MUNITY East 2019 Pre-Conference Issue: Two Sides of The Same Coin

Anti-Vax
Not Just A Meme
Written by: Joey Lin
Edited by: Hyoree Kim
Photographs Sourced by: Dorian Chen
Layout & Artwork by: Ishwarya Krishna
For people who followed the Internet
closely this year, “anti-vax”
should already be a familiar word.
The word “anti-vax” is tossed
around as a subject of criticism
and is often used satirically in memes
as the embodiment of stupidity
or bad parenting. Behind the
memes, however, dwells a long and
dark history of vaccine hesitancy.
Vaccine hesitancy originated from
doubts about attempts to cure
smallpox in the 1700s. Opposition
came from both religious and scientific
communities, who believed
that vaccinations were immoral,
unsafe, and ineffective. The mistrust
regarding vaccines resulted
in 400,000 deaths each year in the
1700s in Europe alone. Nowadays,
the damage of vaccine hesitancy
isn’t as dramatic or fatal as that in
11
the days of yore. Still, due to modern
vaccine hesitancy, the World
Health Organization (WHO) has
measured an alarming 30% increase
in measles cases globally,
and countries that were close to
the eradication of the disease, like
the USA, have seen a resurgence.
WHO pointed out two reasons
underlying vaccine hesitancy are
complacency (the belief that one
doesn’t need vaccines) and lack of
confidence about vaccines’ safety.
Complacency and lack of confidence
are fuelled by discredited
doctors like British doctor Andrew
Wakefield. In 1998, Wakefield published
a paper claiming a link between
the measles-mumps-rubella
(MMR) vaccine and autism. The paper
was retracted in 2010. Doctors
Jeffrey Gerber and Paul Offit listed
the “victims” of claims against vaccines:
the MMR vaccine, thimerosal
- a chemical contained in many
vaccines, and the 16 vaccines
American children are commended
to take, which anti-vaxxers regard
as “too many vaccines,” and thus
harmful to the immune system.
However, the US National Institute
of Health (NIH) listed 20 studies utilizing
four different methods which
all failed to prove any association
between MMR and thimerosal vaccines
with autism. In addition, since
autism is not an immune-mediated
disease, the “too many vaccines un
dermine the immune system” claim
fundamentally makes no sense.
However, anti-vax sentiments still
linger due to unreliable public figures,
the most prominent of whom
currently is American actress Jenny
McCarthy. In 2007, McCarthy
claimed that her son Evan Asher