Antivax Editorial

Hello! I hope everyone is well,

For our most recent Design Studio project, we were required to find and research a topic of our choosing and write a ≤ 450 word editorial about that topic. I chose to do my editorial on the recent outbreak of measles in multiple states due to people willingly rejecting vaccinations. Antivax supporters believe that vaccines cause life long issues, which is simply not true. For instance, one might say that vaccines are bad due to the fact that they contain asbestos, which shows that they clearly haven’t done any research, since a simple internet search will show that the amount of asbestos in vaccines is less than a fraction of the amount of asbestos naturally produced by the body.

And now measles, which was mostly irradiated, is coming back in great numbers, which results in a huge amount of money being spent on controlling the disease spread.

Here is my editorial

Antivax – A Fatal Flaw

By Graham Ornstein

Most diseases are completely preventable, and some had even been eradicated completely from the United States, but many are now returning. Antivax supporters argue that vaccines cause lifelong issues, such as autism, which is just not true. Antivax supporters and unvaccinated people not only potentially harm themselves, they put others at risk by harboring, and spreading diseases. It should be illegal to knowingly put yourself and others at risk by claiming false information is true. Private companies, like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google, Instagram, and most other social media outlet, have the right to block whatever they want from their platform. Some say that would violate their First Amendment right; but when the company is private, they can moderate any speech they want. While these outlets should not block content solely based on bias, they should certainly block factually incorrect and harmful content. I believe that telling someone else that vaccines are deadly and cause autism, which has been proven false, fall under the guidelines of hate speech, since it promotes and advocates for violence by encouraging parents to deny their children access to vaccinations that could be life saving.

A common argument made by antivax supporters is “if I’m not vaccinated and you are, then I’m only hurting myself.” The New York Times has replied to a similar argument, stating, “An unvaccinated child can get the virus and spread it to those who can’t protect themselves.” People with compromised immune systems cannot receive all vaccines, because they would risk contracting the virus in the vaccine. Those people don’t get the option of whether or not to get vaccinated, which is why it is everyone’s responsibility who can get vaccinated to do so in order to protect those who can’t. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which has helped provide third world countries with vaccines, voiced his concern about the anti-vaccine movement in a Reddit Ask Me Anything interview. He said, “it is surprising to see how in the richer countries the consensus that kids should be protected has been lost,” adding that, “vaccines have saved more lives than any other tool.” Mr. Gates talked about how when he provides low income countries with vaccines, people walk for miles through the scorching heat to receive a shot, yet in the United States, people are willfully ignorant regarding the fact that vaccines average a success rate of around 80-85 percent. Perhaps other states should add restrictions, like Washington State did recently, regulating where unvaccinated people can go, in order to reduce the risk of more outbreaks.