Recently, according to CBC News, a mesothelioma patient from Ottawa travelled to Harry Potter themed sites, trying to fulfill her lifelong dreams. However, when she returned she was left with a raging fever and a burning rash. She was tested for measles, and despite being vaccinated, the test returned positive. The patient blames anti-vaxxers, people who are against vaccines in fear of the negative effects they believe they carry. She says, “It makes me really angry. It's so preventable. It's something that nobody has to get anymore.” The anti-vaxxer movement harms not only those who are unvaccinated, but causes outbreaks in those who are vaccinated. They endanger everyone around them because of misinformation, and their cause (and these diseases) are only spreading.
A British study in 1995 on the MMR vaccine concluded that vaccines can lead to bowel disease. One scientist on this study was Andrew Wakefield, who went further and said that vaccines cause autism. Wakefield has since been banned from practice because of his experimenting on children. Despite, all the opposing evidence, thousands of people still restrict their children from vaccines, putting them in danger. Wakefield’s study has widely been disproven, and according to the Washington Post, a study observing Danish children born from 1999-2010 concluded that vaccinations do not increase the risk of developing autism. Vaccines should have eliminated viruses that are easily treated, but because of this movement, diseases previously thought to be gone are returning. According to CNN Wire, there have been 285 cases of measles in NYC in Brooklyn and Queens alone. These could have been prevented if people had been vaccinated.