Anti-vaxxers, or the people who form part of the anti-vaccination movement, are attempting to bring chaos into society through the form of disease. Through their “let’s-disregard-science” propaganda, these people have the goal of abolishing the entire concept of vaccination. This would bring fatal consequences to society as we know it, so it is important to truly understand how life-threatening these beliefs really are.
Vaccines, without a doubt, are one of the most essential public health inventions for the benefit of our society. This is why they are mandatory in most, if not all, nations.
But why are vaccines important?
Vaccines, as a primary function, allow us to obtain immunity to a disease without actually contracting it. When a person is vaccinated, a small portion of a disease (whether it is dead, very weak or something similar to it) is injected into their body. This activates their immune system, without making them sick, and allows their body to produce memory cells that fight off the infectious disease if it ever tries to make its way into the person’s system. It is even more important to ensure that the entire population (and if not possible, then the majority) gets vaccinated, as it can eventually contain the spread of an infectious disease (which is what has happened with chicken pox, for example). It does this through something called “herd immunity”: when enough people from a population have been vaccinated against a disease, there are only a few people who can get infected and spread the disease. This helps protect the people who have not been vaccinated, as the disease is not actively being spread (since the majority of the population are immune to it), which is why vaccination is so important.
Although the importance of vaccinations may seem obvious, the sad reality is that there are many misinformed people who are not aware of this. The anti-vaccination movement, which was originally formed in distrust of scientific advancement, has grown immensely by targeting people who are ignorant about how vaccines work. It spreads false information about vaccines, such as autism being a side effect of getting vaccinated, making people afraid of them. Due to the large number of people that have joined this movement, and their continuous efforts to spread misinformation through social media, it is of utmost importance to acknowledge these people exist and that they are an imminent threat to the public health of our society.
Why are anti-vaxxers dangerous?
Taking into consideration the groundbreaking, positive results vaccinations can achieve in a population, it is safe to say that stopping vaccinations altogether would completely undo the progress that has been made. Contained infectious diseases (like measles, mumps and rubella or polio) would begin spreading again, unnecessarily killing thousands of people every year. No movement, especially not one based on lies and oblivion, should have the right to demand anything that puts so many lives at risk. This is why we need to do everything in our power to stop the spread of anti-vaxxers.
So what can we do about this?
As I previously mentioned, the anti-vaccination movement keeps growing by inflicting false information and fear upon ignorance. In order to prevent this from happening, what we can do is teach others about the importance of vaccines. I have already started doing this by writing this article. Now the important question here is, when will you start?
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