Vaccines

Ironically, for another psychology class I am taking I have to design a mini health psychology intervention. Not being able to use backpacks again, the topic I've chosen is vaccines and the fear that some parents have about vaccinating their children. Normally, children receive many vaccinations as they grow up in order to prevent them from contracting diseases that are potentially deadly. And by vaccinating at least 90% of children it helps protect the population as a whole from outbreaks of these diseases by creating herd immunity. However, there is fear, driven primarily by misinformation, that vaccines given to children can result in autism. As a result of this fear parents refuse to have their children vaccinated, leaving them susceptible to many diseases that other children are not. 


At least some of this fear originated with the supposed results of a study that showed a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. However, many problems about this study were later uncovered. There was a careful selection of participants whose families already believed that the vaccine caused the autism. The principle investigator was also accused of financial conflict of interest because he received funding from lawyers involved in vaccination lawsuits. Six years after the study was published, almost all of the authors published a retraction of its results. Many other studies, some following thousands of children longitudinally over several years, found no link between vaccinations and the development of autism. Despite this overwhelming evidence to the contrary, parents still hang onto their fears and do not vaccinate their children.


When examining the actions of the parents who decide not to vaccinate their children it is important to keep in mind that they believe they are doing what is best for their children. But in developed countries such as ours, many of the diseases that vaccines prevent have not been seen or experienced in years. For instance, most parents raising children today have never seen a case of polio or smallpox, two diseases that were all but wiped out thanks to the use of vaccines. 


Despite strongly disagreeing with their decision due to the scientific evidence, I do think that their thoughts and decision fits into the Health Belief Model we discussed in class. Not seeing many of the diseases vaccines protect against means that parents have a low perceived susceptibility to them. And this lack of first-hand experience could also reduced any perceived severity that parents acknowledge. Most importantly, the misinformation about the risk of autism can act as a huge perceived barrier. The risk of inadvertently making their child autistic outweighs any perceived benefits of the vaccine.


The focus of my presentation will be on changing the minds of these doubtful parents so that their children are vaccinated along with the rest of the population, protecting them from a myriad of potentially deadly diseases.




References-

Allan MG, Ivers N (2010). The autism-vaccine story: fiction and deception? Canadian Family

            Physician, 56,1013.

Aronson E, Wilson TD, Akert RM. (2007). Social Psychology (7^th Edition). Saddle River, NJ.

Committee on Practice and Ambulatory Medicine, Council on Community Pediatrics (2010).

            Increasing immunization coverage. Pediatrics, 125, 1295-1304.

Price CS, Thompson WW, Goodson B, Weintraub ES, Coren LS, Hinrichsen VL, Marcy M,

Robertson A, Eriksen E, Lewis E, Bernal P, Shay D, Davis RL, DeStefano F (2010). Prenatal and infant exposure to thimerosal from vaccines and immunoglobulins and risk of autism. Pediatrics, 126, 656-664.

Immunization Safety Review: Vaccines and Autism. (2004). Washington D.C.: National Academy

            Press.

Gupta VB (2010). Communicating with parents of children with autism about vaccines and

            complementary and alternative approaches. J Dev Behav Pediatr, 31, 343-345.

Methamphetamine

Don't be scared about the title of this post- I won't regale you of stories of that methamphetamine binge from second year (which I am kidding about anyway). But I have read a few news articles describing a suit that the government is bringing against CVS because its policies allowed people to come in and buy large quantities of over-the-counter decongestants. Apparently these decongestants contained pseudoephedrine, a main ingredient used to make methamphetamine. Because of this, federal law limits how much a person can buy in a day and pharmacies are supposed to check ID's and make customers sign for their pseudoephedrine-containing drugs.

The problem with CVS's system (that apparently was avoided by all other major pharmacies) was a computerized ledger that allowed people to buy more than the federally regulated amount. And employees were told to listen to the computer, even if they were not sure about how much a customer was buying.

What bothers me about this situation is an unsettling trend for us to just listen to computers (not only in healthcare, but in other industries as well) rather than take the time to actually evaluate a situation. A computerized ledger keeping track if ID's that are scanned into a pharmacy computer makes sense; it eliminates a lot of the human error in paper and pencil record keeping. But to just assume that system is right does not. Given the amount of education needed to be a pharmacist (or any other healthcare professional), the decisions made in the industry should be by those people. Especially when it involves materials that can be used to make things like meth or other controlled substances. Or when people's lives are at stake. Computers can be useful to collect data and analyze it, but in the end I think the decisions of what to do should remain in the hands of people.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/10/15/130585355/cvs-pseudoephedrine-meth-smurfs
http://www.newser.com/story/102972/cvs-fined-75m-for-selling-meth-ingredient.html

Sports Injuries

I'm not a huge sports fan; I generally don't try to watch every game or know stats of every player of a given sport. But I do follow the Philly teams (mostly Eagles and Phillies) and have a great appreciation for what the athletes do, especially given my own less than average ability at most sports. But one thing that has always bothered me about sports, and not just at the professional level, is the number of injuries that players have.

Today is a great example of that. During the Eagles game, which was unbearable for a number of other, non-injury related reasons, at least three or four players left the field because of injuries. Most notably was Michael Vick's rib injury that took him out of the game. While I know that I would look pretty bad if two 250-pound men wearing pads and body armor tackled me, I've never understood how players who train for months to get themselves into such a high state of physical fitness can be hurt in one moment. And I don't mean things like broken legs, obviously that can happen in an instant, but subtler things like muscle sprains or tears. After all the hours of training in the off-season and in between games, how are their bodies not able to play for 60 minutes (or less) of game time?

With other sports that are less physical than football I am even more surprised. How do you get hurt playing baseball? Most of the game is spent standing around waiting for something to happen or sitting in the dugout. And then the few minutes of excitement and activity involve hitting a ball and running 90ish feet at a time. At speeds that definitely would not qualify players for Olympic sprinting events. Not to minimize what the players are doing, but I've never been able to figure out how players spend weeks recovering from injuries.

The weirdest thing is that plays that I think should cause injuries don't seem to. Carlos Ruiz was hit in the elbow today with a pitch...and just shook it off and walked to first base. He was in pain, but still played. He didn't even sit out an inning to get it looked at. The same thing is true for one of the Braves' outfielders that caught a ball and collided with a fence along the back wall of the stadium. Those kinds of impacts, to me, seem like what would cause health concerns and injuries.

As a non-sports person I'd be interested to hear any explanation from athletes who may have experienced injuries or know someone who has.