preview

Is Child Vaccination A Good Idea?

Decent Essays

Is Child Vaccination a Good Idea?
Today, there are many controversial topics around the world that people cannot seem to agree on. One such topic is whether children should be vaccinated. As babies, we are born with antibodies transferred through our mother’s placenta. These antibodies protect babies from particular diseases. Breastfed babies after birth remain receiving more antibodies from breast milk. However, the protection from these antibodies is only momentarily in both instances. Vaccinations, also known as immunization, is a method that uses small quantities of a dead or weakened microorganism from a specific disease in order to create resistance to it. When vaccinated, children’s immune system undergoes a stimulation to react as …show more content…

However, there are many beneficial effects. Such benefits include protection of the whole population, the ability to save children’s lives, and eradication of diseases. In my opinion the benefits far outweigh the detriment.
A major benefit of vaccinating children is that the whole population exploits from this. If children are vaccinated, they become immune to whatever disease the vaccine protects against for example, measles. Thus, if someone were to have measles, whoever is immune would not contract it. If the population was not immune to easily preventable illnesses such as smallpox and diphtheria, then epidemics could erupt, killing most of the population. This has been proven to be true in the history of America. Once the Europeans came over the America, they had already formed a resistance to smallpox. However, the Native Americans had never been exposed to those diseases found in civilizations. Once the Europeans came in contact with the Native Americans, entire tribes would become extinct due to their immune systems not forming antibodies that could fight against diseases from Europe. This still happens to somewhat the case today. This can be demonstrated “in 2011,” when “49 US states did not meet the 92-94% herd immunity threshold for pertussis (whooping cough), resulting in a 2012 outbreak that sickened 42,000 people and was the biggest outbreak since 1955” (Too Many Children Go Unvaccinated). Even though entire populations are not being eradicated

Get Access