Arguments Against Vaccination Controversy

Controversy concerning the risks of vaccinations will always exist. As is the nature of a preventative intervention, it is difficult to rationalize giving a completely healthy child an injection that is known to have varying degrees of sides affects5. Additionally, these injections are to provide immunity to children for diseases that have an extremely low risk of circulating within a population. Since these vaccines have been able to protect so many individuals from experiencing these dangerous infections, most parents do not even have personal experiences regarding the impact of these diseases. As such, many parents do not see the vaccine-preventable disease as a threat to their child. This often causes parents to not fully understand the risk their child has for contracting a disease and the subsequent danger of a vaccine-preventable disease infection verses the potential side effect of a vaccine which is normally only mild to moderate discomfort for their child15.

Some believe immunization can cause autism, brain damage, multiple sclerosis, seizures, or life-threatening anaphylaxis. While it’s best to show respect for these opinions, I simply disagree and am guided by evidenced-based data that illustrates no link between the dangers listed above and immunizations (Vaccines & Immunizations, 2010). According to CDC, there are several different types of studies pertaining to, maintaining and ensuring the safety vaccines including clinical trials, laboratory tests, and animal studies. There is constant monitoring of the safety of vaccines from scientist, along with federal government, state, and local health departments, other partners, and the public. CDC also monitors the safety of vaccines through a series of activities such as: VAERS (vaccine adverse event reporting system), clinical immunization safety assessment project, vaccine safety datalink, and emergency preparedness for vaccine safety (Vaccines & Immunizations, 2010). High-quality research, broad understanding, constant monitoring, evolving knowledge and understanding, and public health surveillance approach coupled with the many major medical organizations such as CDC, IOM, AAP, AMA, and FDA to a name a few contribute to the validity of the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines and immunizations. In a controversial topic, when one side has sufficient and manifested scientific facts followed and supported by world-renowned sources, and the other side simply strong opinions and beliefs, swayed views lacking data and evidence-based research, and uncreditable sources linking a cause to conditions without regard to scientific

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

The topic of getting a vaccine could cause a great deal of controversy depending on who you may discuss it with, but getting vaccinations should be a moral obligation. The members of the Anti-Vaccination Movement specifically would not fully agree with doctors and researchers claiming these vaccines to be safe.1 It is true that vaccines have a minimal chance, about 1-5% in children,2 of inducing the disease into the recipient due to it being a modified version of the disease and a fail of immunization. With the knowledge of statistics about failed immunizations and incorrect information gained from others or even the internet, it's understandable why the AVM3 is established and growing. The fear and risk of getting a vaccine for these reasons

Vaccinating your child seems to be the question of the decade for many parents and families. Typically, parents usually follow their doctors advice and automatically get their children vaccinated. But now, almost every parent has heard these concerning and alarming side effects that may accompany vaccinations. Faced with conflicting information, there are many questions that arise from these concerns and parents do not want their children to catch any crucial illness but are also concerned about the risk and side affects of vaccines. Challengers have claimed that vaccines do not work, that they are or may be dangerous, or that mandatory vaccinations violate individual rights or religious principles. Some wonder, are vaccinations even 100%

Personally, before doing any research and participating in this debate I was pro vaccines. Mainly due to my mom who is a nurse; she made sure my siblings and I received every vaccination needed for school and those not required for school. Her reason for why she made us get them when questioned by my brothers and I was that “you never know what anyone has and it will help protect you and keep you strong”. This was one of the viewpoints brought up in the debate alongside many other viewpoints that helped to solidify my view of vaccines.

Children are routinely vaccinated to prevent them from catching illnesses that could be fatal or life-changingly damaging. Diseases such as smallpox have been eradicated, and polio has been largely eliminated. It can still be found in remote areas of Africa and South East Asia.

Vaccinations serve the primary function of protecting and strengthening immune functions. The purpose of vaccinations is to “prepare” the immune system from these pathogenic invasions by injecting a weakened strand of the pathogen into the DNA of the particular person (US Department of Health & Human Services, 2015). However, In relation to vaccination for children, some parents have become sceptical over the effectiveness and the supposedly harmful quantities contained in vaccines. Some have described vaccination as being increasing the risk of “debilitating a child for life or even killing them” – alleging that they simply “do not work…and contain deadly chemical additives” and more notably, “are highly profitable for drug companies, which aren’t held liable for damages” (NaturalNews, 2014).

Vaccines are widely considered as the safest and most effective method of promoting public health and saving lives. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends receiving 31 doses of 10 vaccines (in addition to a yearly flu shot after six months of age) for children ranging from birth to 6 years old. Although all 50 states require children entering public school to be vaccinated against certain diseases there are no US federal laws that mandate vaccination. According to the Nation Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) all school immunization laws grant medical exemptions for vaccination and 48 states grant religious or philosophical exemptions. Those that advocate for vaccination say that it is safe and one of the greatest medical achievements

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.

One of the main argument against vaccination is that ‘all vaccines contain toxic chemicals and poisons such as glycerin which is toxic to the kidney, liver and can cause lung damage’. (Thehealthyhomeeconomist.com, 2015). The claim that vaccine causes more damage, more problems and side effects instead of protecting children against infectious diseases and other complex diseases for instance chronic organ damage and diseases (such as cancer) is not supported by evidence. This claim cannot be taken into account because it is based on the personal anecdotal. The effects that a person encountered at the time of vaccine is for a short term. In addition, it cannot be proven if it is the vaccine that causes some incidents that occurred however scientists are aware of these incidents and that is why the vaccine is under control to minimize these issues. For instance, the immunizations in Australia must and have to pass 'stringent security testing' before being endorsed to be

Vaccination is an important process which an individual go through right after birth till the age of

Vaccines have become more important in recent years since there are newer and more dangerous sicknesses. There are new vaccines made every single day to keep up with the rapid growth of new diseases. When vaccines first came out, there were a lot of questions concerning whether they were safe or not. Many people refused to get vaccines because they did not believe the vaccines were helping, but was making things worse. Although, vaccines were developed to help save people’s lives and protect them from many foreign diseases. The need for vaccines grew a great deal in several years due to the fact that doctors did not want young kids and babies to get sick since they were more likely to die from a disease than adults (NIAID).

Immunizations are the powerhouses leading preventative health. Immunizations have prevented diseases, eradicated some, and have saved many lives. In less than 10 years, some viruses have become completely extinct, or close to it. These diseases include smallpox, Hib, polio, measles, and diphtheria, just to name a few. State legislators have acted upon immunizations, and have made laws regarding them: “In all 50 states, the requirements cover diphtheria, tetanus, polio, measles, and rubella vaccines; 47 states require vaccination for mumps, 44 for pertussis, and 41 for hepatitis B. 49 states require a second dose of measles vaccine, 21 require varicella vaccine, and only 6 require hepatitis A vaccine. All 50 states require the Hib vaccine for