Once More with Feeling: Vaccinations Work
Trigger warning: Preventable Re-emerging Outbreaks
Vaccinations created by man, not by natural disease processes, have historically engendered controversy, suspicion, and in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), violence (Nguyen, 2019). According to Link (2005), “vaccines are counterintuitive. What sense does it make to inject a well-baby with a potent, biologically active vaccine that contains elements of the very disease it is supposed to prevent?” (p. 38). Over the past decades, since the publication of the retracted 1998 Wakefield and colleagues Lancet article asserting a link between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines and childhood autism, fears of making well babies sick, rather than protecting them, have swelled. A recent cohort study that included over 650,000 children born in Denmark between 1999 and 2010 and followed up through 2013 confirmed no relationship between measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccinations and autism (Hviid, Hansen, Frisch, & Melbye, 2019). Immunization, i.e., stimulating the body with vaccines to create antibodies against a disease, prevents an estimated 3.5 to 5 million deaths every year (WHO, 2024).
The science is clear; however, fears and misinformation remain in some health care consumers’ and parents’ minds.
A number of celebrities with no health knowledge or expertise have fanned these fears—and grown their followers—by ascribing to and promoting these ideas and conspiracy theories (New York Times Editorial Board, 2019; Roberts, 2018). Unfortunately, due to anti-vaxxer misinformation campaigns, tens of thousands of children in the U.S. remain unvaccinated and potentially vulnerable to vaccine-preventable disease and death (Langer, 2018). Messages found on anti-vaccination websites play on values associated with individuality, freedom of choice, and religious beliefs and use persuasive communication techniques to increase distrust of big Pharma and the government. In addition, they repeat and amplify falsified research “findings” of autism and brain damage caused by vaccines (Moran, Everhart, Lucas, Prickett, & Morgan, 2015). Here is what science tells us.
Vaccine Preventable Diseases: An Overview
Measles is highly contagious virus, not a bacteria as one ill-informed politician claimed (May, 2019). Measles can be transmitted via aerosolization, i.e., breathing the droplets of the virus in the same air as someone who has measles. The virus can live in a room for up to two hours in the airspace after an infected person has coughed or sneezed in the space. In July, 2015, a woman being treated with medications for her chronic disease placed her in an immuno-compromised status. While waiting to be seen in a clinic, a child came in with his mother, sneezing and coughing. Nothing more was thought of it until the woman died from pneumonia—caused by measles. This was the first death in the United States from measles since 2003 (Aleccia, 2015). Fast forward to 2025, and we are now seeing more cases of measles. We have also had two deaths; one an unvaccinated child and the other an unvaccinated adult (Faguy, 2025). The measles vaccination has driven down death rates in the United States since its creation. It is so effective, that people have forgotten what a killer disease it can be. Gideon M-K: Health Nerd lays this out in great detail in his post The Problem with Vaccines. Sarah Coles of News from Those Nerdy Girls talks about the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and why you should follow ACIP recommendations.
Polio virus is very contagious. It is not treatable. Infants and children are most at risk for this disease. Anyone who is not vaccinated against polio is at risk of contracting the disease. It can cause paralysis and death. In the U.S., we have had no cases of polio because of vaccines. The virus spreads through contact with the feces of an infected person and droplets from a sneeze or cough. If you get feces or droplets from an infected person on your hands and you touch your mouth, you can get infected. Also, if you put objects, like toys, that have feces or droplets on them into your mouth, you can get infected. Alcohol based sanitizers do NOT kill the virus. You must wash your hands with soap and water. (CDC, 2024).
Pertussis, also known as whooping cough, is an extremely contagious respiratory disease caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis. It can also be transmitted via aerosolization, i.e., breathing the droplets of the virus in the same air as someone who has pertussis. Infants are at the highest risk for pertussis; there were 10 reported pertussis deaths in 2024 (CDC, 2025). “Vaccination is the best way to prevent pertussis” (CDC, 2025).
Influenza is highly contagious; you can see symptoms of this disease between one and four days after exposure, an average of three days. Influenza was responsible for the great flu of 1918 that killed between “21 and 50 million people worldwide” (PAHO, 2003). This has been the worst flu season in 15 years (Stobbe, 2025).
Measles, polio, pertussis, and influenza are preventable diseases. By themselves these diseases kill more people annually than Ebola did at the height of its worst outbreak.
