Vaccines have prevented diseases that once caused paralysis, deafness, pneumonia, meningitis, liver failure, certain cancers and death. They are among the most significant medical breakthroughs in the history of public health and protect both individuals and entire communities from epidemics, hospitalizations, and death.
They have been scientifically studied, tested, and proven beyond doubt that they are safe and effective. Vaccines work by training the body’s immune system, which fights against serious outside viruses and bacteria, into forming an effective defense against outside invaders so that a person does not contract the disease they are defending against at all, or experiences the disease in a milder form than if they hadn’t been vaccinated.
For example, measles is one of the most contagious viruses known to humankind, and spreads through the air to anyone nearby a person who is infected. It most commonly affects young children, often requiring hospitalization, and about one to two of every thousand people infected die from the disease. It can cause pneumonia, which accounts for over half of measles deaths. Fortunately, measles can be prevented by a safe vaccine, usually administered in the mumps, measles and rubella (German measles) (MMR) vaccine which can offer lifelong protection. In fact, measles was all but eliminated from the United States until some misinformed people deferred vaccinating their children.
Vaccines not only offer protection for the person who receives a vaccine, but it also protects entire communities through what is called ‘herd immunity.” This is when enough people in a community have achieved immunity against a particular virus or bacteria so that it becomes harder for the infection to spread to others, as well as harder for the offending disease to mutate into stronger forms of the infectious agent.
Unfortunately, some people have been misinformed about the safety and benefits of vaccines. This misinformation is often spread by social media, and by individuals who lack the scientific background to understand how rigorously vaccines have been studied, tested, and found to be safe before being approved for use in people.
Today, due to political rather than scientific reasons, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has lost many of the world’s leading vaccine experts. The government oversight of this agency is led by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has long proffered false and misleading information on vaccine safety, and he has appointed people with similar viewpoints to a committee that determine what vaccines might be recommended and who should receive them.
Gov. Ned Lamont, and Dr. Manisha Juthani, the infectious disease specialist who is Commissioner of Public Health, should be commended for becoming concerned that the politicization of the CDC vaccine committee might make it difficult for Connecticut citizens to access the needed vaccines.
They are respectful of the longstanding vaccine recommendations that have protected our state residents, including especially young children, the elderly, and pregnant women from mumps, measles, rubella, hepatitis B, flu, Covid-19, tetanus, and diphtheria, whooping cough, meningitis, certain types of pneumonia, and cervical and some other types of cancer. Under their leadership, Connecticut has joined the Northeast Public Health Collaborative along with Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York (including New York City), Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
The goals of the collaborative are “to protect the health and well-being of its citizens, to share the best scientific expertise, to strengthen the region’s readiness to address any public health threats, and to strengthen confidence in vaccines and science-based medicine.” The intent is to do this by providing information based on science, data, and evidence and to work to assure access to needed vaccines.
We in the public health community– health care providers, professors in public health, and public health career professionals — fully support the state’s effort to assure vaccine availability to all residents, especially beneficiaries of public insurance programs like Medicaid. We hope that commercial insurance companies in Connecticut follow the state’s lead and follow science-guided evidence to make certain that their beneficiaries also continue to have vaccine access.
Gary F. Spinner is a retired HIV Specialist who writes on behalf of the Connecticut chapter of Defend Public Health.