Earlier this month, Medical Xpress published an article detailing the current craze of Genomic Medicine among the “Anti-Vaxxer” community. Genomic Medicine is the use of our current understanding of the human genome to deal with diseases. Since this field doesn’t necessarily call for the use of vaccines to treat or cure infections, those in that community feel the mere existence of this field attests to the needlessness of vaccines. They believe that it can show how microbes are good for and are integral to the human body. Specifically, that the human body benefits from being infected by a microbe.
Let’s just take a moment to understand what a vaccine is. It is a dose of a heavily weakened or dead material from a microbe that is injected into the body. Why is it done in the first place? That is because the human body has the remarkable ability of internally identifying entities according to their genetic material, and it does a much better job of this while not having to concentrate on fighting a disease. This is how you can be infected by a new strain of a virus or disease, and, with enough time, fight it. So, vaccines insert weak or dead material so that the body doesn’t have to deal with a major infection. Instead, it can focus on learning the genetic markers of the microbe and how to deal with it.
Now that is done, it is important to point out that their belief in Genomic Medicine only supports the use of vaccines. A vaccine is just a less harmful way of letting the body learn how to spot the infection and how to fight it. This is exactly what would be done when the body is naturally infected by a disease, just with a similar result with a lot less risk. The referenced “Anti-Vaxers” say that the body should be left to be infected & will benefit from that. Well, the way the body benefits is by learning how to fight the disease later on, which is what a vaccine is doing with a much less severe infection. A vaccine with infect the body too, just as the “Anti-Vaxers” want, but with lower consequences. This seems like another proponent for the use of vaccines to me.
Sources:
- https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-03-anti-vaccination-activists-scientific-breakthroughs-beneficial.html
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3073546/
- https://www.genome.gov/27552451/what-is-genomic-medicine/
Science & the Public Intellectual 
This article just goes to show that “Anti-Vaxers” don’t necessarily understand the biological mechanism of vaccine
if “Anti-Vaxers” had a comprehensive understanding of vaccinations then they would also understand that a vaccination is in an of itself genomic medicine; however, it is just bypassing the severe consequences of infection. Thanks for the engaging article!
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