In the year of 2017, I would think 99% of the population of the Western world would believe in the life saving abilities and precautions vaccines are able to provide. But recently, a new wave of danger has befallen the mommy bloggers and soccer moms. The fear of bearing autistic children ‘brought about by vaccines’ is too much for these moms, they couldn’t watch their child suffer such a fate. So what’s their solution to protect their precious miracle? Ultimately, sacrificing the overall physical health of the child, as well as the children around them by depriving the child of a good, healthy start in infancy in exchange for non-medical protection. One making such an ill-informed, naive, and selfish decision for their child ultimately …show more content…
Doctors, and even Disneyland officials made a public statement pleading with individuals, especially those with infants younger than fifteen months, to not visit the park if they have not received the latest MMR vaccine and to receive the vaccine as soon as possible.
Yes, the doctors are such evil, corrupt money suckers for wanting public health to be protected.
Additionally, the human population develops a ‘herd immunity’ to a certain virus or disease. Herd immunity occurs when majority of the population maintains immunity to a particular disease. This, in turn, protects that small percentage of the population that have not received vaccinations.
This could be done by the meticulous and drawn out function of evolution, or, it could be accomplished much faster if people receive vaccines for preventable diseases. Which is needed for herd immunity to be maintained, as a large percentage of the population must be vaccinated for this successful and biological phenomenon to occur.
While anti-vaxxers go ahead and deny themselves or their children of vaccines, their blissfully ignorant to the overall effect they could have on society and public health.
Not to only mention the biological effects, there are also social effects anti-vaxxers don’t realize they’re causing.
Following a
Although the negative claims behind anti-immunization stances are deceptive and discredited, some parents find it difficult to accept that vaccines are necessary and safe. Many of these reasons are due to personal or religious beliefs that have persuaded parents to bypass immunizations for their children. Consequently, health officials are seeing disquieting rises of diseases that are easily preventable. The CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) has reported hundreds of measles cases in the United States in 2011, the largest number in 15 years (Ben-Joseph, Elana). Essentially, almost all of these cases were in individuals who had not received a vaccine shot. Also found in the article was that a great amount of the quarrel over the shots comes from a 1998 study that tried to connect autism to a type of vaccine that defends against measles. However, there has been no scientific evidence that a vaccine or a combination of any of the shots induces autism. Undoubtedly, the doctor that wrote the article, calling vaccines a “deliberate fraud” ,lost his license for not submitting any evidence of his claim and causing people to neglect shots for that year. Sadly, due to that article, 1 in 4 parents still believe that vaccines are
Vaccinations play a very large part in the prevention of diseases spreading. When enough people, 95% according to the CDC, have been vaccinated, the other 5% not vaccinated are protected through herd immunity (Kluger). This term is often used in discussion with
Unfortunately, little progress has been made since then, as reports from 2015 show only 72.2 percent of U.S. children are fully vaccinated (KFF, 2017). Healthy People 2020 recommends a national goal of 80 percent to maintain herd immunity (Child Trends Databank, 2015). Despite the life-saving importance of immunization, these stagnant rates show that many mothers of U.S. children do not adhere to vaccination recommendations. These critics and skeptics of vaccines are a part of the anti-vaccination movement. Originating upon the discovery of the first vaccine in 1796, this movement has progressed for hundreds of years. Currently, through media and prominent anti-vax social figures, the public can easily be relayed messages of vaccine controversies rather than scientific facts. Falsehoods include perceived low risk of contracting vaccine-preventable diseases, “overloading” the child’s immune system, mercury in vaccines, reports of negative reactions after vaccination, and the infamously popular myth that vaccines cause autism (Mittenzwei, Morrison, & Williams,
their children vaccinated and take the risk of their child having a side effect. While some experts say that vaccinations are
Herd immunity is essential in a community where people are unable to be vaccinated. The greater the quantity of people that are immune to a disease, the lower the chance of someone who is vulnerable contracting said disease. Whooping cough is an excellent example of a vaccine that strongly relies on herd immunity. With whooping cough, babies are particularly at risk of infection, therefore it is essential that immediate family members such as the; mother, father and grandparents are all immunised before coming into contact with the
The original definition of herd immunity pertained to the protective effect that ensued when a population contracted and recuperated naturally from infections. Natural immunity lasts a lifetime whereas vaccine generated immunity does not. There is no question that a disease outbreak can happen in a non-immune population, if a virus is introduced there, but the notion of herd immunity as it is erroneously applied to vaccines is being used to maneuver using disinformation and fear to compel the public into consenting to receive vaccinations contrary to their uninformed will.
