts, but instead must be heard in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, sitting without a jury.
Claims of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism have been extensively investigated and found to be false. The link was first suggested in the early 1990s and came to public notice largely as a result of the 1998 Lancet MMR autism fraud, characterised as "perhaps the most damaging medical hoax of the last 100 years". The fraudulent research paper, authored by discredited former doctor Andrew Wakefield and published in The Lancet, falsely claimed the vaccine was linked to colitis and autism spectrum disorders. The paper was retracted in 2010 but is still cited by anti-vaccine activists.
Mark Robin Geier is an American former physician and controversial professional witness who testified in more than 90 cases regarding allegations of injury or illness caused by vaccines. Since 2011, Geier's medical license has been suspended or revoked in every state in which he was licensed over concerns about his autism treatments and his misrepresentation of his credentials to the Maryland Board of Health, where he falsely claimed to be a board-certified geneticist and epidemiologist.
Andrew Jeremy Wakefield is a British fraudster, discredited academic, anti-vaccine activist, and former physician.
Bruce Harold Lipton is an American writer and lecturer whose work has been dismissed by some peers as pseudoscience. By his own admission, Lipton's ideas have not received attention from mainstream science. Lipton has not published original scientific research in a peer-reviewed medical journal in 30 years.
Robert William Sears, known as Dr. Bob, is an American pediatrician from Capistrano Beach, California, noted for his unorthodox and dangerous views on childhood vaccination. While Sears acknowledges the efficacy of vaccines—for instance, he supports the claim that Chicken pox, measles, whooping cough, polio, diphtheria have all disappeared because of vaccines—he has proposed alternative vaccination schedules that depart from accepted medical recommendations. His proposals have enjoyed celebrity endorsement but are not supported by medical evidence and have contributed to dangerous under-vaccination in the national child population. While he denies being anti-vaccine, Sears has been described by many as anti-vaccine and as a vaccine delayer.
Frank DeStefano FACPM is a medical epidemiologist and researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he is director of the Immunization Safety Office.
Wendy Sue Swanson is an American pediatrician, educator and author, known for her Seattle Mama Doc blog.
The Lancet MMR autism fraud centered on the publication in February 1998 of a fraudulent research paper titled "Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children" in The Lancet. The paper, authored by now discredited and deregistered Andrew Wakefield, and twelve coauthors, falsely claimed causative links between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and colitis and between colitis and autism. The fraud involved data selection, data manipulation, and two undisclosed conflicts of interest. It was exposed in a lengthy Sunday Times investigation by reporter Brian Deer, resulting in the paper's retraction in February 2010 and Wakefield being struck off the UK medical register three months later. Wakefield reportedly stood to earn up to US$43 million per year selling diagnostic kits for a non-existent syndrome he claimed to have discovered. He also held a patent to a rival vaccine at the time, and he had been employed by a lawyer representing parents in lawsuits against vaccine producers.
Extensive investigation into vaccines and autism has shown that there is no relationship between the two, causal or otherwise, and that vaccine ingredients do not cause autism. Vaccinologist Peter Hotez researched the growth of the false claim and concluded that its spread originated with Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent 1998 paper, with no prior paper supporting a link.
COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the United States is the sociocultural phenomenon of individuals refusing or displaying hesitance towards receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the United States can be considered as part of the broader history of vaccine hesitancy.
References
- 1 2 "Gregory Poland Biography". Drgregpoland.com. Archived from the original on 7 September 2019. Retrieved 30 October 2015.
- 1 2 Childs, Dan (31 October 2008). "Death Threats, Hate Mail: Autism Debate Turns Ugly". ABC News. Retrieved 30 October 2015.
- 1 2 "Gregory A. Poland". Elsevier. Retrieved 30 October 2015.
- 1 2 3 Dibble, Adam. "Poland selected to head Defense Health Board" (PDF). The Emerald of Sigma Pi. p. 31. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 May 2021. Retrieved 22 August 2016.
- 1 2 3 "Gregory Poland, MD, MATh, MACP, FIDSA, FRCP(London)". nanovaccine.iastate.edu. Iowa State University. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
- ↑ "Gregory Poland Bio". Mayo Clinic. Retrieved 30 October 2015.
- ↑ Rather, Dan (11 December 2002). "The Most Dangerous Vaccine". CBS News. Retrieved 30 October 2015.
- ↑ Poland, Gregory A.; Jacobson, Robert M. (13 January 2011). "The Age-Old Struggle against the Antivaccinationists". New England Journal of Medicine. 364 (2): 97–99. doi:10.1056/NEJMp1010594. PMID 21226573.
- ↑ Poland, Gregory A. (2024-08-14). "Better safety studies could restore America's confidence in vaccines". STAT. Retrieved 2024-08-31.
- ↑ Poland, Gregory A.; Kennedy, Richard B. (April 2022). "Vaccine safety in an era of novel vaccines: a proposed research agenda". Nature Reviews Immunology. 22 (4): 203–204. doi:10.1038/s41577-022-00695-3. ISSN 1474-1741. PMC 8864453 . PMID 35197577.
- ↑ "Defense Health Board - Federal Advisory Committee to the Secretary of Defense | Health.mil". Archived from the original on 23 August 2016. Retrieved 22 August 2016.
- ↑ "Dr Gregory A. Poland". Terrapinn. 2016. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
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