Essay on Should Vaccines Be Mandatory?

After watching The Vaccine War, the main concerns of vaccines are public safety, the aftermath of injecting harmful chemicals into ones’ body and the parents that choose not to vaccinate their children. In the beginning of the documentary, a mother, Jennifer Margulis, states she felt like it was not needed for her newborn child to be vaccinated for a sexual transmitted disease. She feels like the ingredients are scary for a young child to take in with an immature immune system. The other issue is a massive outbreak of disease that could have been prevented. The Center of Disease Control is carefully watching the town that Ms. Margulis lives, Ashland, Oregon, because it’s the least vaccinated places in America due to parents

Everyone in the United States who is not apart of a religious group--in which vaccination will infringe upon their beliefs--should receive vaccinations to ensure the safety of American citizens. For instance, when one schedules an annual physical, he/she may immediately think of vaccines. Young children may whine and teenagers may gripe. “Do I really need a shot mom?” One grumpy teenager or child might ask. The mother, in a typical setting, will say yes. The parent will not reply yes because they wish to hear his/her child complain about a sore arm for the next three days; no, the parent allows the nurse to administer the shot because the vaccine is recommended. In fact, vaccines have been a proven and effective way to protect the human race against diseases. With the intention of preventing diseases, listening to recommendation by qualified physicians and nurses could mean the difference between life and death for other children.

Pennsylvania like many other states have a list of mandatory vaccinations; if students are going to be publicly active in school they need to get vaccinated. However, unlike West Virginia and Mississippi who only allow medical exemptions, Pennsylvania allows medical and religious exemptions. Therefore, Pennsylvania vaccinations laws require some mandates as well as allow some exemptions. First, Pennsylvania laws do not require parents to vaccinate their children; it is the parents decision. “Children need not be immunized if the parent, guardian or emancipated child objects in writing to the immunization on religious grounds or on the basis of a strong moral or ethical conviction similar to a religious belief. Medical exemptions are also

However, shouldn’t it be a woman’s choice if they choose the 70% of cervical cancers or the 0.05% risk? However, the bottom line is that their choice to be vaccinated could save everyone. It’s a simple concept; herd immunity. When everyone is vaccinated, the vaccine is far more effective. One example of herd immunity is polio. Nowadays, polio is not a real threat to the people of the United States because essentially, we are all immune. However, during the 1960’s, this was definitely not the case. Eventually as a vaccine for polio was developed, the virus became far less prevalent because people were being vaccinated. But, do you think that every single person in the United States got vaccinated? No. However, a majority of people did until there was no way or source for the people who were unprotected from the virus to contract it. This same event can occur for HPV. If we make this vaccine mandatory for 11-12 year old girls, before they’re sexually active, the number of people who could pass on the virus would be less and less, until we eliminate the strains of HPV that cause cervical cancer.

The United States of America is known to most as the Land of the Free for numerous reasons. In the United States of America Americans are granted multiple freedoms such as speech, religion, sexual orientation and the right to bear arms. Americans have financial freedoms, freedom to choose the best schools for their children and the freedom to choose which, if any, vaccinations are right for their children regardless of which school they choose. The public school system allows an exemption of vaccinations for medical, religious or philosophical reasons. The question that remains is, regardless of what the law says, is it safe for the general population to have unvaccinated children attending or socializing with others?

Looking at the principles of beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, and autonomy we can evaluate the requirement of the HPV vaccination through the ethical theory of principlism. The principle of autonomy indicates that people should make their own choices and decisions, but this law would be forcing someone to make a decision regarding their lifestyle choices, not from a student’s presence in a school classroom. The principle of beneficence, which is doing good, however does support the case in which HPV does prevent some strains of cervical cancer and genital warts. There are potential harms that fall under the principle of non-maleficence however, there could be less pap smear exams given if the student feels they are now insusceptible to developing cervical cancer. The HPV disease is sexually transmitted therefore it is unreasonable to require

Since the invention of the vaccine, countless lives benefit from the protection against serious life-threatening diseases. Despite strong integration in modern medicine, an anti-vaccine movement impinges upon concerned parents throughout our country. Even though, vaccinations protect immunity majority of the time, vaccines should not be mandatory in all aspects, as it invades upon parental right, however, the presence of required vaccines in the public schools with limited nonmedical exemptions is a must.

I believe that vaccinations should be mandatory for younger children, so they are safe, reduce the risk of illness, and protect other people from contagious diseases. Children are more likely to get sick from being around other children at school or daycare. I think that all children should be protected. The best way to protect children is to make sure that they are vaccinated and receive yearly check-ups. Vaccines for children are very important to protect children from infections and is a safeguard for children’s health.

