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Students with disabilities in college
Students with disabilities in college
Mandatory school vaccination
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Students everywhere with medical disabilities are being put at a serious risk for deadly diseases due to the lack of vaccinated students. From religious to social reasoning, thousands of parents across the United States are moving towards the "no vaccination" movement, and sending their children to public schools without proper vaccinations. As it stands now, students with either medical or religious reasons can be exempted from the required vaccinations in all states except for Mississippi and West Virginia; however, parents are taking advantage of this policy. All students in public school systems should be required to get all of their vaccinations, unless there is a medical circumstance preventing that, in order to decrease the risk of infection for all public schools. …show more content…
According to Lexington School District One’s online website, "DTP, Polio, measles, German measles, mumps, hepatitis B, and chickenpox," (“Immunizations”) are the only vaccinations needed to get into the public schools. All of the immunizations required are for very common childhood illnesses that can easily be prevented with the use of vaccinations. The less amount of children with these vaccinations, the greater risk there is for these infections to spread. A case of an outbreak of varicella (chicken pox) was reported in a school with lax immunization policy. In an article featuring statistics from the outbreak, they author states “... of the remaining 249 students reported 118 (47%)
There is a war going on against parents that refuse to vaccinate their children. It is coming from the government that makes and enforces laws requiring parents to vaccinate their children, hostile parents of vaccinated children, and doctors that refuse to see unvaccinated children. They are concerned about the potential health risk unvaccinated children pose to the public. These parents aren’t lunatics but are concerned parents that are trying to make the best choice for their children. In fact, these parents aren’t fighting alone; a number of pediatricians and medical experts are apart of this crusade and have taken the lead. They will tell you there is an agenda, “Vaccine manufacturers, health officials, medical doctors, lead authors of important studies, editors of major medical journals, hospital personnel, and even coroners, cooperate to minimize vaccine failings, exaggerate benefits, and avert any negative publicity that might frighten concerned parents, threaten the vaccine program and lower vaccination rates.” 4
The current living situation of the children and family members and their access to health care services including transportation method, health insurance, financial concerns, and other economic constraints.
Vaccines are becoming increasingly hazardous for many children and parents are not being informed about the safety of their children. Current reports are linking vaccines to serious life-threatening disorders such as asthma, autism, immune system dysfunction, and mental retardation (Williams). These recent revelations are causing an increasing amount of people to claim religious and medical exemptions from vaccines. From 1999 to 2006, exemptions have more than doubled from 9,722 to 24,919 (Cronin). It is very clear that vaccinations are posing many problems for parents everywhere. Each day researchers are finding out about vaccines and are realizing that there are a lot more risks than benefits. Dr Phillip F. Incao explains: “Today, far more children suffer from allergies and other chronic immune system disorders than from life-threatening infectious disease. It is neither reasonable nor prudent to persist in presuming that the benefits of any vaccination outweigh its risk” (qtd in Spaker). While infectious diseases are becoming uncommon there is no need for any person to get vaccinated.
Vaccination was first introduced globally for small pox and later on extended to other communicable diseases which are now known as vaccine preventable disease. Vaccination is beneficial both for individuals and community. This bring us to the ethical dilemma - Vaccination of a healthy child with the intention of protecting both the individual child and the community at the same time exposing the child to the theoretical risk of exposure to disease products whether live, attenuated or killed. There was a time when people never questioned the government or their physicians. Now because of more public awareness and accessibility to medical information, they are questioning the safety aspects of vaccines.
Parents must be forced to vaccinate their children. The detrimental effects of failing to vaccinate a child can be spine chilling for not only your child but you and your loved ones around. Despite our best efforts to keep our children safe, their lives are unhygienic, a proverbial germ fest some might argue. Children must be vaccinated as they are unaware of their surroundings and a vaccination will save their life; only the child’s but also the people around them.
By 2006, vaccines for Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR), Hepatitis A and B, Chickenpox, and Hib were created and licensed. Vaccinations for these diseases, as they were created, would be required of students enrolled in school (“Government”). Today, the most common vaccines required by
North American children are now the most vaccinated on earth. Children receive about thirty-three doses of ten vaccinations by the age of five years. Not only do children need a separate vaccine for most diseases (hepatitis B, polio, Hib, and chicken pox are single vaccines; DTaP and MMR are multiple) but they generally need more than one dose of each vaccine. Because of the many vaccines needed, vaccination is an extremely controversial topic in the United States Today. Whatever side of the aisle you may fall with regard to your opinion about vaccination, one thing is for certain: the choice to vaccinate or not is a decision that has the potential to greatly impact the health of you and most importantly, your children for the rest of their lives.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Public confidence in immunization is critical to sustaining and increasing vaccination coverage rates and preventing outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs)” (para. 1). In recent history, there has been a significant decline in public confidence because of a variety of factors, such as vaccination does not always mean immunization, vaccines expose children to toxins, and children can build immunity naturally. The number of parents who are choosing not to vaccinate their children is growing yearly because there are certain exemptions that parents can claim, even if the vaccine is mandatory in their state.
