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 32,579 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

This historical essay analyzes the role played by Great Britain in the pertussis vaccine controversy of the 1970s and 1980s. Public backlash against this vaccine not only took place earlier in Britain than the United States, but also was so widespread that a series of whooping cough epidemics soon followed. As with the more recent dispute involving measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism, the United Kingdom played a primary role in defining, promoting, and ultimately exporting this controversy. This essay seeks to explain this phenomenon by situating it in Britain's long history of suspicion regarding vaccines evident among both the public and the medical profession, a theme dating back to the compulsory vaccination laws of the 19th century. It argues that anti-vaccinationism, far from being simply a new development related to the public's lack of awareness of childhood vaccine-preventable illness, actually represents a revival of a much older movement.
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PMID:The pertussis vaccine controversy in Great Britain, 1974-1986. 1292 37

As pediatric practitioners, one of the contemporary challenges in providing medical care for children is the increasing proportion of vaccination refusal. This occurs in spite of the demonstrated individual and collective benefit and cost effectiveness of vaccination. Controversies regarding vaccine components and side effects have misled parents to believe that vaccines might be harmful based on inaccurate data from the Internet, celebrities, as well as misinterpreted and frankly bad science. This belief of vaccines being harmful has led to fear and decreased immunization rates in spite of sound scientific evidence supporting the safety of vaccines and their lack of association with autism, developmental disabilities or other medical disorders. Some parents also believe in alternative ways to avoid disease, often adhering to practices that have little foundation in the best of empiric science. It is not a coincidence that recent outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases, including measles and pertussis (whooping cough), have occurred in areas where vaccination has declined largely due to exemptors. This article intends to review some of the common vaccine myths and controversies and to serve as a resource to provide accurate information and references for busy practitioners and the families that we serve.
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PMID:Current controversies in childhood vaccination. 2344 91