Mandatory Vaccine Research Paper

Despite significant progress in the fight against preventable disease, millions still die needlessly each year. According to UNICEF, originally known as the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, a vaccine preventable disease is responsible for 2 million fatal infections worldwide each year. About 75% of these deaths occur in children under five years of age. (N) In more vivid terms, UNICEF notes that vaccine-preventable diseases kill a child every 20 seconds. (D) Due to high rates of childhood vaccination, the United States has experienced a dramatic reduction in such deaths. A comparison of the years 1950 and 2010 clearly illustrates the benefits of vaccinations. During this 60-year period, deaths from diphtheria reduced from 410 to 0, tetanus from 336 to 3, pertussis from 1,118 to 26, and polio from 1,904 to 0. Measles deaths dropped from 468 in 1950 to 0 in 2008, the last year a United States death rate was recorded. It’s not surprising that vaccinations have been touted as one of the top ten health achievements of the 20th century by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Since vaccines were invented 1924, vaccinations have prevented 103 million cases of polio, measles, rubella, mumps, hepatitis A, diphtheria, and pertussis (Welch, 2014, ¶10).

There was a time in history when nearly all children in America had contracted the measles virus before the age of 16. This was in the decade before 1963. During this time, each year an estimated three to four million people in the United States were infected, with 48,000 hospitalized, and 400-500 fatalities. In 1963 the measles virus vaccine was licensed in the United States (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Today, the notoriously rampant measles virus is almost unheard of. Measles is one of many diseases that have been prevented, or eradicated by the use of vaccines. Today many of America’s most infamous diseases such as Measles, Hepatitis A, Mumps, and Pertussis have seen a greater than 85% decrease in reported contractions since the pre-vaccine era, and the Smallpox virus has been completely eradicated (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Despite all of the remarkable statistics proving the effectiveness of vaccines, today’s anti-vaccine movement is making strong waves upon society.

In late 2014, 146 children were confirmed to have contracted measles from a single source- a single infected person, who contracted the virus overseas, and then went to a public place effectively allowing the transmission of the pathogen to other people who were at the same amusement park the same day as them. This strain of infection was confirmed to identical to the same outbreak occurring in the Philippines, resulting in 21,420 confirmed cases and 110 deaths. (Zipprich J, 2015)All of the case from the amusement park could have been prevented if there had been more stringent requirements in vaccination enforcement and scheduling. This is just one such example of a potentially deadly outbreak occurring from the result of poor vaccination

Huge outbreaks like polio,measles, and the chicken pox diseases that have killed millions of children and adults no longer occur due to breakthroughs with vaccines. Children start to be vaccinated by the age of two until they are an adult, preventing theses diseases and many other vaccine preventable diseases.There are some who choose not to vaccinate their children or themselves, risking the health of the public.Refusing to vaccinate can cause many problems and risk for a child or an adult they take the risk of getting sick and possibly getting another person sick.Vaccinations should be mandated to prevent children and adults from getting vaccine preventable diseases and sickness.

Vaccines are one of the most effective and safest ways to protect children against numerous preventable diseases. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that a child receives 69 doses of 16 different vaccines by their 18 birthday and says that timing is very important when it comes to vaccines. Opponents argue that vaccines are not effective and the ingredients are unsafe and may lead to an increased number of children with autism spectrum disorders. We strongly believe that vaccines save lives and we should continue to vaccinate our children.

However, we must understand that only one disease - smallpox – has been completely erased from this planet. “From around the world in 2011 there was around 350,000 cases of measles, with outbreaks in the Pacific, Asia, Africa, and Europe." With this ever-growing sense of safety, small groups of anti-vaccine have begun to sprout and even our very own president has refused vaccines. Even though it may seem as though we are safe from the vaccine-preventable diseases, if we become too vulnerable due to no vaccinations there is a chance that a case that will start an outbreak of some disease that is now under control is just a plane ride

Why are vaccines important, especially for children and immune-compromised adults? Vaccination protects from serious illness and complications caused by vaccine-preventable diseases. Despite many efforts and medical advances, infectious diseases like measles, mumps, and whooping cough are still a threat and often there are no cures available for these diseases. Smallpox has been eradicated due to a vaccine and many expect that other terrible infectious diseases will be eliminated in the near future. This paper will explore (1) the history of vaccination, (2) pros and cons of vaccinations, and lastly (3) the future of vaccines.

