Vaccines: Choosing What Goes Into Your Veins

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Do you remember going or taking your child to the pediatrician office for booster shots? Do you remember getting a flu shot or chicken pox shot? Do you remember how sore your arm felt? How nervous, you felt? Scared, even? Were you one of the few who got sick after getting a shot? Did you expect to be immune to getting the flu after going for the shot, but still got the flu anyway? Were you one of the few who suffered severe complications because of the misinformation spread by the CDC , Center for Disease Control? What if you were told you didn't need some of those shots you were forced to take? Did you know it's against your rights to be forced to get a vaccine? Before we talk about vaccination, you should know how vaccines work. Vaccines contain the same germs that cause a certain disease, but they have been weakened to the point that they don't damage the body. The vaccine then stimulates the immune system to produce anti bodies corresponding the disease (Source 7).

The ruling of required vaccination came about in the United States with the case of Jacobson V Massachusetts. Henning Jacobson, a Swedish immigrant, refused the town's order for all adults to be vaccinated during a small pox epidemic in 1902. He was ordered to pay a $5 fine. He counter-sued the Massachusetts courts, followed with the Supreme Court, basing his argument on the fact required vaccination violated the state and U.S. Constitutions. The ruling was “[T]he police power of a state must be held to embrace, at least, such reasonable regulations established directly by legislative enactment as will protect the public health and the public safety” (Source 5). From this case, the legal foundation for vaccination mandates and determines these requirements ar...

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...etts - 197 U.S. 11 (1905). U.S. Supreme Court. 20 Feb. 1905.JUSTIA US Supreme Court. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.

Source 6: Pollack, Andrew, and Stephanie Saul. "Lobbying For Vaccine To Be Halted." The New York Times. The New York Times, 20 Feb. 2007. Web. 07 Apr. 2014.

Source 7: United States. The Center for Disease Control. Immunization Services Division. Parent's Guide to Childhood Immunizations. 2010. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.

Source 8: United States. The Center for Disease Control. Immunization Services Division. Possible Side-effects from Vaccines. 4 Feb. 2014. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.

Source 9: United States. Department of Homeland Security. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Vaccination Requirements. 05 Mar. 2010. Web. 07 Apr. 2014.

Source 10: "Vaccines ProCon.org." Should Any Vaccines Be Required for Children? 18 Nov. 2013.Web. 30 Mar. 2014.

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