Vaccinations: when fear meets science

by Phil Stott
 
The issue of vaccinations is one that my wife and I have been facing up to ever since Maeve was born. At just 19 months of age, she's had no less than 22 separate jabs-a series that began within a week of her birth. The sheer containing her vaccination record, meanwhile, has spaces for at least 16 more-a figure that doesn't take into account vaccines that require multiple injections. Over the short time since Maeve's birth, that seems like a lot to have put her through, and I've questioned more than once whether all the injections are strictly necessary. To date, though, we've always gone ahead with whatever Maeve's pediatrician has recommended.

Ever since Maeve's 15-month checkup, however, one vaccine has figured in our thoughts more than any other, our willingness to have Maeve receive it clouded by second-hand stories from acquaintances, half-remembered news reports from years back, and, specifically, concerns about links between it and autism. I'm talking, of course, about the MMR vaccine.

Having talked around the issue for quite some time, and put the vaccination off at a couple of Maeve's doctor visits out of fear, I realized that I didn't have much more than hearsay to go on, and that my fears were grounded in ignorance, rather than fact. The long and short of it: I hadn't actually got around to doing any research, which meant that every time my wife and I had the discussion about what we should do, we ended up chasing the only possibilities-get it, delay it, or go live somewhere that proof of it isn't required before your child can be admitted to school.

When I did start looking into the vaccination, it wasn't difficult to find "evidence" of a link between MMR and autism. Sites abounded with personal stories of parents who witnessed their children's mental acuity declining after receiving the vaccination. Hearsay evidence is everywhere. What is conspicuous by its absence, however, is any kind of hard science to back the hearsay up. As far as I can tell, not one site or reputable study exists that provides conclusive proof of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

What I did find in the course of my research (which I'm compelled to point out is far from exhaustive) was the history of how rumors of a link-and a public health scare-came about. Basically, back in 1998, a British scientist by the name of Andrew Wakefield published an article in the medical journal The Lancet, claiming he had discovered existence of a link. Cue widespread panic, lawsuits, and more than a decade of arguing over the results of his research.

Since Wakefield made his claims, however, no other scientist has been able to reproduce his results. Additionally, British newspaper The Sunday Times (one of the respectable ones) has gone to considerable lengths to investigate his claims, and has repeatedly found problems with his research. Indeed, the paper has been covering the story for over a decade, and as recently as February of this year published an article alleging that some of the medical records Wakefield relied on had been altered or hidden. (The direct link to the article was broken when I tried it, but you can read a copy of it here.)

The article also points out the major advantage of getting Maeve vaccinated: being able to live without the fear my child getting three serious diseases. For, as full as the internet is of stories of people who have seen their child develop autism and blame it on the MMR vaccine, it's also pretty well-stocked with documentary evidence of the effects of measles, mumps, and rubella. Having read about each of them, I came to the conclusion that their potential effects-and the chances of Maeve contracting any of them without a vaccine-were much worse than an unproven link between the vaccine and autism.

So that's about it. More than a decade of fear over a link where the evidence may or may not have been manipulated. In light of that, I was finally able to make a decision over the MMR, swallow my fear, and allow Maeve to get it. Whether it was the right decision or not, I'll probably never know. But at least it was the best-informed one I could have made.