Advantages and Disadvantages of Vaccination

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Vaccines teach the immune system by mimicking an infection. When a person is injected with a vaccine, they are exposed to a killed or weakened version of the pathogen that will not make them sick. Once the body recognizes that this is a foreign pathogen that needs to be attacked, our immune system produces leukocytes, or macrophages. Once the macrophage has engulfed the pathogen, the antigens that were on the pathogen are now saved for the macrophage to use so that our lymphocytes, or T-Cells and B-cells, can recognize them and reproduce to fight off the pathogen. The defensive T-cells, also called helper T cells, release chemical signals that direct the activity of other immune system cells. The B-cells make and secrete antibodies. The antibodies secreted by the B-cells are present throughout the human body and attack the microbes that have not yet infected any cells but are floating around in the blood or the spaces between cells. When the antibodies gather on the surface of a pathogen, it becomes unable to function. And when T-cells and antibodies begin to kill off the pathogen faster than it can reproduce, the immune system finally has taken control and gradually, the virus disappears from the body. And finally once the pathogen has been eliminated, some of the B and T-cells will turn into memory cells that will reactivate and remember this particular pathogen in the future if the individual is exposed to it and then attack it (National Institues of Heath, 2011).

Types of vaccinations
There are many different types of vaccines available these days. When people think about vaccines the majority would think chicken pox, Flu, and others, but that’s not what we’re looking at today. The first type of vaccine is made from live vi...

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...tient is mandatory. Attenuated vaccines can’t be safely injected into people who have a defective immune system (Ie…HIV). Basically this means that these patients have weakened immune systems that struggle to deal with infections that a healthy person would barely register (UKhealth) Almost all vaccines have some negative effects to people. The most common harmful consequence is redness and soreness. Other negative side effects include allergic reactions, sickness, an even nerve damage. Rarely people die from vaccines. As shown, there are a plenty of distinct advantages and disadvantages to the use of vaccines. Ultimately the benefits conferred by the use of this particular class of vaccination is significant enough that health authorities across the world make use of live vaccination to protect the population from a host of different, dangerous illnesses (UKhealth)

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