Read “An Outbreak of the Irrational” by Sarah Dzubay and wri…
Read “An Outbreak of the Irrational” by Sarah Dzubay and write a summary. Sarah Dzubay is an MD / MPH candidate at the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine. She wrote this essay in a first-year composition course at the University of Notre Dame, and it appeared in 2017 in Fresh Writing, a Notre Dame journal devoted to first-year writing. The in-text documentation and works-cited list follow MLA guidelines. As you read, notice how Dzubay uses evidence to support her argument. In the spring of 2015, a number of families who had visited Disneyland in the hopes of enjoying “the happiest place on Earth” returned home only to discover that their children had contracted measles. Measles, as well as diseases like polio and pertussis, are believed to be plagues of the past, which have not been encountered in over fifty years. So why have they reemerged in some of the most developed, wealthy, and educated countries in the world? These diseases were effectively eradicated through the discovery of vaccines. Before the measles vaccine was created in the 1960s, this disease had killed hundreds of millions of people throughout history. Measles wiped out any population who had not developed some form of resistance to it, especially native populations who came in contact with the foreign illness due to the arrival of European settlers and their domesticated animals. After the vaccine was produced and the majority of developed countries were inoculated with it, rates of infection for the measles were reduced to almost nothing. Now, after generations have lived life with no contact with anyone who has had measles, people are starting to lose their grasp on the severity of the disease. People who no longer fear the disease and are more concerned with the effects of the vaccine itself are opting out of vaccinating their children with the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine (Lin and McGreevy). It is because of these choices that measles outbreaks are becoming more and more common around the United States, and in other countries as well. The fear of vaccines is not unwarranted — the idea of injecting your child with some foreign substance, whose purpose, side effects, and origins you may not be educated about, is a frightening concept; but, as with many aspects of medicine, the costs must be weighed against the benefits. The fact of the matter is that without vaccines, our globe would be ravaged by disease and we would not be able to be as productive and successful as we are today. Vaccines have helped us overcome diseases that have haunted civilizations since the dawn of humanity; they protect us from the patho- gens that fill our environments — deadly killers that we are able to forget about because of modern medical achievements. Vaccines are some of the most important medical discoveries in history because they have allowed us to break through those barriers that, in the past, prevented humans from being more productive due to the abundance of life-threatening ill- nesses. With our life expectancies vastly lengthened and our daily lives less affected by sickness, it has become easy for first-world citizens to forget the true importance of getting vaccinated. The movement to opt out of vaccination is irrational and dangerous. Individuals advocating for their right to exercise their personal freedom are looking in the wrong places for justification and ignoring the threat they present to society as a whole. One of the most important concepts behind the effectiveness of inocu- lation is that of herd immunity. Herd immunity refers to the idea that by vaccinating a majority, the small population who cannot get vaccinated will still be protected from the disease. Epidemiologists, who study the spread of disease, try to determine something called a basic reproduction number (R0) for a disease, which is the number of people that one infected individual can likely spread their disease to (Sadava). This number then helps to determine the percentage of people who must be vaccinated for the protection to be strong enough to protect those who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons, like infants, elderly people, or those with compro- mised immune systems. This is called the immunity threshold (Willingham and Helft). At this level, the general population is safe because those who have had their vaccinations are not only directly protecting themselves, but also indirectly aiding those who have not been vaccinated, because it is much more difficult for the disease to spread. However, when the levels of vaccination drop below this threshold level, diseases can come back with a vengeance, just as the measles have begun to. Families choosing to opt out of the MMR and other vaccines are a threat to the protection that we have built against disease as a national and international community. Electing to refuse the vaccines that the majority of the population are pro- vided with, based solely on unfounded personal interest, is selfish, because these individuals become free riders in a vaccinated community whose herd immunity they are counting on to protect them. Vaccine refusal is also dangerous, as it puts herd immunity at risk by lowering the number of vaccinated individuals below the immunity threshold. One may ask who these people are and why they are choosing to threaten the safety of the greater population. Perhaps surprisingly, the people in developed countries who are refusing to get vaccinated are not the underprivileged or uneducated, but rather the opposite. Generally, wealthy, privileged people are more inclined to question what their doc- tors recommend, do their own investigation online, and be more confident in their own