This week (April 20-27) is Vaccination Week in the Americas.

Never has there been such an important
week in our ever increasing “It's XXXXXX Day/Week”.

Whist the Health Authorities across the
world, with heavy emphasis on the USA, have been sleeping the
Anti-vaccination Movement have been blasting their rhetoric across
media platforms that are also to blame. The result is a measles
epidemic that is spreading across the USA now and there is no good
news it is stopping. It seems inevitable it will be here.

The recent trends by parents in Western
countries to refuse to vaccinate their children due to numerous
reasons and perceived fears is why. While opposition to vaccines is
as old as the vaccines themselves, there has been a recent surge in
the opposition to vaccines in general, specifically against the MMR
(measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine, most notably since the rise in
prominence of the notorious British ex-physician, Andrew Wakefield,
and his works. This has caused multiple measles outbreaks in Western
countries where the measles virus was previously considered
eliminated.

Wakefield is not alone.

From Cureus:

Voices such as Jenny McCarthy’s have
proven to be influential, sweeping fear and distrust into parents’
minds by parading as “autism experts”. Social media and
television talk show hosts, such as Oprah Winfrey, played a big role
in this miseducation by giving credence to the campaign. This has
caused vaccination rates to sustain a surprising drop in some Western
countries. The decrease in vaccinations has led to recent outbreaks
of diseases that were thought to be “eliminated”, such as
measles. Still, other reasons for the anti-vaccination movement can
be due to personal reasons, such as religious or secular views. A
drop in immunizations poses a threat to the herd immunity the medical
world has worked hard to achieve. Global communities are now more
connected than ever, which translates to a higher probability of the
transmission of pathogens. The only thing that can protect
populations against a rapidly spreading disease is the disease's
resistance created by herd immunity when the majority are immune
after vaccinations. Given the highly contagious nature of diseases
like measles, vaccination rates of 96% to 99% are necessary to
preserve herd immunity and prevent future outbreaks.

Origins of the anti-vaccination
movement

Fear of vaccines and myths against them
are not a new phenomenon. Opposition to vaccines goes as far back as
the 18th century when, for example, Reverend Edmund Massey in England
called the vaccines “diabolical operations” in his 1772 sermon,
“The Dangerous and Sinful Practice of Inoculation” [4]. He
decried these vaccines as an attempt to oppose God’s punishments
upon man for his sins. Similar religious opposition was seen in the
“New World” even earlier, such as in the writings of Reverend
John Williams in Massachusetts, who also cited similar reasons for
his opposition to vaccines claiming that they were the devil’s
work. However, opposition against vaccines was not only manifested in
theological arguments; many also objected to them for political and
legal reasons. After the passage of laws in Britain in the mid-19th
century making it mandatory for parents to vaccinate their children,
anti-vaccine activists formed the Anti-Vaccination League in London.
The league emphasized that its mission was to protect the liberties
of the people which were being “invaded” by Parliament and its
compulsory vaccination laws. Eventually, the pressure exerted by the
league and its supporters compelled the British Parliament to pass an
act in 1898, which removed penalties for not abiding by vaccination
laws and allowed parents who did not believe vaccination was
beneficial or safe to not have their children vaccinated. Since the
rise and spread of the use of vaccines, opposition to vaccines has
never completely gone away, vocalized intermittently in different
parts of the world due to arguments based in theology, skepticism,
and legal obstacles.

Anti-vaccination propaganda

While pushback against the measles
vaccine due to fears of its connection to autism is the most recent
example that comes to mind, there have been other instances of
outbreaks of previously “extinct” diseases in modern times. One
example is the refusal of some British parents to vaccinate their
children in the 1970s and 1980s against pertussis in response to the
publication of a report in 1974 that credited 36 negative
neurological reactions to the whole-cell pertussis vaccine. This
caused a decrease in the pertussis vaccine uptake in the United
Kingdom (UK) from 81% in 1974 to 31% in 1980, eventually resulting in
a pertussis outbreak in the UK, putting severe strain and pressure on
the National Health System. Vaccine uptake levels were elevated to
normal levels after the publication of a national reassessment of
vaccine efficacy that reaffirmed the vaccine’s benefits, as well as
financial incentives for general practitioners who achieved the
target of vaccine coverage. Disease incidence declined dramatically
as a result.

