Source ｜ Resolution Bureau
Head map ｜ Graph insect creative
In the past two days, the clinical trial results of the new coronary pneumonia treatment new drug Radecivir have been released one after another. Judging from the available data, Redcive is not as “magic” as one would expect.
The “magic medicine” is not a god, 7 billion people can only hope for vaccines.
As scientists are racing against time to develop vaccines, the anti-vaccine movement is also surging. What is anti-vaccine?
01. Against the vaccine, the western world has a long history
At the beginning of the epidemic in the Western world, celebrities stood up to boycott the new crown vaccine.
On March 25, 2020, British rap singer M.I.A tweeted: If I have to be vaccinated or implanted with a chip, then I choose to die.
British rap female singer tweeted
M.I.A’s attitude towards the new crown vaccine is just the tip of the iceberg.
Western resistance to vaccines has been around for a long time and has had a huge impact on society.
In the past two decades, the vaccination rate in the UK has been declining. From 95% in 1995 to 81% in 2004, the inoculation rate in the capital London is only 61%.
In 2016, a survey of vaccination in France showed that 26% of parents surveyed refusedVaccination of children is absolutely prohibited, 7% choose to delay vaccination, and 13% will vaccinate children but are skeptical. Nearly half of parents in France have concerns about vaccination.
2016 French Vaccination Survey
In Italy, which was tossed up in this epidemic, anti-vaccine activities are particularly prevalent. National team volleyball player Ivan Zaitsev, who posted a photo of his child vaccinated, sparked a political discussion about “anti-vaccine”.
Italian athlete Ivan Zaitsev and children
In June 2017, Italian people took to the streets to hold a march, demanding that the government abolish mandatory vaccination regulations.
In July of the following year, under the pressure of society and public opinion, the Italian government abolished the previously mandatory “Vaccine Act” and abolished the vaccine certification requirements in the entrance examination.
In Europe, the general attitude of people towards vaccines seems to be: vaccines are not antidote, they are poisons.
Not surprisingly, there is also an “anti-vaccine” trend in the United States.
At the end of the 19th century, a smallpox outbreak occurred in the United States, and the federal government required states to implement vaccination against vaccinia. However, the American people who advocated freedom and democracy launched anti-vaccine activities in full swing.
In 1879, the American Anti-Vaccine Society was established—this was earlier than the establishment of many serious academic research groups. With the organization and assistance of the Anti-Vaccine Society, the mandatory vaccination law has been abolished in seven states including California and Illinois.
In 2012, Trump, who was not yet the US president, joked on Twitter:
Healthy children go to the doctor and are vaccinated with a variety of vaccines, and then they become-children with autism, there are too many examples.
Trump opposes vaccines
In 2014, Trump also said, “My point of view has proved to be correct in the case of many vaccinations-those doctors are lying. Save our children and their future.”
In “88 million people infected, 50,000 people died: Why do Americans think Trump is doing well?” In the article, I once analyzed that some of Trump’s remarks actually catered to the current trend of American thought.
Trump has publicly opposed vaccines on many occasions, indirectly corroborating the anti-vaccine trend in the United States.
02. Looking back to the source, why did the West boycott vaccines?
Probably many people will find it strange, why do so many people in Western developed countries with generally high levels of education boycott vaccines?
Western society ’s anti-vaccines have to start with religion.
In 1796, Edward Jenner invented vaccinia vaccination to prevent smallpox, which is considered the beginning of human use of vaccines.
Edward Jenner vaccinates the child with vaccinia
The boycott started almost from the first day of vaccination.
The monks at that time thought that people were created by God according to their own image. How can they use the things on the cow? What’s more, it’s the ulcers on the cow’s breasts after virus infection? ! Therefore, they expressed strong opposition to the vaccine on the ground that it came from animals, violated customs, and violated the will of God.
To this day, some extreme clerics still oppose the injection of animal products, including bovine insulin, into the human body.
In addition to religious factors, the academic debate on vaccines has not been cut off.
In 1998, a paper published in the top medical journal “The Lancet” caused serious public doubts and panic about vaccine safety.
Wickfield, a British doctor, has teamed up with some colleagues. After counting the clinically contacted children with autism, they claimed that autism in children is related to vaccination of measles, rubella and mumps.
