Exploring Bioethics - NIH Office of Science Education - National ...

You may wish to highlight the dangers of a disease such as smallpox.Students may have differed in how they interpreted the relative dangerof each of the diseases. Those details are not as important as the generalidea that the diseases vary in how dangerous they are, how likely it isthat a person will get the disease without the vaccine, and what thehealth impacts of the disease are.10. Ask for a show of hands of how many people have had, or knowsomeone who has had, smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella(German measles), diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), polio,or varicella (chickenpox).Very few students should raise their hands, allowing you to makethe following point: These diseases are unfamiliar because of thesuccess of vaccines and programs that involved vaccinating wholepopulations.1211. Debrief Station 2—Vaccine Risks.Students should record this important point: The risk of harm fromvaccines is extremely low. In fact, it is much lower than the risk ofharm from getting a disease.Vaccines are very safe and effective, but there are some risks associatedwith them. Sometimes, if there is a high risk of great harm from thedisease, individuals might be willing to incur a lesser but still high riskof significant harm from the vaccine. The smallpox vaccine is one thathas a high risk of great harm relative to other vaccines, but because thedisease itself has an even higher risk of even greater harm, the vaccinemay be worth getting.12. Debrief Station 3—The Measles Graph.Two main trends shown in the graph include a drop-off in numbers ofcases of measles after the vaccine was widely introduced and a smallincrease in cases in 1990. Students should record two important points,as well as any others raised during the discussion:• Vaccines are largely responsible for reducing how manypeople get childhood diseases such as measles.• Sometimes outbreaks occur because vaccinated individualshaven’t developed an appropriate immune response (“vaccinefailure”) or because people have not been vaccinated for avariety of reasons.345Module 2 2-116