It used to be that vaccinations were considered a normal part of childhood, right along with loosing teeth and toilet training. However, in recent years vaccinations have become an extremely hot button issue, with many parents actually choosing not to vaccinate their children. The idea seems preposterous considering how many people were left with twisted backs, and withered limbs due to polio, or the amount of deaths as a result of measles. To see someone who has been left in an iron lung from a disease that is now preventable, and still choose not to prevent the disease seems absolutely asinine, and yet many parents are doing just that. Sadly, much of the fear of vaccines stems from Dr. Andrew Wakefield, and his fraudulent research that linked vaccines with autism.
This article scared many parents into no longer vaccinating their children, which increased the outbreak of the communicable diseases again such as Measles, Chicken Pox and Pertussis. In 2010, Andrew Wakefield’s research was found to be untrue and therefore retracted from being published. He did his research on Autistic children who’s parents were convinced that it was due to their immunization shots. Much research has been published from 1998-2010 that proves that there is no relationship between Autism and immunizations. Since the kids display the symptoms of Autism around the same time as when they get their immunization shots, they had to do the research on children not getting the vaccines.
Parents against immunisation believe their children should rely on their natural immunity and argue that if each generation is immunised, every future generation will have no natural immunity. Many argue that as vaccinated disease rates decrease, the rate of chronic illnesses increase steadily as a result of lowered natural immunity as a result of vaccinations. The recent Bachmair study has found a link between allergies and vaccination rates, where vaccinated children are twice as likely to suffer from them as unvaccinated ones. They are also 8 times as likely to suffer from
Diphtheria, a cause of premature death in children, has been virtually eliminated from America for ten years, but people fail to analyze the cause of this success.Vaccines are attributed to the disappearance of Diphtheria and many other diseases. Vaccinations not only save lives, reduce pain, suffering and disability; they save money. When an unvaccinated child becomes sick, they are rushed to the Emergency Department where doctors are required to run a slew of tests; urine, blood, chest x-ray and the most extreme, a lumbar puncture. These medical procedures turn into piles of bills is not usually considered when choosing not to vaccinate. Some vaccine-preventable diseases can result in lifel... ... middle of paper ... ...etracted.
Because of the miraculous advances in medical science, children are being protected against more and more diseases than ever before. Some diseases that had once injured or even killed thousands of children, have been eliminated completely. Others are close to extinction, due to safe and effective vaccines. One example of vaccine that has eliminated an illness is the polio disease in the United States. Polio, once America’s most-feared disease, that caused death and paralysis across the country has had no reports in the United States thanks to vaccinations.
This paper was the beginning of over a decade of parents who feared that vaccinating children would lead to autism. During this time some parents chose not to vaccinate and this is now affecting our public health. Not all children can be vaccinated. Some children have immune deficiencies, like cancer, which prevent them from getting vaccines. Other children are too young to be vaccinated.
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). Vaccinations have significantly reduced the disease rate throughout the world. Usually, vaccines prove to be between 90 and 99 percent effective. This reduces disease and mortality rate by thousands every year (Jolley and Douglas 1).
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).
In the first eight months of 2014, there were eighteen measles outbreaks, and six hundred cases of measles. This is incredibly dangerous because outbreaks give these diseases the opportunity to evolve and become resistant to vaccines, putting even vaccinated children at risk (Harmon). Parents making the decision not to vaccinate are doing so out of a place that all parents share: a desire to keep their children healthy. However, these anti-vaxxers are basing their decision not on
He was not old enough to get the vaccine to protect him against the disease. However, now that the child has had that experience, it made the parents firm believers in vaccination and protecting them against these terrible diseases. Another example of why vaccines saves lives is when a mother (Michele) of two twin boys William and Andrew contracted the Rotavirus and it nearly almost killed them. When the children were ten months old, “they came down with severe