Vaccines As Our Solution Essay Example
Vaccines As Our Solution Essay Example

Vaccines As Our Solution Essay Example

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  • Pages: 7 (1715 words)
  • Published: August 25, 2021
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The art of persuasion has been around since the time of Aristotle and Socrates. Issues that are surrounded by controversy contain many components of rhetoric, such as the dangers or non-dangers of vaccines. Vaccines are the most common measure of precautionary medicine to aid in preserving the population from contracting deadly diseases and infections.

They have caused the decreasing rates of childhood diseased, and in some cases they have even wiped out diseases completely such as smallpox and nearly eliminated polio and malaria. Despite that, over the past few years there has been an upsurge in anti-vaccination attitudes that surround the credence that vaccines cause more harm than benefits to the health of the children who receive them. The foundation of the anti-vaxxer movement also contributes to the disparage of vaccinations by news outlets and social media.

Writers of articles typically

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tend to aim their arguments at parents, potential parents, researchers in the medical field and, the participants of the vaccine movement. Vaccines have been proven to be very effective and non harmful to children by doctors and experiments. Although the science had proven vaccination is positive it has been challenged through“educated” doctors, complications, and lastly the media.

The myths and fears of vaccines are not a new occurrence. The resistance against vaccines dates back to the eighteenth century when Reverend Edmund Massey in England claimed in his 1772 sermon called “The Dangerous and Sinful Practice of Inoculation” that vaccines are “diabolical operations”. He also asserted that vaccines were an attempt to oppose to God’s punishments. By using words that simply sound evil he was able to scare people into not vaccinating themselves and their children.

Reverend was also

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a religious leader and his position holds power and influence which made him a credible source. Corresponding religious resistance had also brought about in the “New World Era”,the writings of Reverend John Williams in Massachusetts, also declared the vaccines were the devils work. Nonetheless, objection to vaccines also began to manifest in many theological arguments; many of the arguments condemned them for political and legal reasonings.

Images such as this one were widely used and displayed by anti-vaccination advocates. The picture shows a fairly large snake hissing and chasing a woman with a small child in her arms, which is supposed to represent parents keeping their child safe from dangers and poison.

The image in itself is almost ironic because snakes symbolize rebirth, immorality, and healing and the snake in this is depicted as wicked. Another important aspect of this is that out of all the animals in the world they use a snake, in the bible the Genesis 3:1 the Garden of Eden, the snake told Eve that she can eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil even though God told them not to eat from the tree.

The serpent tells Eve that she of course can eat from the tree and surely she will not die but instead that she will become like God herself and know good from evil. God was angry and cursed the serpents kinds by making them have to crawl on their bellies in the dust and become the enemies of mankind. The serpents (snakes) are not portrayed as deceiving tricksters.

Which is what religious figures view vaccines to be. In the back of the picture one can see a

skeleton that seems to be compelling the snake to chase this woman, hence that religious people thought that vaccinations were the devils work, so this skeleton represented anyone who advocates for vaccines. This image holds nothing but fear and evil, displaying vaccinations as an evil that is only made to harm kids. Propaganda like this is the reason why so many individuals are uneducated on the issue.

The passage in the laws of Britain during the mid nineteenth century made it a requirement for parents to have their kids vaccinated and anti-vaccine advocates began to form. The interest group accentuated that its goal was to defend the autonomy of the peoples whose liberties were being “infringed” by the Parliament and its vaccination laws.

Afterward, the public duress endeavored by the league brought them to pass an act in 1898. The policy ultimately ended up removing the punishments for those who would not obey the vaccination laws and allowed the parent, who did not think vaccines were helpful, to not to have their children vaccinated.

Though the criticism of the measles vaccine was because of the fear that it would cause children to become autistic is the most recent example, there has been more examples of outburst of previously eradicated illnesses. Such as the denial of parents in Britain to vaccinate their children during the 1970’s, as well as the 1980’s against pertussis. This was in retaliation to a 1974 report that stated that there had been approximately 36 individuals who experienced neurological reactions to the MMR vaccine.

