Name of Author
Name of Professor
Course Name
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An Outbreak of Irrationality
Sarah Dzubay, a member of the class of 2019 at Notre Dame, is the author of the book by the title An outbreak of irrationality, which explains the crucial role of vaccines. She has stated clearly how vaccines helped eradicate diseases such as pertussis and measles, which were a great threat to individuals’ lives. Both the developed and developing countries were in danger of contracting this deadly diseases. In the 1950s, Maurice Hilleman discovered a vaccine for measles, which has been of great help to date since it has reduced the rates at which deaths related to measles occur unlike before. However, Dzubay has discussed the effectiveness of vaccines and the consequences of ignoring these vaccines. Some people focus on opting out of vaccinations in the name of their freedom, which is more dangerous.
Before discovering vaccines, Dzubay states that these diseases swiped out almost every population that has not developed resistance to these diseases; this problem was solved by introducing vaccines, which reduced the rates at which people were contracting diseases to almost zero. The most affected people were the native population who had come into contact with the foreign illness due to European settlers and their domesticated animals who had arrived in the country. Resulting from the introduction of vaccines, most developed countries embraced it and went inoculated, thus reducing infections to none. However, due to the repeated occurrence of vaccination, diseases such as measles has become a history. Moreover, some people have started to ignore taking these vaccines, which is a great danger to their health. People no longer fear these diseases, and as a result, it has led to emerging cases of measles in the United States and other countries ignoring vaccinations. It could be somehow justifying since letting your child to be injected with a medicine whose purpose and effects are not well known is scary. However, opting out of vaccination is irrational since people are focused on the wrong perception to justify their personal freedom, not considering the threats they expose the whole society to. The fear of taking vaccination is as a result of poor knowledge concerning the vaccines. Therefore, proper education about the necessity of vaccination is vital to the people. It is known that any medicine has its side effects, but the costs must be weighed against the benefits.
Dzubay brought it clear that modern medical achievements have enabled us to forget about the deadly diseases that ravaged our countries hundreds of years ago. Vaccination has also helped us become more successful by breaking all the barriers that earlier hindered the human race from being more productive due to illness threats. Inoculation’s effectiveness is well explained through the concept of herd community that involves vaccinating the larger part of the community. The small group that fails to be vaccinated is protected by vaccinating the larger one. The study of the spread of diseases by an epidemiologist has discovered something called the basic reproduction number of the disease, which determines the number of people that one infected individual can spread the disease to. However, this has helped determine the number of people to vaccinate to protect those who cannot get vaccinated, such as the elderly people; thus is termed as threshold immunity. The individuals who have received vaccination protect themselves and indirectly protect the other individual who has not been vaccinated since the chances of the disease to spread are reduced. However, it should be noted that the level of vaccination should always be above the threshold to prevent the disease from coming back.
At some point, you find that the people opposing the administering of vaccines are not the underprivileged or uneducated but the opposite. The rich and civilized people tend to question the recommendation given by their doctors and prefer finding their own results online; this opposition puts the lives of many people in great danger. However, some people, especially celebrities, are working very hard to justify why vaccines should be discouraged. For instance, following a claim of correlation between vaccinating young children and autism by Andrew Wakefield in his paper published in 1994, politicians such as Donald Triumph have spoken against administering vaccines, arguing that it is to be blamed for the rise of autism. Despite this argument proven to be invalid and termed as the case of junk science and Mr. Wakefield tried for misconduct, the paper still scares the people out of vaccinating their children. There are other arguments presented by anti-vaccine advocates, most of which they lack basic proves. In most cases, it is not easy to differentiate a vaccine-related disease with a congenital disability since children are administered with vaccines at their early stages of birth. It is possible that the problem triggered by the vaccines was a result of an unobserved health problem that the child was born with; this is called Infant immunization (FAQs). Although vaccines can cause irritation or even illness, ignoring vaccination is not the solution. Therefore people are advised to advocate for an improvement in inoculation to solve the problem and aim for the benefit of all.
In conclusion, before administering any vaccine, basic education is necessary since it helps clear the doubts and give assurance concerning the vaccination. Discussion and research are also significant, whereby one is equipped with knowledge allowing progress and innovation to flourish. Most upper-class people are promoting a higher level of paranoia about conventional medicines other than advocating for improving the nation’s medical standards. The anti-vaccine advocates are then encouraged to open their minds and listen to the hard evidence supporting the administering of vaccines that are available and shown to them; this is the only way to save the nation’s health security.
Work cited
Dzubay, Sarah. “An Outbreak of the Irrational.”