VOA标准英语2012--Overcoming Fear of Vaccinations

 Overcoming Fear of Vaccinations¹

 

A new study says fear or complacency about vaccinations can allow preventable diseases such as polio, measles² and whooping³ cough to spread. Scientists say preventing vaccine⁴ scares should be part of global immunization policies.

A virus may be very small, but it can travel very far, very fast. Professor Chris Bauch said fear of vaccinations can help send the virus on its way.

“Vaccine scares are quite old. For example, when the first vaccine ever invented, the smallpox⁵ vaccine, was introduced, there was a lot of resistance to that vaccine as well. And people were afraid that it would turn us into cow-like hybrids⁶ because of the connection between cowpox and smallpox. And it’s happened since then in many situations,” he said.

Plenty of scares

There was a scare in the 1970’s for a pertussis or whooping cough vaccine, which lowered immunization coverage⁷ in many countries. In the 1990s, there was a big scare over the measles, mumps⁸ and rubella vaccine after some claimed it caused autism. That allegation continues to this day.

Fear over the polio vaccine in parts of Nigeria had far-reaching repercussions⁹.

“Polio had essentially¹⁰ been cornered to northern Nigeria. And when the vaccine scare happened for the polio vaccine the vaccine coverage dropped so much that polio resurged and it spread not only to other parts of Nigeria, but other countries as well. So that set back the polio eradication¹¹ efforts by many years,” he said.

Overall, the stories received a lot of media attention.

Why not get vaccinated¹³?

Bauch is an associate professor of mathematics at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. He and his colleagues developed a model looking at the relationship between disease and reaction to vaccinations.

“If you ask people why aren’t you vaccinating¹⁴, one reason they’ll give is ‘I’m afraid of the vaccine.’ Another reason they might give is that ‘other parents have already been vaccinated so I don’t need to.‘ So some people who are not vaccinating are doing it because they know that they can rely upon other people having vaccinated already,” he said.

And if other children in the community are vaccinated, he said, some parents may believe their children won’t be infected. Another reason is pressure from other parents not to vaccinate¹².

“There seem to be two critical periods: First, when the vaccine is first introduced, because it’s a new product and many people have not been vaccinated with it yet, and so there may be distrust of it. And the second danger zone is perhaps years down the road when the disease is successfully controlled and there’s no more disease around. And so the memory of that fades and then people may start to free ride or may become afraid of the vaccine,” he said.

Bauch said when parents in developing countries see the effects of disease first hand they’re much more likely to have their children vaccinated. He says a successful immunization campaign needs a two pronged approach.

Overcoming fears

“First of all, you have to explain the data and explain the risks. And show them that here’s the vaccine risk and here’s the disease risk. And even if the disease is rare you’re still more likely to get seriously ill from the disease than you are from the vaccine,” he said, adding, “The second approach which is very effective is actually to talk about what you’ve done. For example, I have two children who are three and five and they’ve gotten all their vaccines¹⁵. So obviously if I’m willing to vaccinate my own children then I must be telling the truth when I say it’s a safe product because I wouldn’t give something to my children that’s harmful.”

Bauch said the goal is to better understand how people behave and then give that information to policymakers.

“For example, we want to be able to tell the policymakers if a given country is perhaps more susceptible¹⁶ to vaccine scares than others – especially if it’s a new vaccine that’s being introduced and we don’t have history to go on. And second of all, we want to be able to tell them if a vaccine scare has happened and vaccine coverage has dropped to dangerously low levels, what are the best ways to get that up,” he said.

He warned that vaccine scares could actually become more common as disease “eradication goals are approached.” With fewer outbreaks, some may no longer see the need for vaccinations. Bauch said vaccines, at times, are victims of their own success. The study findings were published in PloS Computational Biology.

