Thursday, I got my flu shot at EIU’s annual shot clinic in the Union’s bridge. Two friends and I went over around noon to find the room low on students and no line.
When I asked the person giving me the shot if the clinic had been busy, they responded that they had a consistent flow of people coming in, but that no, they hadn’t been very busy.
Getting sick is no fun, especially when you have to skip class or work because of it. When I get sick, I lie in bed and try to watch stuff, but through the coughing and headaches and sneezing, I’m not able to enjoy it. Honestly, I don’t remember even half of what I just watched.
Before you even start feeling symptoms, you can spread disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control. When I come down with the flu, everyone I have interacted with for the last week or so is exposed to the flu. Then two weeks later when I’m better, everyone else is sick.
It’s a vicious cycle, and it can be helped with a vaccine. It only takes a minute to get the shot and maybe 10 minutes to set up the appointment and go get one. I would rather take 11 minutes of my life with a needle prick over a week of barely being able to function.
But this year’s push to get flu shots has to contend with more than busy people; it also has to contend with the president’s recent remarks during a conference with United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Trump and Kennedy both have said that vaccines cause autism in children, specifically the MMR vaccine.
“Some 40 to 70% of mothers who have children with autism believe that their child was injured by a vaccine,” Kennedy said. “Some of our friends like to say that we should believe all women, some of these same people have been silencing and demonizing these mothers for three decades because research on the potential link between autism and vaccines has been actively suppressed in the past.”
This claim has origins in a study conducted by ex-doctor Andrew Wakefield.
Wakefield published a study with 12 participants, no control group, speculation and made-up statistics. Wakefield concluded in his study that there was a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.
One made-up statistic comes from a child of the study, where said child was examined by Wakefield’s colleague and found to not have chronic inflammatory bowel disease. Despite this non-diagnosis, Wakefield admitted the child into the study under the pretense that he was looking at an association between autism, the MMR vaccine and chronic inflammatory bowel disease. This was confirmed by the General Medical Council, an official medical organization in the United Kingdom.
The GMC would go on to strip Wakefield of his license.
Wakefield’s study has since been completely debunked and refuted multiple times.
Trump and RFK Jr’s claims despite this give a higher climax to the anti-vaccine movement that vastly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.
NPR recently published the results of its data investigation on childhood vaccination rates in September. The investigation showed a decrease in rates for core childhood vaccinations: measles, mumps and rubella (taken together as the MMR vaccine), polio, whooping cough and diphtheria.
These rates are alarming. These diseases can be very dangerous for unvaccinated children.
While contracting the flu can have health consequences, diseases like measles and polio can lead to death, especially for children. While not every child who contracts these diseases will die, they could get life-altering consequences, like brain damage.
According to the CDC, one in 1,000 children develops acute encephalitis from measles, a condition that often results in permanent brain damage. One to three children out of every thousand with measles die from respiratory and neurological complications.
It is not worth a child’s life to forgo their vaccinations.
Despite these life-ending consequences, some parents still choose not to vaccinate their children. A common reason given is the exact claim Trump and Kennedy have repeated: vaccines cause autism.
Trust licensed medical professionals. Get yourself and your children their shots.
Essie Newton can be reached at 581-2812 or eanewton@eiu.edu.
