Alison and Paul Case Study Sample

• Subject Name : Nursing

Background of Autism

Alison and Paul have 2 kids, Sarah and Blake. Blake has received his vaccine but her daughter Sarah is reluctant to get vaccinated owing to allergies and weakened immune system. Alison is deeply worried about Sarah getting measles and/or whooping cough. Alison's sister Emily is against vaccine because she claims it has induced their brother, Edward's autism, as a result of refusing to vaccinate her babies. Emily and John and their children had no interaction with the children of Alison, since they have not been immunized. Now Alison needs the details she will use to help her persuade Emily to vaccinate her children and better prevent Sarah from infectious diseases.

Autism and Immunization

Autism is a life-long illness that occurs in childhood, usually around age 2. Many people think autism and childhood vaccine are related. Yet study has shown that immunization induces no autism. In the past 25 years, a variety of major scientific organizations have analyzed research from the US and overseas, and they have all agreed that there is no correlation between autism and thimerosal exposure (Knopf, 2017). Few people have been worried that ASD could be related to children getting the vaccines, but tests have shown that there is no correlation with obtaining vaccinations and developing ASD. In 2011, an external icon published by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) on 8 vaccinations provided to kids and adults showed that such vaccinations are very healthy, with few exceptions. Vaccinated children experience autism at the same pace as the children who are not vaccinated (Hoffman et al., 2019). Avoiding vaccinations owing to the common misconception that they induce autism is risky Comprehensive vaccination research and autism has demonstrated that there is no association between the two, causal or otherwise, and that the components in the vaccination do not trigger autism.

The vaccinologist Peter Hotez, studied the development of the false assertion and determined that its dissemination stemmed from the bogus 1998 paper by Andrew Wakefield, without any prior paper suggesting a correlation. In 1998 a paper by Andrew Wakefield and 12 other writers was published by the prestigious scientific journal The Lancet (Reiss & Heap, 2018). They reported a new gastrointestinal condition and autism diagnosis was briefly correlated with administration of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine (Hviid et al., 2019). This was later discovered that evidence had been manipulated and fabricated by Dr Wakefield. Additionally, after doing his research, he was found to have developed major financial conflicts of interest and ignored traditional ethical standards. Childhood vaccine rates were down. The vaccination rate in England dropped from over 95 per cent to 77 per cent. Preventable disease outbreaks improved. The District of Columbia and 14 states reported 132 reports of measles to CDC during the first 7 months of 2008. Eleven percent of patients needed hospitalisation, including four children under the age of fifteen months.

After Dr. Wakefield's article was published, work went on assiduously trying to replicate his findings. Repeatedly, there has been no correlation between the vaccinations and autism disorders growth. Scientific opinion has established that vaccination treatment was not correlated with autism as early as 2004. A completely different field of investigation was taking place as medical experts began to investigate the potential connection between vaccinations and autism (Lawrence, 2018). Brian Deer, the investigative writer for London's Sunday Times and Great Britain's Channel 4 News, reported that in 1996, before beginning his research, Dr. Wakefield was employed and compensated by a law firm to claim that the MMR vaccination was faulty at the period of use. In other terms, he was needed to figure out that the current vaccine was unsafe. The British Medical Journal (BMJ) released an editorial in January 2011 saying that Wakefield's paper was "a hoax." Work included in that analysis was found to be fraudulent, the doctor who authored it lost his license to practice medicine, and the scientific journal which released it withdrew the article (Hotez, 2018). This indicates they think it should never have been released.

Two branches of study have thus far proven counterproductive in addressing the cause that is, the hypothesis that autism is induced by MMR vaccination was founded on false studies and the theory that mercury / thimerosal and autism are related has been debunked. And with the clear proof of vaccines being safe and reliable, certain parents often opt not to vaccinate their children or postpone vaccinations. Yet that is highly dangerous, since there are already immunization preventable infections such as measles. An unvaccinated kid who gets one of these preventable diseases, as most adults around the kid, may get really ill or even die. Children may respond to a vaccine often like a slight fever or rash (Geoghegan et al., 2020). Yet the likelihood of adverse reactions to the MMR and other approved vaccinations is relatively low relative to the safety hazards linked with the often-severe illnesses they prevent.

Since immunization protects lives. It's shielding everyone in the world. Immunisation aims to prevent potential citizens by epidemic eradication. As a consequence of immunization campaigns, many infectious diseases are either extinct or eradicated but new infectious diseases are emerging all over the planet. Vaccination prevents kids from extreme illness and vaccine-preventable disease risks that can involve limb or leg amputation, joint disability, hearing impairment, epilepsy, brain injury, and death. Vaccine-preventable infections are also a threat, such as measles, chicken pox and whooping cough (Dudley et al., 2018). It thus shows that the vaccination is not related to the development of autism and that each child must be vaccinated in order to keep them healthy from deadly diseases.

References for Alison and Paul Case Study

Dudley, M. Z., Salmon, D. A., Halsey, N. A., Orenstein, W. A., Limaye, R. J., O’Leary, S. T., & Omer, S. B. (2018). Do vaccines cause autism?. In The Clinician’s Vaccine Safety Resource Guide (pp. 197-204). Cham, Springer.

Geoghegan, S., O’Callaghan, K. P., & Offit, P. A. (2020). Vaccine Safety: Myths and Misinformation. Frontiers in Microbiology, 11, 372.

Hotez, P. J. (2018). Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel's Autism: My Journey as a Vaccine Scientist, Pediatrician, and Autism Dad. Johns Hopkins University Press.

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.

Hoffman, B. L., Felter, E. M., Chu, K. H., Shensa, A., Hermann, C., Wolynn, T., ... & Primack, B. A. (2019). It’s not all about autism: the emerging landscape of anti-vaccination sentiment on Facebook. Vaccine, 37(16), 2216-2223.

Knopf, A. (2017). Vaccines do not cause autism: Pediatricians fight back against anti‐science. The Brown University Child and Adolescent Behavior Letter, 33(S2), 1-2.

Lawrence, H. Y. (2018). When patients question vaccines: Considering vaccine communication through a material rhetorical approach. Rhetoric of Health & Medicine, 1(1), 161-178.

Reiss, D. R., & Heap, R. (2018). Using and Misusing Legal Decisions: Why Anti-Vaccine Claims about NVICP Cases Are Wrong. Minn. JL Sci. & Tech., 20, 191.

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