Interactive Map Summarizes The Consequences Of The Anti-Vaccination Movement

Vaccinations are an incredible aspect of modern medicine. They can make lethal diseases disappear and save countless lives. There is, still, a chance that the vaccines work a bit too well and our collective memory is too short to remember the effects of some of these diseases just a few short decades ago. Lately, for reasons that aren't based on science or logic, several parents have outspokenly rejected vaccinating their kids. Alas, that has led to a reemergence of easily managed diseases.

Because of that, the Council on Foreign Relations released an interactive map which sums up the catastrophic outcome of those poor choices, which is published on the Vaccines Work website.

The map gives a detailing tour of global outbreaks from 2008-2017 of measles, mumps, polio, rubella, and whooping cough. These diseases – all of which can be easily prevented by vaccines – may have dire consequences. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)'s estimations, 146,000 people around the globe will die from measles every year, mostly children.

The United States has lately seen a drastic increase in whooping cough, which causes about 195,000 deaths per year. Most of these deaths occur in impoverished areas with very little access to vaccines. In cases of developed areas such as the US or UK, these deaths should not be occurring at all.

But how did it all start?

Andrew Wakefield published a paper in 1998 claiming to have related the mumps, measles, and rubella (MMR) vaccine to the onset of autism.He was the first scientist to match Wakefield’s findings, and in the next years, it became widely known that Wakefield had had a financial conflict of interest. An ethics review board in 2010 discovered that he had falsified the data in the report, causing an instant retraction of the original paper and revocation of his medical license. In spite of the fact that most scientists opposed Wakefield’s “findings” from the beginning, many people were too keen to jump on the anti-MMR bandwagon.

As expected, absolutely nothing happens without risk, and there may be side effects from vaccines, although that's incredibly rare. Several people are unable to be vaccinated because of allergies or other medical conditions like cancer. That makes it altogether more critical for individuals who can get vaccinated to do so, which creates a herd immunity for the most vulnerable members of society.

A full version of the map can be found on the Vaccines Work website. Also, the map documents several attacks on health care workers, that have been increasing recently. These attacks are shown on the map with red triangles. The attacks are also correlated with an increased instance of disease, which includes a polio outbreak in Afghanistan. Socio-economic trends can also be found, as incidences of measles as well as whooping cough are increasing in wealthier areas such as the US and UK, while poorer areas indicate a lack of adequate supplies, which gives health officials a clear idea regarding where efforts need to be increased.

Reference: IFLScience