No, Vaccines Don’t Harm Children
There is a wide ranging conspiracy theory that vaccines harm children in some way. From giving them autism to destroying their natural immune system. Fanatical parents have given several reasons for why vaccines shouldn’t be trusted. In today’s video, one such parent decides to yell at someone for “forcing” them to get their children vaccinated. They also make a very obvious rape threat in the process.
I want to give you a good foundation for disproving the idea that vaccines can harm your child.
How Does Your Immune System Work
The human immune system is very complicated and today we are only focusing on the portion that applies to vaccines. That would be the production of antibodies that fight off infection from known diseases.
Your blood contains red blood cells to transport oxygen to your organs. It also has immune system cells or white cells. These white cells come in different flavors: macrophages, b-lymphocytes, and t-lymphocytes. Macropohages consume germs, dead cells, or dying cells. They leave behind portions of the consumed germs called antigens. B-lymphocytes produce antibodies that attack these antigens. T-Lymphocytes will attack cells already infected with the invading germ. Some t-lymphocytes, called memory cells, stay in the blood stream to fight off any future infection. It can take a little while for your body to go through this process. That’s why it takes days or weeks to get over a sickness.
Basic Premise of Vaccines
Vaccines are an attempt to leverage the natural process of the human immune system to fight off diseases before they can be contracted. In the natural process, the body fights off an infection and produces the white blood cells needed to protect the body from future infection. Vaccines introduce dead or weakened viruses / toxins to the body allowing the immune system to naturally react to the infection. This inturn builds up an immunity to the infection which helps you fight future infections.
Is there A Risk?
Simply put, there is no major risk to children, unless they are immunocompromised. A study done in 1998 claimed to find a link between vaccinations and autism. This study, even though it’s been discredited for years, is having severe effects on the herd immunity of various nations including the UK and the United States. A recent study has further debunked the notion that vaccines can harm your child. They also stated that measles outbreaks in Europe have become uncommon with “vaccine hesitancy” to blame for it. In this study, they sampled at-risk children to determine if they had an increased likelihood of contracting autism at their 10-year check-up.
No increased risk of autism was observed in a sampling of over 6,000 children.