The anti-vaccination movement was most
strongly rejuvenated in recent years by the publication of a paper in
The Lancet by a former British doctor and researcher, Andrew
Wakefield, which suggested credence to the debunked-claim of a
connection between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and
development of autism in young children. Several studies published
later disproved a causal association between the MMR vaccine and
autism. Wakefield drew severe criticism for his flawed and unethical
research methods, which he used to draw his data and conclusions. A
journalistic investigation also revealed that there was a conflict of
interest with regard to Wakefield’s publication because he had
received funding from litigants against vaccine manufacturers, which
he obviously did not disclose to either his co-workers nor medical
authorities. For all of the aforementioned reasons, The Lancet
retracted the study, and its editor declared it “utterly false”.
As a result, three months later, he was also struck off the UK
Medical Registry, barring him from practicing medicine in the UK. The
verdict declared that he had "abused his position of trust"
and "brought the medical profession into disrepute" in the
studies he carried out.

Repercussions of declining vaccination
rates

The damage, however, was already done
and the myth was spread to many different parts of the world,
especially Western Europe and North America. In the UK, for example,
the MMR vaccination rate dropped from 92% in 1996 to 84% in 2002. In
2003, the rate was as low as 61% in some parts of London, far below
the rate needed to avoid an epidemic of measles. In Ireland, in
1999-2000, the national immunization level had fallen below 80%, and
in part of North Dublin, the level was around 60%. In the US, the
controversy following the publication of the study led to a decline
of about 2% in terms of parents obtaining the MMR vaccine for their
children in 1999 and 2000. Even after later studies explicitly and
thoroughly debunked the alleged MMR-autism link, the drop in
vaccination rates persisted.

As a result, multiple breakouts of
measles have occurred throughout different parts of the Western
world, infecting dozens of patients and even causing deaths. In the
UK in 1998, 56 people contracted measles; in 2006, this number
increased to 449 in the first five months of the year, with the first
death since 1992. In 2008, measles was declared endemic in the UK for
the first time in 14 years. In Ireland, an outbreak occurred in 2000
and 1,500 cases and three deaths were reported. The outbreak was
reported to have occurred as a direct result of a drop in vaccination
rates following the MMR controversy. In France, more than 22,000
cases of measles were reported from 2008 - 2011. The United States
has not been an exception, with outbreaks occurring most recently in
2008, 2011, and 2013.

Perhaps the most infamous example of a
measles outbreak in the United States occurred in 2014-2015. The
outbreak was believed to originate from the Disneyland Resort in
Anaheim, California and resulted in an estimated 125 people
contracting the disease. It was estimated that MMR vaccination rates
among the exposed population in which secondary cases have occurred
might be as low as 50% and likely no higher than 86%. Physicians in
the region were criticized for deviating from the CDC's (Center for
Disease Control and Prevention) recommended vaccination schedule
and/or discouraging vaccination. As a result, California passed
Senate Bill 277, a mandatory vaccination law in June 2015, banning
personal and religious exemptions to abstain from vaccinations.

SOURCE:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6122668/

As can be seen from the above, many
parents have ignored the sound advice and listened to the social
media platforms because we have another epidemic on our hands. At
last there are signs that some of the popular media platforms are
taking down the anti-vaccination movements demonization of
vaccinations. It is about time, and they are only doing it now
because they are frightened they be involved in law suits.

I leave you with the concluding
sentences from the source paper above:

“ ...to combat the anti-vaccination movement, there must be a strong emphasis on helping parents develop trust in health professionals and relevant authorities, educating them on the facts and figures, debunking the myths peddled by the anti-vaccination movements, and even introducing legislation that promotes vaccination, if not mandating it."

NOTE: See also iNews Cayman story published today "Vaccination Week in the Americas 2019".

The story includes a Message from our Minister of Health, Hon. Dwayne Seymour in which he announces:

"This Saturday, 27 April, public health authorities will take a further step further towards protecting our community. They have organised a special immunisation clinic at the Public Health Department at the Cayman Islands Hospital, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. where parents may bring all children needing vaccinations, including those with missed or outstanding doses."