The Importance Of Vaccination

Families are being bombarded with stories about the dangers of vaccines like how sick their child can get and the illnesses and crucial diseases it may cause them. But on the other hand, you have society that is considered to be at an “at risk” condition when there are families that are not being vaccinated. So, protecting the society that we live in and the environments that we are constantly around may become dangerous and possibly deadly. Children are suffering because parents are more frightened by vaccines than by the disease they prevent. Although some families chose not to vaccinate, other families are skipping mild vaccinations while others vaccinations are designed to prevent potentially life threatening illnesses.

To illustrate, according to the government guidelines one way a child would receive a medical exemption is if they had a severe or life-threatening reaction to a certain vaccine. However, most children would never have been exposed to the chemicals found in vaccines so it would be impossible for parents to know beforehand if their child would react badly to the vaccine. Nonetheless, to prove that your child would have a severe reaction to vaccines, the child would first have to receive it to show it reacted badly. Therefore, this process somewhat defeats the purpose and may lead to irreversible consequences. Further downsides to receiving exemptions are that parents may have a hard time getting their child into certain schools, and pediatricians have been known to deny care to an unvaccinated child (Null and Feldman).

And if a child were still to get the disease after they are vaccinated, the symptoms would normally be way less serious than the symptoms in a child that didn’t get vaccinated. Why would parents opt against getting their child’s vaccinations, even in the face of the measles outbreak that has sickened more than 102 people in 14 states? Simply because trust in the government or the lack thereof and also misinformation. Your pediatrician believes that your children need to receive all of the recommended vaccines. Although sitting there through your child’s vaccination meltdown can be just as painful for you as it is them and the fear of these routine vaccines doing more harm than good, choosing to vaccinate children has led to 93% to 100% elimination of many childhood diseases in the U.S. (Vaccines.gov).

There are many different diseases that can be prevented by vaccines during childhood. Parents are putting their children in serious risk of harm by ignoring these vaccines, and that is child neglect. According to the Vaccine Resistance Movement website, as long our child have clean water, sanitation methods, and an organic diet, there will not be any childhood disease. While these issues certainly have an effect on disease, they are not the only cause for them. This group also claims that vaccines do not, and never will, prevent disease.

Without vaccines, there would be many little children running around sick. Diseases can be very painful and sometimes deadly, this is why children get vaccinated, so they do not have to worry about catching a disease and dealing with the symptoms. Some parents prefer not to vaccinate their child, because they are misinformed on the vaccines or see bad things on social media about it. The truth is they are just putting their child in danger by not getting them vaccinated. An instance that was recorded by the National Network for Immunization stated that, “A couple in Tennessee, confused about vaccines safety because of what they read on the internet, decided to delay their daughter’s vaccinations.

There may be some side effects to some of the vaccinations, but it is not worth risking not vaccinating them. It is unsafe to assume that herd immunity will wipe out the risk of catching the disease as so many parents today are not having their child vaccinated. I feel that it is a good idea that under most circumstances, vaccination against infectious diseases should be made compulsory for all children. In a situation when a child is more likely to react very badly to a particular vaccine, alternative methods could be used. But I feel it important that children of today are all immunised so that, in the future, hopefully, such diseases would not be a threat to the children of tomorrow.

Is it logical for schools to require kids to be vaccinated for diseases that are no longer a mass population threat? There has been a continuous increase in children that have not been fully vaccinated because of exemptions. Schools interrupting children's scheduled learning because they are not vaccinated is erroneous. According to Stephanie Cave and Deborah Mitchell, "Back in the middle of the twentieth century, the concept of mass immunization sounded like a good idea: We had deadly childhood diseases, we were developing vaccines that could prevent them, therefore, let's immunize all children so they won't get those diseases. And to make sure all, or nearly all, children were immunized, we made the shots mandatory"(9).

Anti-vaccination movements have begun gaining momentum and have a growing amount of supporters. This is bad for society because this will cause an increasing amount of unvaccinated children to be putting communities in danger. According to a commentary entitled, “Public Health, Science, and Policy Debate: Being Right Is Not Enough,” the author notes, mistrust in science, however, has compromised the possibility of deriving sound policy from such debates” (Camargo 232). Without people believing in scientific facts it is nearly impossible to prove anything. And therefore people will try to find other things to believe in, such as anti-vaccination

This genuine concern can go several directions. Some parents are convinced that the inventions of vaccines were made to prevent human-to-human transmitted diseases that can cause serious long-term health complications. While other parents believe that it is the vaccines that pose a greater risk to their child’s health. The truth is that the introduction of a vaccine has, in many cases, led to a very large decrease in the incidence of the targeted disease--such as the 96% decrease in the incidence of polio that occurred within 7 years of the introduction of the Salk and Sabin polio vaccines. Vaccines have changed our way of life, in many areas of the world.

The major controversy about immunizations is whether or not they are safe. Most of the arguments against vaccination appeal to parents’ understandable deep-seated concerns for the health of their children, particularly with very young babies. Unfounded allegations regarding adverse effects from vaccines typically target feared diseases, or syndromes or conditions of unknown or uncertain cause, such as autism, sudden infant death syndrome and multiple sclerosis. The most asked question when debating this topic is of course whether or not vaccines are safe or if in reality it is more dangerous to get them, then to not get them. Bliss on a non-bias side argues whether or not it is really necessary to continue arguing this topic, when neither side won’t ever be “right” because everyone believes in different ways and we won’t always agree with each other.1 She addresses both sides of the arguments to show that no one is really “right” when it comes to this topic.