1 vaccinations   

n.种痘，接种( vaccination的名词复数 )；牛痘疤

参考例句：

• Vaccinations ensure one against diseases. 接种疫苗可以预防疾病。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I read some publicity about vaccinations while waiting my turn at the doctor's. 在医生那儿候诊时，我读了一些关于接种疫苗的宣传。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 measles   

n.麻疹，风疹，包虫病，痧子

参考例句：

• The doctor is quite definite about Tom having measles.医生十分肯定汤姆得了麻疹。
• The doctor told her to watch out for symptoms of measles.医生叫她注意麻疹出现的症状。

3 whooping   

发嗬嗬声的，发咳声的

参考例句：

• Whooping cough is very prevalent just now. 百日咳正在广泛流行。
• Have you had your child vaccinated against whooping cough? 你给你的孩子打过百日咳疫苗了吗？

4 vaccine   

n.牛痘苗，疫苗；adj.牛痘的，疫苗的

参考例句：

• The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives.脊髓灰质炎疫苗挽救了数以百万计的生命。
• She takes a vaccine against influenza every fall.她每年秋季接种流感疫苗。

5 smallpox   

n.天花

参考例句：

• In 1742 he suffered a fatal attack of smallpox.1742年，他染上了致命的天花。
• Were you vaccinated against smallpox as a child?你小时候打过天花疫苗吗？

6 hybrids   

n.杂交生成的生物体( hybrid的名词复数 )；杂交植物（或动物）；杂种；（不同事物的）混合物

参考例句：

• All these brightly coloured hybrids are so lovely in the garden. 花园里所有这些色彩鲜艳的杂交花真美丽。 来自辞典例句
• The notion that interspecific hybrids are rare is ill-founded. 有一种看法认为种间杂种是罕见的，这种看法是无根据的。 来自辞典例句

7 coverage   

n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖

参考例句：

• There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
• This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。

8 mumps   

n.腮腺炎

参考例句：

• Sarah got mumps from her brother.萨拉的弟弟患腮腺炎，传染给她了。
• I was told not go near Charles. He is sickening for mumps.别人告诉我不要走近查尔斯， 他染上了流行性腮腺炎。

9 repercussions   

n.后果，反响( repercussion的名词复数 )；余波

参考例句：

• The collapse of the company will have repercussions for the whole industry. 这家公司的垮台将会给整个行业造成间接的负面影响。
• Human acts have repercussions far beyond the frontiers of the human world. 人类行为所产生的影响远远超出人类世界的范围。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

11 eradication   

n.根除

参考例句：

• The eradication of an established infestation is not easy. 根除昆虫蔓延是不容易的。
• This is often required for intelligent control and eradication. 这经常需要灵巧的控制与消除。

12 vaccinate   

vt.给…接种疫苗；种牛痘

参考例句：

• Local health officials then can plan the best times to vaccinate people.这样，当地的卫生官员就可以安排最佳时间给人们接种疫苗。
• Doctors vaccinate us so that we do not catch smallpox.医生给我们打预防针使我们不会得天花。

13 vaccinated   

[医]已接种的，种痘的，接种过疫菌的

参考例句：

• I was vaccinated against tetanus. 我接种了破伤风疫苗。
• Were you vaccinated against smallpox as a child? 你小时候打过天花疫苗吗？

14 vaccinating   

给…接种疫苗( vaccinate的现在分词 )； 注射疫苗，接种疫苗

参考例句：

• At first blush, vaccinating the wolves against rabies seems a simple solution. 乍一看来，为狼群注射防狂犬病疫苗是一种简单的办法。
• Also vaccinating children against misers (measles) has saved many lives. 还有，给儿童进行疫苗接种防止麻疹也挽救了许多生命。

15 vaccines   

疫苗，痘苗( vaccine的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His team are at the forefront of scientific research into vaccines. 他的小组处于疫苗科研的最前沿。
• The vaccines were kept cool in refrigerators. 疫苗放在冰箱中冷藏。

16 susceptible   

adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的

参考例句：

• Children are more susceptible than adults.孩子比成人易受感动。
• We are all susceptible to advertising.我们都易受广告的影响。