The Lancet paper on children ’s autism related to the triple vaccine of measles, rubella and mumps
Coincidentally, there are also researchers in the United States who specialize in the safety of vaccines and find that a preservative in the triple vaccine, thimerosal, contains neurotoxin mercury. Mercury poisoning mainly damages the human nervous system, which causes autism The possibility of illness. Wakefield’s view seems to be further consolidated.
These papers published in scientific journals have given activists who oppose vaccination a powerful weapon, and also pushed the anti-vaccine movement to a new high. safety.
In the past ten years, with the rise of individualism in Western society, another major thrust of the anti-vaccine movement has also emerged:
Individualists believe that compulsory vaccination violates citizens ’right to choose freely.
In fact, individualism has emerged as early as the nineteenth century. In 1898, under the pressure of protecting individual freedom, the British government relaxed the force of compulsory vaccination, allowing parents to choose not to be vaccinated for their children on the grounds of personal belief.
In recent years, advocating anti-vaccines to convey the signal of protecting individual rights has also become a new way of playing for some politicians in Europe and America.
In 2016, the three Republican candidates expected to run for president of the United States, Senator Rand Paul, Governor Chris Christie, and Rep. Sean Duffy, vigorously promoted citizen Choice of vaccination.
This ignited the anti-vaccine again.
03. For all to see, the positive effect of the vaccine is huge
Although the anti-vaccine movement has its causes, the practice has proven that the anti-vaccine is wrong.
Vaccination itself is a scientific issue, and Wakefield ’s paper, which doubted the safety of the vaccine, soon proved to be fraudulent.
In 2004, 13 co-authors of the paperAmong them, 10 people jointly issued an apology statement in The Lancet, and said that they are withdrawing papers and remarks about the connection between vaccines and autistic patients;
In 2010, the paper was formally withdrawn from The Lancet;
In 2011, Wakefield ’s medical qualification was banned by the British Medical Association.
Wakefield interviewed by reporters
In addition to the academic issues of the paper itself, Wakefield is also suspected of commercial bribery. The Sunday Times reported that Wakefield not only had huge loopholes in research theory, but also that the research evidence in the paper was artificially tampered with.
It is widely circulated that lawyers who specialize in anti-vaccination litigation have bribed Wakefield to provide him with so-called favorable “academic evidence.”
What’s even more striking is that Wakefield was exposed by the media as a “two-five-child”-just after he published a paper in 1998 claiming that the vaccine had problems, he also submitted a patent application for a measles vaccine.
Wakefield, the former “anti-vaccine fighter”, has stinked in the eyes of both academics and the public, but the consequences he caused are still endless.
Everyone can see that the vaccine is a weapon for humans to fight the virus. It is a type of biological agent that can stimulate the immune function of the human body, and has made great contributions to improving the average life span of human beings.
Vaccines have many benefits, for example, they do not produce drug resistance. For example, many vaccines can make people immune for life once and for all.
Especially when antiviral drugs have not been developed and popularized today, vaccines are even more important.
The anti-vaccine movement is gaining momentum, and Westerners are slowly enjoying the consequences of not vaccinating.
Take the measles vaccine just mentioned as an example. The number of measles infection cases in Italy has increased year by year. Compared with 2016, the anti-vaccine demonstrations set off in 2017 have caused measles cases to increase by nearly five times; in 2018, the growth has remained at about twice.
Measles infection in Italy in recent years
The United States across the ocean is not much better. The number of measles cases in the United States surged to 1,282 in 2019. This is the most reported case in the United States since 1992. The number of infections surged by 300% year-on-year.
Measles cases in the United States 2010-2019 Source: www.cdc.gov
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that the vast majority of cases are children, which occur among people who have not been vaccinated against measles.
04. Choose and pay the price
The negative consequences of vaccines, especially counterfeit and shoddy vaccines, have also increased public distrust of vaccines.
Some people even believe that pharmaceutical companies exaggerate the role of vaccines for commercial benefit and deliberately conceal the risks of vaccines. The doctor said that the child must be vaccinated because of the benefits of the pharmaceutical company.
If anti-vaccine is for this reason, it is a good thing, and it will help pharmaceutical companies to produce safer and more reliable vaccines.
But in fact, Anti-vaccine is not just a scientific issue, but a complex issue interwoven with religious, scientific, political, and social factors.
There is no answer to this question, only choice.
Anti-vaccines can choose not to vaccinate. Just like refusing to wear a mask and isolating your home, you just have to bear the consequences.
Choice comes at a price. This is what the New Crown Virus teaches humanity.