America looks at disease as a war. Illness is the enemy, vaccinations are the weapons, and the unfortunate cost is that some innocent civilians may lose their lives. A vaccine is a substance used to provide immunity against a disease. In some cases, vaccines have done more harm than good. Ignoring this fact, vaccines are mandatory in every state, and some states are trying to take away the parent’s right to deny them. The disadvantages, diseases, and disabilities caused by vaccines justify the parent’s right to decide against the risk of vaccination.
One of the major criticisms of mandatory vaccinations is the shift of balance in autonomy and choice versus the protection of the public (Anomaly, "Public Health and Public Goods"). I can see how from a Kantian perspective that mandatory vaccinations could be using people as mere means for the greater good of the public health, but when one’s individual rights and choices endanger my personal safety there needs to be some regulation. The idea of herd immunity may follow from a utilitarian framework that vaccinations bring about the greatest possibly good and minimize harm and ultimately maximize the happiness of the public, but it is a practice that promotes the health of our future generation. Individuals against mandatory vaccinations argue against the need for vaccinations due to the potential harmful side effects they may result in. The fear driving what vaccinations contain is based off misinterpreting data. The CDC provides great amounts of knowledge of the potential and tolerable side effects of vaccinations. Another major argument against mandatory vaccinations is the cost. Like mentioned above the vaccines that are currently required to go to school are measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), Polio, Whopping Cough, Diphtheria, Varicella, Hepatitis B and Hib, which can be a costly doctor visit. The likelihood that these vaccines will no longer be mandatory for school-aged children is
Un immunized kids are starting to become a risk factor in our Texas school, to a point where they are starting to exclude students from school activities.
How would you feel if your child was to catch a deadly disease at school from another student that had not been vaccinated. For many years, vaccinations have been forced unto babies and smaller children to help prevent a future epidemic such as the ones from many centuries ago. Later within the years after vaccinations seem to have been proven effective and slightly popular, they became mandatory for a student to be vaccinated before being able to enroll into a school. Most parents went along with the new rule ,but there were still many parents that strongly disagreed and felt that it violated their liberty to make decisions for their child 's lives. I personally believe that vaccinations should be forced among students for reason such as: combat deadly diseases, suppress
Each year, about 2.1 million people die from vaccine-preventable diseases. Many children may not receive their necessary first year vaccinations because of lack of availability, religious beliefs, and safety concerns (Healy, Rench, and Baker 540). The dictionary definition of a vaccine is a biological preparation that improves the immunity to a certain disease (Healy, Rench, and Baker 540). Although all 50 States in the United States require children to be vaccinated to certain diseases before entering school, the states also have exemptions for these vaccinations (Lu 870). Parents often choose not to get their children immunized, and it has proven harmful to the health of the global population. It is important for parents to have their children vaccinated against diseases such as measles, mumps, and polio because it is important to promote the welfare of the human race (Parkins 439).
The issue of required vaccinations for children has become an increasingly intense subject of debate among parents and society. While the majority of parents support vaccination against childhood diseases and illnesses, a significant number of people also perceive vaccinations as dangerous, unsafe and perhaps against their core beliefs (Harmsen, et al., 2013). Because of this, many states have permitted both medical and non-medical exemptions from vaccines with non-medical exemptions falling into two main categories. These categories include religious exemptions and personal belief exemptions (Reiss, 2015). But as these exemptions have been allowed, the percentage of children receiving vaccines in some states has
Health promotion is a vital component to the healthy of a society, is a key component of Healthy People 2020, and is a major role of the nurse. Health promotion is achieved through education and preventive strategies. Vaccination is a health promotion activity in that its purpose is to prevent disease (Edelman & Mandle, 2010). Through vaccination, it is possible to significantly reduce the incidents of many diseases. Diseases that can be prevented through use of vaccinations are are referred to as vaccine preventable diseases. Some of the commonly vaccinated infections include polio, measles, Haemophilus Influenzae type b, pertussis, pneumococcal, rubella, varicella, hepatitis B, diphtheria, tetanus, and mumps (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2013).