We are aware that such perceptions are based on the view of herd immunity. It is believed that a critical portion of the population must be vaccinated to prevent the spread of disease. Conversely, if there are those in the population who are not
In the article “How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endanger Us All” written by Amy Wallace she discussed how some people opt out of giving their kids vaccines. This is due to the false impression that vaccines give children autisms. Now do to so many people opting out many diseases/sicknesses are making a comeback. What once have been called a third world country problem is now becoming a first world problem. Scientist are now spending all their research money on proving that vaccines don’t give children autism instead of finding what really causes autism, to prevent an outbreak of disease. The miss conception of vaccines giving kids autism is due to Neurological conditions don’t begin to show till 18 to 24 months which is when many vaccines
When it comes to vaccinations, people should be more educated on the positives of those vaccinations. Pregnant mothers in their second trimester of pregnancy were evaluated on their perception of vaccines. People who believed in giving their child all the vaccines, known as accepters, knew most if not all about the importance of getting the vaccine. They believed that it was effective, safe, and valuable to get the childhood vaccinations. However, some pregnant women weren’t so educated when it came to how the vaccines could protect their children. So a lot of the women didn’t know how much these vaccinations protected us. I believe when it comes to improving or preventing the transmission of disease, people should be more informed or educated
Often debated, with strong convictions on each side, timely immunizations for children do more good then harm. Over the last few years, a phenomenon has come to our door steps. It used to be that all parents would immunize their children, without fail, because doctors told them to. In the past, the only non-immunized children were the children with health deficiencies. These children depended on the “herd” mentality. However, times are changing and parents are choosing to not immunize their children mainly based on these reasons: the possibility of them getting autism, parental lack of education about immunizations and lastly they believe that the illnesses that children are being immunized against are gone and immunizations are no longer needed.
Millions of lives have been saved thanks to a global effort to vaccinate for deadly diseases. Peter Yeo reports “Immunizations have saved more children than any other medical intervention in the last 50 years” (Reforming the U.N. 118). Yet, a new trend for parents is opting out of vaccinating their children for personal beliefs or religious exemptions. Although, the majority of Americans believe vaccines protect children, and conclusive evidence has proven vaccines can prevent the spread of deadly diseases. Still, a few parents believe vaccinating children is not essential for their health, additionally, they believe an increase in mandatory vaccines has insufficient scientific research to prevent serious medical side effects.
When children who have been vaccinated do contract a disease, despite being vaccinated against it, they usually have milder symptoms with less serious complications than an un-vaccinated child that gets the same disease. It is true that some children who receive vaccinations may still become ill when exposed to other disease-ridden children. Research shows that 70-90% of the entire population must be vaccinated to attain “herd immunity”, “the resistance of a group to attack by a disease to which a large proportion of the members are immune.” (Farlex, 2012) When herd immunity is accomplished the spread of the disease can be averted throughout. If all parents were to take proper responsibilities and keep their children’s immunizations up-to-date, herd immunity would be achieved against all 16 of the major life threatening diseases.
Vaccines save lives; fear endangers them. Vaccinations have been used since the 18th century to cure various deadly diseases, from smallpox to the influenza virus. On a global level, vaccination is one of the few cost-effective medical measures that result in universal benefit. Yet there have always been those opposed to vaccinations because of possible side effects. With the increase in technology and the ability to share ideas in modern society the anti vaccine movement has flourished making the eradication of disease and safety of the public a difficult task. The anti-vaccine movement in the United States is one which brings about a very serious issue of safety. Vaccinations are put in place to protect people; they are administered by trained professionals who weigh the costs and benefits of vaccines. Yet there are still people out there who refuse to be vaccinated out of fear and therefore decide for themselves the effectiveness of vaccines. In order to ensure a safe society the public needs to be educated about vaccine in order to make a truly informed decision.
In contrast, a positive aspect of many people having vaccinations is herd immunity. Herd immunity is the occurrence where a large proportion of a specific population is vaccinated to provide them immunity, and as a result, it also gives some protection to the people of the population who have and yet developed immunity. This happens as the a large group of vaccinated individuals are protected from a virus and creates difficulty for the it to spread because there is only a small percentage of the population left that could be infected by the disease. It is a very crucial aspect of immunity for the community as the people who cannot receive vaccinations (i.e. people with weak immune systems, very young children and patients who are too ill)
The term "herd immunity" first appeared in a paper published in 1923, entitled “The Spread Of Bacterial Infection - The Problem Of Herd Immunity" (Topley & Wilson, 1923). Herd immunity refers to the protection of populations from infection, which is brought about by the presence of immune individuals (Anderson & May, 1985). Herd immunity occurs when the proportion of people in a population that has immunity to a pathogen is so high, the pathogen cannot find enough susceptible hosts to infect and consequently can no longer survive (Coico & Sunshine, 2015).