The recent measles outbreak occurring at Disneyland in December 2014 became widespread news and rekindled an ongoing debate of childhood vaccination. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which is the United States government agency responsible for the protection of Americans from health threats, there were 159 measles incidents arising from this occurrence (“Measles” 373). Considering this outbreak, it is not unexpected that the role of vaccination would come to the forefront. The CDC is presently advocating 29 vaccinations for children through the age of six years old (“2016 Recommended Immunizations” 1). However, each state respectively establishes the laws for vaccination and corresponding exemptions. For comparison purposes, in the early 1970’s, only three vaccinations were recommended (The Merck Manual 1462). This growth is a 314% surge in the number of vaccinations encouraged by the CDC. Thus, the subject of vaccinations and exemptions is contentious, divisive, and widely debated. Indeed, some believe that childhood vaccinations should be mandatory in order to protect every individual from preventable diseases (Gostin 1100). Instead, vaccination should be an informed parental choice, not mandated by the federal government, because vaccine safety is questionable, diseases being vaccinated against have fundamentally disappeared, and parents should have the right and freedom to nurture their children.

History, it seems, is a difficult subject to remember. So often, though they have been through it before, humans seek to make mistakes over again. They strive to end the very wars for which they fought so hard. They protest the very social reform that they championed not long ago. Now they have chosen to engage in another war against the former generations by lashing out at vaccinations, blaming them for health issues such as autism and calling for public schools to eliminate regulations requiring vaccinations in young children. While these people suffer from blindness towards the history of their own nation and the suffering that spread through diseases such as Polio and Smallpox, their arguments are flawed even further. Vaccinations are not only scientifically unlinked to conditions such as autism, but they are crucial to the health of the individual and of the public.

It is unethical to the public. The intention for Merck, who developed the Gardasil vaccine and lobbied hard for the mandatory cervical vaccine for girls, seems to make a profit from the Gardasil vaccine. The government should respect and protect people’s legal and moral rights. The mandatory cervical vaccine program for girls represent that the government is using the autocratic leadership power on public health decisions. Based on the Utilitarian Ethics (Foilist, 2010). the legislators considered to maximize “good” outcome by mandating the vaccine to decrease cervical cancer in women, and minimizing “bad” outcome that even though it has side effects on certain population. The legislators control over the decisions regard cervical vaccine through mandatory process. This type of leadership is not effective; it may create conflicts with the population who have different views regarding their rights to decide either take or not take of this vaccine for

In an online survey, the survey administrator and his team asked over fifteen hundred parents of 11-17 year old children whether they agreed that laws requiring HPV vaccination for sixth grade school entry were “a good idea” about half of the parent believed the HPV vaccine, was at least as important as the Tdap and Meningococcal vaccines, the other two recommended for adolescent, only forty percent believed the vaccine prevented cervical cancer. Nearly a quarter of the parents inaccurately believed the vaccine might cause long term health problems and one

You and your significant other have just found out that you’re pregnant. You will carry the baby for 9 months and you will protect it with your own body, but what happens after birth? What kind of protection should you provide them with? The question is to vaccinate, or to not vaccinate? First off, let’s start with what a vaccine is. A vaccine is a substance that produces antibodies and provides immunity against one or many diseases. A vaccine is made up and prepared with the disease that causes it, its products, or a synthetic substitute. It’s treated to act like an antigen without producing the disease. So to simplify this, patients are injected

The Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the virus responsible for cervical cancer. It is one the most common viral sexually transmitted infections. A vaccine was approved in 2006 that is effective in preventing the types of HPV responsible for 70% of cervical cancers and 90% of genital warts. Proposals for routine and mandatory HPV vaccination of girls have become sources of controversy for parents of school-aged youth, legislators, members of the medical community, and the public at large (Cooper et al. 2010).

Imagine two children; one who has been completely vaccinated, and the other has never been vaccinated. Both children fall ill from the same virus, but the child who had been vaccinated fully recovers, while the child who was not passes away due to complications. That child’s life could have been saved if the child received the proper vaccinations. Ever since the invention of the Smallpox vaccine more than two centuries ago, there has been an abundance of controversy over the morality, ethics, effectiveness, and safety of vaccinations and immunizations. It has recently been argued whether laws should be introduced that render some or all vaccines mandatory for all children. Parents, health care specialists, nurses, teachers, and children