All heroes have an origin story. What then is the origin story of vaccines? Where did they start? How were they developed? The smallpox vaccine is one of the oldest vaccines in medicine. It was developed by a scientist named Edward Jenner. Jenner discovered the vaccine while researching the disease. He discovered that people who were exposed to a similar, but nonlethal, disease called cowpox didn’t contract smallpox when exposed to it. The first vaccine was born, and it saved countless lives. Before the smallpox vaccine, people did know about inoculations. In fact, there is evidence suggesting that people began to inoculate themselves in China as early as 1000 CE according to an article from the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. There is no way to know for sure how long people have known about how to inoculate people. Perhaps is goes as far back as the Renaissance. Vaccines were a lot more dangerous in the past. For example, before the smallpox vaccine people did try and inoculate themselves. Doctors took the pus from a boil on someone with smallpox, and rubbed it in a small cut they made on their patient. The patient would get the disease, and if they survived they would be immune to smallpox. This was very dangerous, and not everyone survived this primitive form of a vaccination. After the smallpox vaccine was discovered, and the number of people getting sick with the disease decreased, vaccines passed their first big obstacle. People couldn’t ignore that this safe alternative to contracting smallpox was working. Since then, there have been a number of vaccines created, because of a drive to answers the question; if it works for smallpox, can it work for other diseases? Polio disease was devastating. It affected people all around the world, and was especially dangerous to children. Polio is a virus that attacks the nervous system. It makes it difficult to move, and eventually hard to breathe. Polio led to the creation of the iron lung which was an early form of a respirator which patients would often need to stay alive. Polio was even responsible for one of the Presidents relying on a wheel chair to get around. The disease ran rampant until Jonas Salk developed a vaccine for it. The vaccine again reduced the number of cases exponentially, and eventually led to the complete eradication of the disease in the U.S. The polio vaccine confirms that once again proves that vaccines work. It protected people from a terrible disease with no cure, and it allowed them to gain immunity without much risk. The vaccine did its job exceptionally well, and protected people from a disease. The vaccine passed its yet another obstacle in its journey. The measles is another disease that a vaccine was developed for. It is a contagious disease that is common in mostly children. The vaccine for the measles is a combined vaccine (called MMR) that also prevents the mumps, and rubella (also called the German measles). The MMR vaccine was like those before it; a safe way of gaining an immunity towards an illness. This vaccine though has been presented with one of the largest obstacles that any vaccine has ever faced. The MMR vaccine works, but has received quite a bit of skepticism from parents who refuse to vaccinate their children. A study was once published alleging that the MMR vaccine caused autism which led to a huge amount of people electing not to vaccinate. The fear, and confusion caused by the multitude of rumors surrounding vaccines has caused people to avoid them. This in turn causes the disease to continue to afflict people, and simply adds fuel to the fire by making it seem as though the vaccine isn’t working. Although the past has demonstrated the effectiveness of vaccines, and time has improved the efficiency of vaccines; they are still facing a large amount of skepticism. They like any hero have both an origin story, and a villain that they must overcome. Vaccines have overcome the obstacle of becoming noticed, and hurdled the barrier of being proven t. Now they must best the most challenging of all, fear.
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AuthorMy name is Katie Flexer, and I will be researching vaccinations. Archives
April 2018
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