Anti Vaccination Debate

These articles have spurred a controversy about vaccinations and have discouraged parents from them. Reluctance to vaccinate has increased over the past years and has caused parents to neglect the fact that they need to vaccinate their kids. Under-immunization has caused the resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases like polio and measles to breakout in schools. Concern for recent outbreaks has lead me to pose the question: Should it be mandatory to vaccinate your kids?

Between 1924 and 2013, vaccinations prevented 103 million cases of polio, measles, rubella, mumps, hepatitis A, diphtheria, and pertussis (Bailey). Vaccinating is “the process by which pathogenic cells are injected into a healthy person in an attempt to cause the body to develop antibodies to a particular virus or bacterium—successful creation of antibodies is referred to as immunity to the disease caused by the particular pathogen” (Introduction to Should Vaccinations be Mandatory). Popular conflicts regarding vaccination include the worry that this form of immunization isn’t natural, the idea that vaccination schedule for children in the U.S. takes away parents’ rights to make decisions for their children, and the concern that vaccinations aren’t safe for all children. Most doctors and scientists advocate for vaccinations in the name of herd immunity, protection against foreign diseases and prevention against pockets of disease outbreaks. Vaccinations should be mandatory for all children in the United States for who they are deemed safe and effective.

“As healthy as my lifestyle seemed, I contracted measles, mumps, rubella, a type of viral meningitis, scarlatina, whooping cough, yearly tonsillitis, and chickenpox, some of which are vaccine preventable” (Parker 1). This quote by vaccine advocate Amy Parker, a woman who was not vaccinated as a child, shows just a glimpse into the life of an unvaccinated individual. Parents who do not vaccinate their children claim many different reasons for their decision. Three of the most popular reasons are: religious grounds, health problems as a result from vaccines, and the belief that the illnesses are rare. Each of these reasons can be proven as nonessential in the anti-vaccine argument.

This paper was written for MLS 500: Graduate Research and Writing taught by Dr. Kyla Hammond

key arguments that anti-vaccination supporters used in the past and how they have evolved throughout time. One of the roots of the anti-vaccination movement was the Bible, which was used by one of the founding fathers of the anti-vaccination movement to justify the dangers of vaccines (Kaufman 464). This shows that anti-vaccination supporters viewed the Bible as the ultimate source of knowledge that could rival scientific research. Although the anti vaccination has changed throughout the years and has new leadership, that does not mean its ideas have shifted. The roots of a movement often stay even if the ideas do change. As previously mentioned, the Bible and religion is a root and will likely never leave the anti-vaccination movement. This

Conflicting reports about the safety of vaccinations is causing confusion and fear among parents. There has been tremendous hesitation in choosing whether or not to vaccinate children. The Federal Government has remedied this hesitation by creating a law. New legislation, effective at the start of the 2016 school year, requires parents to vaccinate their children in order to attend public or private schools. Parents that rely on school or day care systems to care for their child care while they work, are left without a choice. If these parents wanted to postponed or possibly not vaccinate, it is no longer of consequence, they are now obligated to take the leap. This law should be repealed until further research is done and more effective versions are created. Doctors need to understand why some children have adverse reactions and how to test for possible predispositions before vaccines become mandatory. Vaccinations should be an option for prevention, with parents in full awareness of the risks.

In these blog post “Enough is Enough with Blaming ‘Anit-Vaxxers’” by Modern Alternative Health and “Enough is Never Enough with Blaming ‘Anit-Vaxxers’” by SciBabe, they each gave their opinions about vaccination choice and their reaction to the 2015 measles outbreak at Disneyland. While Scibabe is more on the offensive side and pointing out Modern Alternative Health’s flaws, Modern Alternative Health stays more on the defensive side in order to get her point across. Just one thing that both of these blogs post can agree on is that children are suffering one way or another, no doubt about it, the children are the first priority.

"In the United States, the childhood immunization schedule recommends that children receive approximately 15 vaccinations by 19 months of age, and it specifies ages for administration of each vaccination dose" (Luman, Barker, McCauley, & Drews-Botsch, 2005, p. 1367). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a vaccine is "a product that produces immunity therefore protecting the body from the disease" (Vaccines and Immunizations, 2015). Currently, there are many individuals advocating for and opposing the effects of the administration of vaccinations and immunizations in the United States. There are both legal and ethical issues surrounding the controversy, which include both deliberate and exogenous reasons not to vaccinate, and the mandatory nature that is required by many schooling districts and places of employment. Within this paper, I will discuss some legal implications surrounding vaccination, ethical debates that are current in the topic, as well as my point of view regarding immunizations and vaccinations.

Most kid’s worst nightmare is getting a shot or vaccination because they fear the needle and are scared of pain. Adults should be scared of shots too, not because of the needle, but because of the harmful chemicals and immoral materials they are created from. Vaccinations should be considered the parents’ choice because they are it could go against their religious beliefs and parents’ should be able to determine what vaccinations are medically beneficial for their children.