These vaccinations have exterminated and eliminated diseases that once ravaged thousands of people. For example, the World Health Organization found that poliomyelitis, or polio, cases have decreased by over ninety-nine percent because of vaccinations. Between 1988 and 2015, polio cases dropped from three hundred fifty thousand cases per year to seventy-four cases (“Poliomyelitis”). However, if people choose to ignore necessary immunizations, cases of polio could increase throughout the United States and the world. Dr. Karie Youngdahl, the author of the novel The History of Vaccines, discusses this

Getting vaccinated helps tremendously to avoid getting life-threatening diseases. Immunizations not only spare children from horrible life-threatening diseases but also save lives. “In 1963 more than 400,000 Americans fell ill every year and thousands died” (Hand 1). When vaccines weren’t available at the time many as 100, 1 thousand and or 1 million people were very sick and dying. When vaccines arrived in 1967 Americans saw a tremendous change in the death toll, they saw 57,000 cases annually

A vaccination is when an inactive version of a disease is introduced into the body, so that the body can become immune to the disease. Vaccines have assisted in the eradication/rapid decline of diseases such as smallpox, diphtheria and polio, but there is still wide-spread apprehension about the possible side effects of vaccinations, which can prove fatal. There is debate about whether vaccines infringe upon personal and religious choices, and if it is right for the government to force parents to vaccinate their children.

It’s always heartbreaking when a child or young adult is lost to an illness, especially one that could have been prevented by a simple immunization shot. There is a common belief that just because you don’t hear about a contagion, that means it has been fully removed as a threat to our health; however, this is far from the truth. Just because we do not hear about the polio virus in our country does not mean it has been eradicated. There are still a small handful of countries in the world where this disease still lurks, only a short trip away. We live in a society where diseases such as measles, polio, whooping cough, tetanus, and hepatitis A and B, once rare due to immunization campaigns, are reappearing in certain areas. In recent history, a growing population of parents are choosing not to have their children vaccinated; this choice causes problems for their children, for the children of others, and for the general population as well.

Vaccination, also known as immunization, is the administration of antigenic material to stimulate an individual’s immune system to develop adaptive immunity to a pathogen (Vaccination). Vaccines are made from dead or weakened particles of viruses or bacteria. After they are injected, the dead or weakened pathogen produces antibodies, which provides immunity against a specific disease (Vaccination). Vaccinations differ from other medications as they are given to a healthy person, usually children, which is why people tend to have a lot of concern about vaccine safety and detest the idea of vaccination. According to the History of Vaccines, the first vaccine was introduced by Edward Jenner against smallpox in 1796 (All

Vaccinations are used by introducing a minute portion of a certain disease to the body, forcing the creation of antibodies that will fight the same foreign antigen at a later time if the person is ever re-exposed (Loeffler, Hart, p.398). Pursuing the idea that we have the ability to eradicate certain diseases on a global level has been the dream of researchers in the field of vaccination development for years. This idea is intriguing to the entire population, although it has only ever been accomplished in the case of smallpox. Due to the obstacles standing in the way of researchers, this may never happen again. Many parents have recently shown concern in regards to vaccinating their children, mainly based on the belief that vaccinations can

Throughout history, it has been shown that vaccines make a significant impact on the health of our communities and “administration of these vaccines led to dramatic reduction in the number of cases of, as well as deaths from smallpox, polio, diphtheria, pertussis, measles, mumps and preventable diseases” (Jacobson, 2012, p.36). Generally, those involved in campaigns for and research in these preventable diseases attribute vaccines for children as the main contributing factor to the overall decline in diseases such as measles, mumps, smallpox and pertussis (Jacobson, 2012). In the public health setting, there are many issues that threaten the health and safety of the public, not just in the local community but the nation and world-wide. One such issue, surfacing in public health, is the issue of vaccinations; those who choose to vaccinate, those who choose not to vaccinate and those who do not