Wakefield disease is not a medical disease. It is an attitude, a state of mind.

Andrew Wakefield was a British doctor who operated a medical research laboratory. He conducted some research and published an article in a prestigious medical journal inferring that measles vaccination caused autism. His medical peers didn’t buy it, but the English news media sensationalized the story. Parents who wanted to ensure that their children did not acquire autism decided to not allow their children to receive a measles vaccination. In the United States, some state legislators established waiver options where the law required that school children be vaccinated.

Before measles vaccine became available, the disease killed about a million people each year. It was especially prevalent among children because it has the highest infection rate of any known contagious disease. One infected person can transmit the infection to 15 other people. Children play together and go to school together, making the spread of the disease a sure thing. The vaccine was deemed a godsend when it became available.

Investigation revealed that Wakefield’s research consisted of only 12 children. Five of the children displayed symptoms of autism before the study began. Three of the children did not develop autism. A legal firm that wanted to launch a class action law suit against a pharmaceutical company paid Wakefield $600,000 to do the study. The medical journal that published his article withdrew the article and Wakefield lost his medical license.

Wakefield’s malfeasance generated apprehension among parents who wanted to protect their children. We now have several decades of experience with the measles vaccine, and it appears to be as safe as any medication can be. But the initial worry developed into an anti-vaccine movement that is still active. Parent’s misgiving is understandable. At the end of the Eisenhower administration in 1961, 75% of Americans trusted the federal government. Now, in the spring of 2020, only 17% of us trust our federal government. It is difficult for the government to promote vaccines if the government isn’t trusted. During the first decade of the 21st century, there was a significant surge in the number of children who developed autism. No one knows what causes autism, but scientific evaluation indicates that it is not the measles vaccine.

Most of us have no memory of the suffering, death, and sorrow wrought by a large array of diseases that modern science has put behind us. Rigorous scientific procedures, especially in medical science, developed mainly within the past century. Before the discovery of bacteria and viruses and their association with specific diseases, our ancestors didn’t know what caused those horrible diseases. They could only believe. When the plague scourged Europe in the Middle Ages, some believed that it was God’s punishment for human irreverence. Jews were sometimes thought to be the cause. The ability to believe, whether the belief is correct or non-sense, is deeply instilled in us. For most of the time that humans have existed, belief was about the only way to assign the cause of events. We still do it. We are currently wrapping a dose of politics into our assessment of COVID-19.

Vaccines do not ordinarily eradicate a disease, but smallpox may be an exception. Biologist Joshua S. Loomis writes that “Smallpox is one of the greatest scourges that the human race has ever known, killing and disfiguring billions of people over the course of 3,000 years.” An aggressive worldwide vaccination program tackled smallpox. The last reported case was in 1978. Eradication was possible because humans are the only known species that hosted the disease. Other diseases that are vectored by bats or ticks or mosquitoes, for example, are a far more difficult target. Eradicated, but “…smallpox remains one of the scariest monsters on earth” according to Michael Osterholm, Professor of Public Health at the University of Minnesota. The reason for his anxiety is that both the U.S. and the Russians maintain samples of the smallpox virus, and we are no longer vaccinated for smallpox. Accidental or deliberate release would be disastrous.

Epidemiologists who study pandemic disease often express concern about a return of influenza virus with the potency of the one that caused the 1918 pandemic. A virus, like the influenza virus, cannot even reproduce itself. It has to invade a cell of another organism and commandeer the cell’s chemistry to reproduce. Bacteria are often the victims. But the influenza virus can also invade the cells of birds, swine, and humans. For most species, mutations are rare. For viruses, mutations are normal; they happen with every reproductive cycle. That is why influenza vaccines have to be changed almost every year. There is another aspect of influenza mutation that demands consideration. If two strains of the virus occupy the same host cell, they can exchange large segments of their genetic material producing a new, radically different strain for which we lack immunity or a vaccine. That may have been the cause of the deadly 1918 influenza.

Vaccines aren’t perfect, but they are better than the Wakefield alternative.

Jack Stevenson is retired. He served two years in Vietnam as an infantry officer, retired from military service and worked three years as a U.S. Civil Service employee. He also worked in Egypt as an employee of the former Radio Corporation of America (RCA). Currently, he reads history, follows issues important to Americans and writes commentary for community newspapers.