Conjecture
- A scientific paper was published linking vaccines with autism by 10 researchers
- Quickly disregarded by the scientific community due to results that could not be reproduced, speculative conclusions, and a very small sample size (12)
- Overall, their research was weak and they drew a connection that wasn’t there
- Scientific community was outraged
- Multiple scientific papers followed shortly after that refuted the results
- Despite this, parents refused to vaccinate their children for the fear of them getting autism
- Today, people are still trying to educate parents on the importance of vaccinating their children because many still believe that research
Definition
- issue: Some parents think that getting their children vaccinated will lead them to becoming autistic despite the heavy scientific evidence disproving any kind of association
- this problem led to a steep increase in diseases like measles
- problem spread within the UK and US
- This is a major health issue that puts thousands of kids at risk
Quality
- very bad issue
- could lead to long “eradicated” diseases being reintroduced into the populations
- lots of unnecessarily sick children
- effects all families- even ones that have vaccinated their children- because they will be around vaccinated children
- When these diseases are allowed to progress within individuals, it’s possible that a mutation will occur as the virus reproduces that could make it resistant to current vaccines
- When people are vaccinated, the current strains don’t reproduce much and are less likely to develop a mutation that allows them to be resistant
- Even the CDC addressed the issue and claimed that vaccines do not cause autism, but people still believe they do
Attitude before the issue
- nearly every child was vaccinated
- parents trusted modern medicine
- diseases like measles happened VERY rarely
Attitude after the issue
- Parents were skeptical
- Hesitant to vaccinate for the fear of their child becoming autistic
- skeptical of modern medicine overall
- hesitant attitudes persisted despite so many other papers coming out and disproving the evidence found in the original paper
- also left a bad taste in many people’s mouth about research (researchers are expected to uphold certain values and these researchers did not)
- public started to become more skeptical of science as a whole
I think this is an interesting topic for a paradigm shift. I had heard about this trend recently, if only mainly through jokes and internet memes. However, I think the fact that this trend is usually only described in that context isn’t really a good thing in terms of making an argument about paradigm shift. Before the paper you mentioned was published, the vast majority of people put their faith in modern medicine, while only a small, niche group of people defied the norm. It’s difficult because I think this is generally true for after the shift as well. You’ll have to be specific in your arguments if you want this paradigm shift to work, but there is definitely potential here!
I think that this is a very intriguing topic but I would have to agree with Cam that this would be a more difficult because there were people who rejected vaccinations before the shift occurred. However, I think you can still make it work! I am curious about how many people rejected the idea of vaccination and if they continue to reject it or do they now understand the importance of vaccination. Keep us posted!
This is a really good topic, especially because it’s about a field that you’re really interested in!! It’s hard because people continue to reject the idea that vaccinations are helpful because of misleading and essentially faked data.