Fake New: MMR Vaccine Causes Autism
Introduction
In 1998, a medical journal called the Lancet was published about how the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella vaccine connects with the diagnoses of autism in children. Once the journals got published, many news articles found this information and started publishing articles on the topic, which then grew mass attention; even to this day, after being proven wrong, people still believe the MMR vaccine and autism are connected. The article got retracted by one of the co doctors and proved the studies were not accurate.
Research Results
After typing “MMR vaccine and Autism” into google, the first thing that shows up now is the CDC website on the “Autism and Vaccine,” which goes into medical detail on how they are not connected. (https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/autism.html)The CDC website breaks down all the different things people have to suggest cause autism when getting a vaccine, but they rejected those statements and also gave more links to find more information on the topic. However, many people do not dive this far into research. They may see a link on Facebook, click on it, and find scary information, like not vaccinating your child because it can give them autism and believe it without doing more research. As a sad result, it has caused many young children to lose their lives. After all, they never got the vaccine because their parents believed the fake news that was released and spread around. After nearly two whole decades since the medical journal was proved wrong, the UK still see a low number of MMR vaccinations, which could prevent a child from getting severely sick. However, with the fear surrounding this topic, many new moms and dads are afraid to harm their children from a vaccine. This type of fear can be with the most recent vaccine that has come around, like the COVID-19. Even though there has been extensive medical research on the vaccine, people have seen fake things only about harmful side effects, so they will not get it. Some of these people are willing not to get the vaccine and risk getting extremely sick, so they do not get side effects from the vaccine.
With situations like this, it is effortless now for fake news to spread around. Facebook, Twitter, and many other social media sites are full of it. Even though it is just as easy to google if what we have read is true or to get extra information on the topic, we do not do additional research. However, instead, we share the thing we find interesting, which then is spread to our friends and family and then those and so on. This leads to a vicious cycle, and in the case of vaccines and medical information, it can harm many people involved. To prevent false information to be spread even further we should all take to time to research the thing we see before sharing or telling it to other people.