Vaccinations save lives.
References for this post along with other resources
Aleccia, J. (2016, April 22). ‘Go-getter’ with hopes of a new career: the Port Angeles woman felled by the measles. Seattle Times. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/port-angeles-woman-confirmed-as-first-us-measles-fatality-since-2003/
Buchbinder, S.B., Shanks, N.H. & Kite, B. (2019) Introduction to Health Care Management, 4th Ed. Jones & Bartlett. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1284156567
Buchbinder, S.B., Shanks, N. H., Buchbinder, D., & Kite, B. (Eds). (2022) Cases in health care management 2nd Ed. Jones & Bartlett. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1284180395
Buchbinder, S.B., Shanks, N.H., Rogers, R.K. (2026). Introduction to healthcare management, 5th edition. https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Health-Management-Sharon-Buchbinder-dp-1284276104/dp/1284276104
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). (2024, December 16). General committee-related information. https://www.cdc.gov/acip/about/index.html
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2024, August). Learn about polio factsheet. https://www.cdc.gov/polio/factsheet/index.html
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2025, March 7). Measles cases and outbreaks. https://www.cdc.gov/measles/data-research/
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Cohn, M. (2025, March 10). What you need to know to stay safe after measles case in Maryland. The Baltimore Banner. https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/public-health/measles-maryland-howard-county-NODWHAM6M5HOFDXSJU6X3URQQI/
Crosby, A. W. (2003). America’s Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918 (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511586576
Faguy, A. (2025, March 7). Second person dies in US measles outbreak. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2nzyjgrwxo
Gideon M-K: Health Nerd. (2025, February 11). The problem with vaccines. https://substack.com/home/post/p-156909272
Hviid, A., Hansen, J.V., Frisch, M., Melbye, M. (2019). Measles, mumps, rubella vaccination and autism: A nationwide cohort study. Annals of Internal Medicine, 170(8),513–520. doi: 10.7326/M18-2101
Langer, A. (2018, December 10). Dr. Peter J. Hotez: “A scary anti-science movement has become very strong in Texas”. Texas Monthly. https://www.texasmonthly.com/podcast/peter-j-hotez-scary-anti-science-movement-strong-texas/
Link, K. (2005). Vaccine controversy: The history, use, and safety of vaccinations. Westport, CT: Praeger.
May, A. (2019, February 27). Texas lawmaker says he's not worried about measles outbreak because of ‘antibiotics'. USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2019/02/27/measles-outbreak-anti-vaxx-texas-zedler-wrongly-cites-antibiotics/3001496002/
Moran, M., Everhart, K., Lucas, M., Prickett, E., & Morgan, A. (2015). Why are anti-vaccine messages so persuasive? A content analysis of anti-vaccine websites to inform the development of vaccine promotion strategies. https://apha.confex.com/apha/143am/webprogram/Paper329083.html
News from Those Nerdy Girls. https://thosenerdygirls.substack.com/
New York Times Editorial Board. (2019, January 19). How to inoculate against anti-vaxxers. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/19/opinion/vaccines-public-health.html
Nguyen. V.-K. (2019). An epidemic of suspicion — Ebola and violence in the DRC. New England Journal of Medicine, 380(14), 1298-1299 doi: 10.1056/NEJMp1902682
Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). (2003). Purple death: The great flu of 1918. https://www.paho.org/en/who-we-are/history-paho/purple-death-great-flu-1918
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (2022, April 25). What is that sound? Whooping cough.
RETRACTED: Wakefield, A. J., Murch, S. H., Anthony, A., Linnell, J., Casson, D. M., Malik, M., Berelowitz, M., Dhillon, A.P., Thomson, M.A., Harvey, P., Valentine, A., Davies, S.E., & Walker-Smith, J. A. (1998, February). Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. The Lancet, 28, 351(9103), 637–641. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(97)11096–0
Roberts, K. (2018, October 28). When it comes to vaccines, celebrities often call the shots. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/when-it-comes-vaccines-celebrities-often-call-shots-n925156
Stobbe, M. (2025, February 7). Flu season in the US is the most intense it’s been in at least 15 years. https://apnews.com/article/us-flu-season-cdc-a640e8fe0bffa4a8f6bdbd7ea8e5608a
World Health Organization (WHO). (2024, October 22). Vaccines and immunization. https://www.who.int/health-topics/vaccines-and-immunization#tab=tab_1