Of course the results of the report spurred a reduction in the MMR vaccine absorption throughout the United Kingdom from 81% in

the year 1974 to 31% in 1980, which ended up causing a pertussis outbreak in the UK, which put all eyes on the National Health System (CITE). These outbreaks are happening due to the media putting panic and fear into peoples mind making them go against the opinions of professional doctors. The human mind is designed for fight or fly and when a person has terror distilled in their mind more times than not they’re going to choose flight.

The anti-vaccine advocates has been strongly revitalized in the past few years due to the publication of the Lancet with a paper written by a former British researcher and doctor named Andrew Wakefield. He proposed a belief that debunked the correlation linking diseases such as the mumps, rubella, and measles vaccines and the establishment of young autistic children. Later on respective research refuted the association between the rubella vaccine and autism.

Even though these accusations of vaccines have been disproven, celebrities such as Jenny McCarthy, have shown to be very powerful voices in the anti-vaccine controversy by overpowering the public minds with fear and distrust. McCarthy’s son was diagnosed with autism and she never sought to find solid evidence to prove that it was caused by the vaccinations.

In one of her interviews she stated “People are also dying from vaccinations. Evan, my son, died in front of me for two minutes.You ask any mother in the autism community we’ll take the flu, the measles, over autism any day of the week. I think they need to wake up and stop hurting our kids”. She says things such as “our kids” to create a connection with other mothers so

she can establish credibility as well as an emotional connection.

Over 10 million people were vaccinated in the year 2017 and approximately 47 people died putting the risk at .0000047% to die from a vaccine. Vaccines also save about 6 million lives every single year. Social media and television talk shows also promote the anti movement. The anti-vaccination propaganda have become so sufficient and widespread that it has stretched to separate parts of the world, mainly within Western Europe and North America.

Sites such as (Immunization Alternatives.com) is an internet source that is devoted to informing their audience of the many dangers of vaccinations while also urging “safe, effective” homeopathic alternatives to vaccines in addition to homeopathic treatments for already diagnosed vaccines preventable illnesses. The publisher of the website, Kari Kindem, a known homeopath has an undergraduate degree in international relations. She has also obtained 500 hours of homeopathic training and received various certifications.

The site also lists the common vaccines as well as a breakdown of what ingredients are used inside of these vaccines. When the average person with no medical background reads all of these long scary words, they tend to overthink and begin to believe the myths and allergic reactions that have been told to them by the media. This approach uses ones mixed emotions to persuade a reader to feel scared for their kids health and to bring in medical terminology without educating the reader with why its used in vaccines or how it can danger a child.

Protestors in Texas were interviewed, and they were asked why were they against vaccines and the most common response was that people had researched what was in

the vaccines and did not want to inject their kids with so called “toxins” Which of course if a person reads that all these unknown ingredients are being injected into their children, the increase of objection begins to rise unless the person does in depth research of what exactly that ingredient is and why it is used. The parents will always find something going wrong with one miniscule drop of protein enzymes.

Technology is another factor in the myths and misconceptions of vaccines. Obtaining medical intelligence online has drastically altered the progress of the preventative medicine industry as well as patient to physician interactions. Pharmaceutical information that used to be exclusive to class lectures, books, journals, and experiments and given only to medical professional, has now been easily accessible to the public and has retracted the power from professional doctors as primary caretakers to the people who believe they are doctors because they did a Google search.

This resulted in the current inception of what people are calling “shared decision making” that allows healthcare physicians and patients to have shared decisions. Though this may be helpful in a variety of ways, the diffusion of flawed and deceptive information established on the web hold its own adverse repercussions. For instance, parents who refuse to give doctors consent to have their kids vaccinated.

A study of Youtube videos was done, and in the study researchers found that anti-vaccination videos had 32% higher ratings than the pro-vaccine videos. Online anti-vaccination authors utilize a variety of strategies to push along their agenda. Some common tactics are skewing science, changing people's hypothesis, redacting opposition research, and battering critics. Though these strategies are deceptive,

they still prove to be successful in influencing parents. A study had been conducted to evaluate how well individuals assessed the accuracy of medical information about vaccines online, and the study gathered that 18 internet sites out of the 40 given were accurate leaving the rest of the sites to be decieving.

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