Joaquín Díaz Atienza
INTRODUCTION
The anti-vaccine movement originated in England in 1853 with the founding of the “The Anti-Vaccination League” and in 1867 with the "The Anti-Compulsory Vaccination Leagues", as a reaction to the smallpox vaccine.
La The Anti-Vaccination League It was the result of the merger of several smaller anti-vaccine movements. It remained active until 1969. Although it was a general anti-vaccine movement, its initial objective was to prevent smallpox vaccination, which was regulated by the Vaccination Act of 1853. They presented arguments in Parliament against compulsory vaccination, supporting their claim with documents that included numerous deaths and serious side effects, malformations, neurological syndromes, and intellectual disability, especially in children. They even presented a case of syphilis caused by the vaccine. Of course, the vast majority of the cases presented were unrelated to the vaccine.
Their demands generated significant media attention and widespread public support. They published numerous publications, the most important being the Human Nature, which ceased publication in 1972.
La The Anti-Compulsory Vaccination LeagueFounded with the same objectives, it disseminated numerous anti-vaccine pamphlets and held lectures throughout the country. Its highest authority was the emeritus professor of moral philosophy. FW Newman, younger brother of Cardinal JH Newman.
Finally, they managed to modify the Law of 1853, creating the figure of the “conscious opponent” that was exempt from the obligation and, therefore, from the sanctions imposed by the aforementioned law.
The first ones emerged in 1880 movements in the US, founded in 1879 Anti-Vaccination Society of the United States. They followed New England League Against Mandatory Vaccination in 1882 and the New York City Anti-Vaccination League in 1885, even managing to achieve the repeal of mandatory vaccination in the laws of some states.
Finally, in response to the smallpox outbreak in Massachusetts in 1902, which caused widespread death, a mandatory vaccination law was enacted. However, due to the refusal of some citizens to comply, it was... Supreme Court who finally ruled in favor of mandatory education in 1905.
The anti-vaccine movement spread through some European countries, especially France and Germany, where a group of doctors, in 1890, signed a document rejecting the smallpox vaccine.
The anti-vaccine movement is still alive
- In 1970 the vaccination program against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP). From its inception, suspicions of its insecurity spread among the population. The final straw was the publication by the Hospital for Sick Children Great Ormond Street In London, a report stated that 36 children had suffered serious neurological problems as a result of the vaccine. Following this statement from the hospital, numerous debates ensued in the media, creating a Association of Parents of Vaccine Damaged Children (APVDC). Social pressure led to a decrease in the vaccination rate, increasing the risk to the population. In fact, three epidemics with high mortality rates occurred, leading to... Joint Commission on Vaccination and Immunization An independent committee of experts was convened to assess the safety of the DTP vaccine. Although their report concluded that the vaccination was safe, mistrust persists among the public and some pediatricians. The debate has become so significant that National Childhood Encephalopathy Study (NCES) A national investigation was conducted on children affected by neurological diseases, concluding that the risk of neurological condition was extremely low, so the vaccination program was restarted.
In the US, movements against the DTP vaccine also emerged, although they gained less importance than in the UK because the American Academy of Pediatrics and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention They were much more forceful in their pro-vaccination stance, a position that dampened the strength of the anti-DTP vaccine movement.
- 25 years later, and again in the United Kingdom, a movement against vaccination with the "triple" vaccine emerges: measles, mumps and rubella (MMR). It all begins with the doctor's statement. Andrew Wakefield in 1998 that the MMR vaccine is unsafe, as well as its link to cases of autism. Her research was published in the prestigious journal The LancetThis is spreading internationally. In fact, I myself was affected in my work as a child psychiatrist treating patients with autism. It's important to note that in most cases, the age of onset of the first symptoms coincides with the vaccination schedule.
In 2004, the Editorial Committee acknowledged that it should not have published the article due to some methodological flaws, although it wasn't until 2010 that it recognized the research as scientific fraud. The doctor Andrew Wakefield He was finally expelled from the register of College of Physicians from United Kingdom.
Autism and thimerosal
One of the purported causes of autism is the use of thimerosal (an organomercury compound) as an excipient in some vaccines. Numerous studies have disproven this theory. The latest communication from Institute of Medicine Committee on Vaccine Safety Research The US states that it is "in favor of rejecting any causal link between vaccines containing thimerosal and autism." Despite the evidence to the contrary, the manufacturers' current stance has been to withdraw thimerosal from their vaccines.
The weight that the publication in The Lancet acquired in broad sectors of the scientific community, despite the fact that in 2004 it acknowledged that it should not have been published, is due to the fact that in 2005 I was invited by the Faculty of Medicine of the Ateneo de Monterey University (Mexico) to give a lecture on the relationship between vaccines and autismMost of the team suspected a cause-and-effect relationship. To support their position, it's important to note that The Lancet publications team didn't publicly acknowledge the fraud in the aforementioned publication until 2010, and that much of the medical community was uncertain about it. Even today, many families are afraid to vaccinate their children and use dietary treatments based on scientifically unproven theories.
How well-founded are the suspicions?
The main arguments against vaccines are usually related to their safety and efficacy. It is argued that some vaccines may infect rather than protect, that side effects may be more serious than those caused by the infection itself, that other substances may be added to vaccines for purposes other than protection, and even that elements created by nanotechnology may be introduced to control the population.
There are precedents of malpractice by the pharmaceutical industry that ended up in court and resulted in unfavorable rulings. But perhaps the most impactful was the WHO's involvement in one of the many frauds detected. The most shocking case concerns the fraud that occurred during a Tetanus Vaccination Program in Kenya (213 and 2015), consisting of introducing the subunit into some batches of the tetanus vaccine beta of the human chorionic gonadotropin hormone (hCG), associated with tetanus toxoid, with the purpose of sterilizing certain population groups.
