Pros And Cons Of Vaccines

Vaccines have become an important innovation to health throughout the years. A vaccine is a product that produces immunity from a disease and can be given by the nose or the mouth.

The choice to vaccinate a child holds much debate in society today. As a person that lives in America, you may feel it is your right to be able to choose what medical needs and necessities you would want for your child or yourself. “The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends getting 29 doses of 9 vaccines (plus a yearly flu shot after six months old) for kids aged 0 to six. No US federal laws mandate vaccination, but all 50 states require certain vaccinations for children entering public schools. Even though vaccines are considered extremely safe there are cases where in some people have a type of allergic reaction. Most states offer medical and religious exemptions; and some states allow philosophical exemptions” (Wadman, 2017). This point calls for a lot of debate, both in the scholarly world and among average citizens. Some people claim that such medical conditions, such as autism are the result of over vaccinating or dosing at early ages of development. Reasons on the topic vary, and concerns can end up in long legal disputes. Such disputes have raised the question of vaccine safety, prevention, and government intervention.

Vaccinations are a heavily debated topic in society today. Vaccinations have long been defined as a successful health measure, but the safety of vaccines raise concerns among many parents. According to Glanz et al., “The issue of vaccine hesitancy can be examined from several different angles, many of which point to the delicate balance between personal liberty and public health” (2). Personal rights and public health concerns, collide on this subject. Many parents want to decide if their children should be immunized, while public health representatives are focused on maintaining diseases from reemerging after years of dormancy. Vaccines, as with any medical procedure, come with a risk. As one evaluates the pros and cons, the

The topic of vaccines is something that has caused a lot of controversy for the past couple of years. Although there is scientific evidence as to how immunizations work, concerned parents still disagree and eventually pull their children away from getting any shots. However, this will become a major issue when the child gets enrolled to school. Most schools require vaccines like DTaP in order for the child to be accepted.

Over the last couple decades the debate over vaccines has been heated. In the last week there seems to have been a renewed interest. This is likely to the recent occurrence of measles around this country. I feel compelled to share some basic information that will hopefully address concerns regarding vaccines. At the very least, my friends and family can know where I stand.

Are vaccines likely to do more harm than good? According to Merriam webster dictionary a vaccine is a substance that is usually injected into a person or animal to protect against a particular disease. Science Facts says that vaccinations have existed since the late 1700s. There are vaccinations for many diseases including measles, chickenpox, mumps , smallpox , and the flu. While vaccines are beneficial, some believe they are harmful.

Immunization is the method whereby a person is made immune or impenetrable to a transmittable disease, usually by the supervision of a vaccine. Vaccines fuel the body's own immune system to guard the person against consequent contagion or disease. There is indication of an upsurge in vaccine refusal in the United States and of environmental gathering of refusals that results in epidemics. Epidemics of a vaccine-avoidable disease often starts amongst the people who rejected vaccination, spread promptly within unvaccinated inhabitants, and also spread to other subpopulations. The key motives for vaccine rejection in the United States are parental insights and apprehensions about vaccine protection and a low level of concern about the danger of many vaccine-preventable viruses. If immense benefits to humanity from vaccination are to be upheld, improved efforts will be desired to instruct the community about those advantages and to upturn public sureness in the systems we use to display and guarantee vaccine protection.

This article discusses the much debated concept of whether vaccines are correlated to causing autism. The controversy began in 1998 when a MMR vaccine – used to fight measles, mumps and rubella in children – was linked by a fraudulent research paper to disorders related to autism (Bearman 2010). As a result of the claims of the paper, there was a sharp drop in vaccination rates where the research was first originally reported – in the UK and in Ireland (Bearman 2010). As a result, there was a significant increase in the occurrence of measles and mumps, resulting in significant casualties as well as significant permanent injuries (Bearman 2010). Subsequently, a variety of research institutions have undergone significant testing of this “hypothesis” and have concluded there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

Vaccinations have been extremely important in the United States of America for as long as they have been around. The first vaccination was in the year of 1796, when Edward Jenner created the first smallpox vaccination. A vaccine, also known as an immunization is a “biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular disease,” (American Academy of Pediatrics, 3). The American Academy of Pediatrics states that "most childhood vaccines are 90%-99% effective in preventing disease,” and that "Vaccines Save 2.5 million children from diseases every single year." There are 10 vaccines that are critical for human health, and below each vaccine is laid out on what the vaccine is, the risks, and how they repel diseases.

Not only is this website providing the top pros and cons, but it also gives background about the issue.

It has been clinically proven that “vaccinations [are] the reason that we don’t see the suffering, disability, and death from whooping cough, measles, polio, and other infectious diseases like we used to” (Meadows, 6). Scientists have demonstrated the positive effects of vaccinations by presenting the statistics related to the number of deaths caused by diseases before and after the vaccines were implemented. Immunization seems to be humanity’s best defense against infectious diseases and without it, it’s much more probably that people can contract and transmit the diseases from person to person. Additionally, “routine childhood immunization has greatly reduced the economic costs of infectious diseases” (National Institute, 1). The costs for yearly immunizations for children are petty compared to the expenses of hospitalization and treatments which are far more probable for kids that do not get immunized from a very young age. In other words, people can save more money by preventing the disease in the first place rather than attempting to cure it after they have been infected. Furthermore, vaccinations also help develop immunity and protects the body. Vaccines allow people to teach their body to fight a certain strain of bacteria and provides artificially acquired immunity, an easier and much less risky method to gain immunity. Like anything else, vaccines are not always 100 percent effective and may not work the same for everybody else, but developing and implementing a vaccination is an arduous and thorough process which leaves very little room for scientists to make mistakes that could harm people. “Experts point out that the risk of being harmed by a vaccine is much lower than the risk that comes with infectious diseases,” and that is completely true because effects

Vaccines are one of the most debated topics in today’s society. Ever since the first smallpox vaccine there has been controversy over the ethics and safety of it. However, vaccines have helped people in many ways when it comes to their health. But, are they actually harmful? Are we being lied to, or is all this just a scare?

Those who are for vaccines focus on the bigger risks. Being vaccinated does come with the risk that you may suffer from side effects, or they may not work. However, vaccinating eliminates the threat of contracting a serious and fatal disease. Choosing which risk you want to take; possibly facing side affects, or suffering from a serious disease, may save your life one day. Vaccines overall have more positive outcomes than negative.

There are many illnesses in circulation that take the lives of children, however some of those diseases are vaccine preventable. So in other terms vaccines can save the lives of children.

In America, before vaccines, an average of 29,005 people died annually of smallpox, 16,316 died of polio, and 21,053 died of diphtheria. Thanks to vaccines, these diseases are thought to have been eliminated from America, yet people are still unconvinced that vaccines are helpful. However, in order to properly analyze whether vaccines are helpful or harmful, information must be gathered, such as the definition and origin of vaccines, the positive effects of vaccines, and the negative effects of vaccines.