beliefs and findings. When faced with the decision of whether to vaccinate their kids or not, these middle- and upper-class families are searching high and low for reasons to say no. Being curious and asking questions about the effectiveness or safety of a vaccine is not an issue; it is, in fact, prudent and advisable. However, many times the sources these people are consulting are not reputable and have little scientific validity. One of the biggest concerns today about vaccinations is that they cause autism. Many celebrities and politicians, such as Jenny McCarthy and Don- ald Trump, have spoken out against vaccines because they believe they are to be blamed for the rise of autism in the modern world. The root of this issue is a paper published in 1998 by Andrew Wakefield that claimed a correlation between vaccines and autism in young children. This paper was read widely and still, to this day, scares people out of vaccinating their children, despite the fact that this paper has been completely invalidated by follow-up research and Mr. Wakefield has been tried for misconduct (“Case”). Another, more complex issue presented by anti-vaccine advocates is that vaccines cause children to have seizures, along with other dangerous reactions that result in long-term disabilities. One family, featured in a NOVA television episode about the vaccine controversy, were horrified when their infant son began to have terrible seizures hours after he received his first round of vaccines (Vaccines ). Initially, they, like a number of other families who have had similar experiences, blamed the vaccines for their child’s health problems. However, as they began to delve deeper into the issue and consulted more medical professionals and researchers, they discovered that their son’s devastating epilepsy had not been caused by a vaccine, but rather triggered by it. While watching their child have seizures was a terrible experience for this family, they came to under- stand that this underlying genetic problem would have resulted in their son’s having seizures no matter what. Herein lies the difficulty with the argument that vaccines cause children to have life-long health problems because of a negative reaction — many times this reaction is the result of a previously unobserved health problem that the child already possessed at birth (“Infant Immunizations”). Because babies get their first vaccines so quickly after their birth, it can be exceedingly difficult to differentiate between a vaccine-related issue and a birth defect. It is true that vaccines can sometimes cause unpleasant reactions or even illness, but this does not validate choosing to avoid any vaccines whatsoever. Rather, people should use their account of a negative experience with a vaccine to try and advocate for an improvement in that inoculation, so that the problem is solved and progress can be made for the benefit of all. Political and ethical values can also play a role in a person’s deci- sion to vaccinate or not. Many people fear that because companies are attempting to make a profit off of the vaccines they are producing, these pharmaceutical corporations are pressuring the CDC and other regula- tory agencies to approve their vaccines before they are truly effective or safe (Fadda et al.). Anti-vaccine activists argue that vaccines are not really necessary, but are instead the product of doctors having been paid off by medical corporations to force families to use their products. Besides being scientifically incorrect, this argument falls short because our medical sys- tem is essentially an economic marketplace. Vaccines are not a profitable or lucrative investment for companies. At most, one type of vaccine is administered three times to an individual, not two or three times daily like some heart or pain medications. Without subsidization or incentives from the government, companies would not be able to make any money off of vaccines, and there would simply be no economic reason for them to produce these products (“Key Concepts”). The way in which our economic system is set up, it is necessary that companies be able to make money off of medicines, or there would be no drive for companies to innovate and provide these necessities. Discussion and research are vital parts of any society. They allow for progress and innovation, stronger relationships, and increased coopera- tion. However, the way in which upper-class families are attacking the issue of vaccination is hardly a real discussion at all. By basing their argu- ments off of outdated and unfounded scientific evidence, as well promot- ing a high level of paranoia about the conventional medical community, their arguments fail to bring any benefit to society. Instead of helping to improve our nation’s discourse on the subject of medicinal standards and patient-physician relations, these people are obstinately refusing to see reason, thereby showing their own selfishness. When people live in a community, it is their duty to think not only of what is best for them and their closest kin, but also of the greater good. By losing sight of this fun- damental responsibility to help provide protection for all of those around us, people are threatening the safe environment the scientific and medical communities have worked to build, while simultaneously depending on others to do the work for them. It is time for anti-vaccination advocates to open their minds and not only discuss their fears about vaccination with the medical community, but also listen to the hard evidence. We must all claim our roles as responsible protectors of our nation’s health. Dzubay, Sarah “An Outbreak of the Irrational.” The Norton Field Guide to Writing with Readings, 6th ed., W. W. Norton & Company , New York, New York, 2022, pp. 825–830.