Extra Credit Critical Thinking Post on Vaccinations

Overview & About the Author

"Five Surprising Moments in Vaccine History," is a 3 part video series and article by Anna Rothschild that explores the history leading up to our present day form of vaccinations as she discusses the rudimentary methods originally used to combat the highly infectious smallpox, how the anti vax movement started, and germ theory. Rothschild is an on-air journalist with a degree in biology from Brown and a MA in journalism from NYU who covers science and health topics with numerous awards in science journalism. In this series, she confers with various field experts to learn more about the history of vaccinations and the processes that go into their creation.

Summaries

In the article and first of three videos, Rothschild starts by explaining how the immunization process works as a person’s body works to fight a disease or germ off. In the first video, she explains an early immunization process called variolation, a rudimentary method composed of exposing healthy individuals to the liquid pustules or scabs of smallpox victims and later the puss of cow pox contractees to help healthy individuals develop the antibodies they needed before potentially contracting smallpox and suffering severe symptoms or dying. Rothschild then explains the importance of reaching herd immunity through vaccination, which is the point at which a large enough percentage of the population has been vaccinated to significantly reduce the number of potential hosts for a germ to spread.

In the second video, Rothschild discusses advances in bacteriology and the development of antitoxins and toxoids, an inactive form of the disease that helped people develop their own immune response to a germ and is a method still used today. She continues to explain some of the ingredients that have historically made parents and anti-vaxers concerned and what they actually do in the vaccine ranging from aluminum, which helps trigger inflammation to increase the body’s development of antigens to thimerosal, which helps prevent bacteria growth in vaccines.

In the third and final video of the series, Rothschild discusses the FDA's strict regulation of vaccinations and the testing process that lets us know they are safe to be administered today. The video explores the various phases vaccinations undergo before being approved, starting from testing vaccines on animals, to working with a small sample size of people, and the continued evaluation of the short and long term effects. One widespread misconception that Rothschild debunks is the idea that some vaccines can lead to autism, a notion that was triggered by an article that was later rescinded. Rothschild continued to discuss the potential side effects of some vaccinations which are overall incomparable to contracting the disease and experiencing its full range of symptoms. She then discusses the sometimes shocking number of antigens contained in vaccines administered to children and the alarm of new parents. In the end of the video, Rothschild explains how far we have come in vaccinations and eliminating various diseases and how some people have begun to question why getting vaccinated is necessary in the first place if they have never seen the disease around them as a result of our vaccination advancements and herd immunity

Thoughts & Takeaways

After reading the article and watching the short videos, I was surprised to learn about the origin of vaccinations and the long process that it has taken to get to our point in time in the history of vaccinations. While I have been receiving vaccinations my whole life and knew generally that they are used to pre-trigger our body’s immune response and that they are required to go through many layers of testing, I never really knew about the full history or detailed controversies regarding vaccines. I found these videos really eye opening and appreciated how easy Rothschild made her explanations to understand.

Rothschild uses critical thinking throughout her discussion of the history of vaccines as she works to make conclusions from information that she gathers from talking to knowledgeable experts in each field. In “Critical Thinking In A Nutshell: How To Become An Independent Thinker And Make Intelligent Decisions,” the author breaks down the elements of critical thinking into perception, assumptions, emotions, language, arguments, fallacies, logic, and problem solving. Rothschild applies what we have learned about critical thinking by seeking the truth by talking to experts in different fields in addition to researching on her own to help educate herself on the topic and debunk existing potential fallacies that she may have had. In doing this, she can evaluate her sources of information across what she knows from her background in biology, personal research, and commentary from experts. Through the videos she also exhibited critical thinking as she maintained an open minded and inquisitive perspective as she asked questions and learned from field experts to better understand a variety of historical perspectives without inserting any of her own heated judgements regarding anti-vax beliefs. In doing this, she creates a persuasive argument for others to evaluate and consider without feeling attacked or cornered.

Some of my main takeaways from the article and videos include a better understanding of the history of vaccinations and gratitude for the many individuals who advance our vaccination methods to allow humans to now avoid inhaling things like small pox scabs to build immunity. Rothschild’s use of critical thinking also showed me how critical thinking can be used in articles and other forms of writing to create an informative piece of literature that is backed with a fair evaluation of evidence from a variety of sources with minimal bias, which can help increase reliability in the eyes of readers.