Living in an environment where we are prone to many viruses, it’s very important that one take the proper precautions or considerations to control the risk of getting affected. However, when utilizing the ability of not becoming infected, one may question the fact weather there’s an actual effective form of prevention or not. To clarify the uncertainty, over many years one of the most strategic methods that have been used for the control and preventions of viruses are vaccinations. A vaccination takes advantage of one’s body natural ability to primarily learn how to eliminate almost any disease causing germ or microbe that affects it. Therefore vaccinations are considered one of the most effective ways to prevent severe outcomes initiated by viruses.

Ever since the rise of religion, certain practices have been marked as foreign and have also been avoided by people. The field of medicine is one of such practices that has been embroiled in various religious disagreements since its conception. Even today many of the disagreements still remain in our societies and has given rise to many campaigns like Anti-Vaccinations. The articles given were also in response to similar kinds of campaigns/beliefs. In the articles there are many views regarding how the people and government should consider these beliefs and what are its effects on the younger generation. One of the author Sharon Slaton Howell says in her article “I feel strongly that Christian Scientists who are committed to following in Christ Jesus' steps of relying on God's power alone for healing, should be allowed exemption from standard health care practices for themselves and their children.” Furthermore, another author who focuses on other aspect of these beliefs, Richard W. Garnett states, “There are relatively few religious objectors to vaccinations, for instance, so they can probably be accommodated because narrow religious exemptions (as opposed to unjustifiably broad ones ‘that cover philosophical and personal objections) do not result in dangerous numbers of

I have been reading disturbing reports that a growing segment of our society is deciding to refuse vaccinations and immunizations for their children. These children, when allowed to co-mingle with other children potentially come into contact with children who are immune-compromised due to immuno-suppressant therapy, cancer, chemotherapy, or immunodeficiency disease, not to mention newborns, who have not yet been immunized against dangerous communicable diseases. As a society, we must stand up to those who would threaten the public health with decisions which may well take us back to an age of high child mortality--a public health disaster. Failing to immunize your child enables them to spread preventable communicable diseases to

Immunizations prevent millions of deaths every year around the world. They are one of the most successful public health interventions and an additional 1.5 million deaths could be avoided if global coverage improves (“10 Facts on Immunization”). Vaccines have been around since before the 1800s and they have been helping us fight against diseases for over 200 years. They have taken fatal diseases, like smallpox, and completely wiped them out. However, there are many people that are still against vaccines and would never consider vaccinating themselves or their kids. They think that the ingredients are dangerous and that the possible side effects are worse than the disease itself. The thing they don’t realize is that their decision to not vaccinate their child is affecting everyone who will be around them. Having a child at school who is not vaccinated will put all the other children who did get their vaccinations at risk and that is not fair to them. It is understandable that some people might not want the government interfering with their medical decisions, but the government is doing it for a reason. They want to keep everyone safe and healthy and they want to stop major outbreaks of preventable diseases from ever happening again. All children should be required to get vaccinations and continue to get them throughout their life in order to prevent future outbreaks of diseases and protect everyone that will be around them.

Already, vaccine-hesitant parents have a “greater distrust of health care professionals and the government” according to “Countering Vaccine Hesitancy” (Edwards). One group opposing vaccines declares the message of objecting to mandatory vaccinations on their website, Stop Mandatory Vaccination, “[We are compelled] to demand our Constitutional and human right to control medical interventions for ourselves and our children regardless of legislation passed enforcing mandated vaccination” (Cook). Altogether, a vaccine mandate would cause suspicion and an adverse reaction to both the government and vaccines. The solution to vaccine hesitancy must change the post-truth ideas behind the decision to reject vaccinations rather than force the right

Many parents have been allowing their pediatricians to immunize their children withvaccines containing threatening chemicals without their knowledge. For those parents who havebeen refusing vaccination for their children they have been citing serious adverse effects and vaccine safety as the major concerns. Some of the top concerns among parents also include the fear of autism, the presence of toxic ingredients in the vaccines and insufficient testing andresearch on the vaccines. Moreover, some parents have developed the belief that too many vaccinations have the overall side effect of weakening the immunity of their children and that pediatricians have been giving children more vaccinations than they need. In other contexts,parents of children who have not been immunized at any given moment have been citing the side effects of the vaccines and that such vaccines have not been quite effective in preventing diseases and therefore, would opt for alternative methods of disease prevention. However,despite having valid reasons for not vaccinating their children, parents have received uncalled discrimination for their actions. Parents should have the right to refuse vaccination without judgment or discrimination because of safety concerns for their child’s long-term health.Parents should have the right to refuse immunizations for their children because certain vaccines may result in autism and other debilitating injuries in their children. The idea that some