I’m terrified of shots. Just a simple image of a needle going through the skin makes me shiver and gives me goosebumps. When I was at high school every time we had to go for a shot or even a simple TB skin test at least two friends had to drag me to the doctor’s office, where every so often I would faint. At least, since being a kid I knew for sure that no matter what life has for me I wouldn’t turn into a heroin addict. Well, I also knew that I never could become a doctor or a nurse.
Through the time I became a little better. I trained myself to donate blood, which unfortunately always involves a needle going into my vein. (To be honest, I still fainted a few times, but mostly I was fine. Don't look, don't think, try to stay calm - that was my rule). Yet, if I can get away without having a needle I’m all for it. That's why every time I get a filling I shock my dentist who isn’t used to people preferring to bear the pain over having anesthesia.
On top of that in my adult life a had a good friend who was a very skeptic a little paranoid doctor. He always advised to wait a decade or two before injecting a new vaccine that is supposed to protect the humanity. I guess that’s why I still never had a flu shot.
And despite my relationship with needles, I'm grateful I went through the entire cycle of obligatory vaccination.
When I was growing up there was no such a question as “to vaccinate or not to vaccinate.” I’m not sure what exactly has changed in the world of vaccination but looks like a lot has changed in our heads. And it doesn't look like we learned a lot, more like we forgot a lot.
Becoming parents my friends now split into pro-vaccinators and radical anti-vaccinators. Even though I'm not a parent, I belong to the first camp but I can see why people are against vaccines.
Vaccination came to life over two hundred years ago. Back then people were afraid that injections could kill them. In the 18th century, simple pox took over 500 million lives. To compare, in all wars of the 20s century 234 million died.
Back then, doctors vaccinated people with pox-wound fluid to build up the immune system. That was dangerous and in many cases led to a full-scale infection and death. Later doctors noticed that if people first picked the virus from animals, cows in particular, then the real humane pox wouldn’t stick to them. They realized that weakened animals’ type of bacteria wasn’t strong enough, but helped to create the immune resistance. When they understood that it was working, the English government obliged everybody to vaccinate to prevent future epidemics. (By the way, Latin "vaccinae" means cow's). And as soon as vaccination became obligatory, an army of anti-vaccinators appeared. They spread the ideas of vaccines being poisonous and deathly dangerous causing death and terrible side-effects such as the growth of horns, cow tails and hoofs.
And the more governments pressed people forcing them to vaccinate the more resistance they faced. Yet when the main old-time pandemics died down at the beginning of the 1900s, anti-vaccinators' camp decreased.
The next main anti-vaccination wave happened in the 1980s when Diphtheria and Tetanus Toxoids and Pertussis Vaccine became obligatory. Same as 200 years ago people were afraid that the vaccine was useless at the very least, and life-threatening at the most. Hundreds of Americans were suing the medical system. The research has proven that vaccines don’t cause autism, diabetes, thrombosis or paralysis. Yet some doctors and lawyers still advocate that if the diseases developed after vaccination, then vaccines caused them. Those supporting alternative medicine also promote the harm of vaccination. Everything is just as 200 years ago.
When refusal to vaccinate becomes massive it puts everybody at risk. Contemporary attitude towards vaccination nowadays reminds me of views on HIV and AIDS back in a day. People believed it was a fake alarm until it turned into a massive problem.
Nowadays we get vaccinated for about 20 diseases that we don’t even know. That makes these vaccinations feel useless. In other words, vaccination fell a victim of its own success. We forgot how “enemies” look like, became afraid of vaccination and lost caution. But those forgotten diseases are still there.
Try searching infections like measles, meningitis, mumps, rubella, whooping-cough and so on. And if you are still not impressed, check out pictures of sick kids. It is a great vaccine against “anti-vaccinating” ideas.
And if that doesn’t help, then probably a recent measles breakout will make people rethink their attitude towards vaccination.
