The Ethics Of Vaccines

Vaccination was first introduced globally for small pox and later on extended to other communicable diseases which are now known as vaccine preventable disease. Vaccination is beneficial both for individuals and community. This bring us to the ethical dilemma - Vaccination of a healthy child with the intention of protecting both the individual child and the community at the same time exposing the child to the theoretical risk of exposure to disease products whether live, attenuated or killed. There was a time when people never questioned the government or their physicians. Now because of more public awareness and accessibility to medical information, they are questioning the safety aspects of vaccines.

To vaccinate or not to vaccinate? Parents with infants and young children have been tussling with this proverbial question for several decades now. With the advent of the internet and the World Wide Web, parents have been bombarded with a plethora of information about pros and cons of vaccines from all kinds of sources, some creditable, and some are not. To the non-scientific community, these conflicting information can create problems in the decision making process; thus, forcing parents to make the wrong choices and putting their offspring and others at risk. However, this article will attempt to address the importance of vaccinations, how vaccines work, why we should vaccinate, and why parents should not be afraid to vaccinate their offspring.

Controversy concerning the risks of vaccinations will always exist. As is the nature of a preventative intervention, it is difficult to rationalize giving a completely healthy child an injection that is known to have varying degrees of sides affects5. Additionally, these injections are to provide immunity to children for diseases that have an extremely low risk of circulating within a population. Since these vaccines have been able to protect so many individuals from experiencing these dangerous infections, most parents do not even have personal experiences regarding the impact of these diseases. As such, many parents do not see the vaccine-preventable disease as a threat to their child. This often causes parents to not fully understand the risk their child has for contracting a disease and the subsequent danger of a vaccine-preventable disease infection verses the potential side effect of a vaccine which is normally only mild to moderate discomfort for their child15.

However, these parents are underestimating how many other parents have the same idea. An increasing problem is that people assume that everyone else vaccinated their children. In reality, a minority large enough to start an epidemic are not vaccinating their children. Park estimates if all children received the recommended vaccinations from the time they were born to adolescence $10 billion in medical bills would be saved, 14 million infections would be avoided, and 33,000 lives would be saved (Park). The issue is, critics believe these numbers do not apply to them. Critics believe their child’s infection could not have been avoided, and, potentially, life could not have been saved if they did vaccinate their child.

Diseases will always travel throughout the world and it will continue to affect children severely if they are not vaccinated. One source known as Benefits from Immunization During the Vaccines for Children Program Era pointed out that the number of children born each year can be prevented, “Approximately 4 million children are born in the United States each year, each of whom is vulnerable to vaccine-preventable pathogens that continue to circulate” (Whitney, Zhou, Singleton and Schuchat 4). The number of children born each year can have an enormous impact on society, there can be a massive epidemic. People do not want their child to be exposed to these deadly infectious disease, especially if they are preventable.

The means of dealing with infectious diseases that endanger individual and public health have evolved over the years. In 1789, however, the most protective technology used to prevent epidemics was introduced by physician Edward Jenner; vaccination. Vaccine efficiency continues to develop and become more advanced, producing immunity to infectious diseases from 90 to 100 percent of the time today. Because of inoculation, millions of people worldwide are immunized from fatal epidemics. However, because of unsubstantiated fears, many parents have been withholding vaccines from their children. Despite this, parents should not have the right to withhold vaccines from their children for philosophical reasons. Vaccines are the best way to prevent disease, vaccine exemptions endanger individual and public health, and without widespread inoculation, controlled diseases will rebound.

Vaccinations have been widely discussed and debated about whether or not people should vaccinate their children. “Childhood vaccines offer protection from serious or potentially fatal diseases” (The Mayo Clinic, 2014)”. Vaccinations prevent diseases that can affect a child with symptoms of a cold or in some cases, the disease can be much more serious and can cause disability and death. The problem is that parents are choosing not to vaccinate their children against them. With choosing against vaccinating a child becoming a common occurrence, diseases that have been eradicated from the United States, are now starting to show back up in society. If there are no strict requirements on vaccinations, then diseases that have been dormant for decades from the U.S. will become into an epidemic. There are many reasons why parents state that they choose not to vaccinate their children. Some include religion, philosophical, and the possible connection to autism. These reasons have been proven to not be strong enough against the threat of the serious disease that vaccinations protect against. There are new regulations going into place, making it an educational and training process to the parents if they choose to not vaccinate their children. In addition to this, there are laws and regulations regarding who is liable in these situations. A child could possibly sue their parents or a third party could sue because they or someone in their family was affected from an infected

Is it ethical to allow parents to be exempt from vaccinating their children before they begin attending school due to their religious or personal beliefs? Childhood vaccinations have been around since the 1977 Childhood Immunization Initiative. It is important to have your child vaccinated for both the benefit of your child and your surrounding community. Vaccinations help prevent the spread of diseases that can lead to hospitalizations and sometimes even death. In the United States, only medical exemptions are allowed throughout all 50 states. Exemptions that are religious or personal vary from state to state. These exemptions are given due to the fact that individuals have a constitutional right to exercise such beliefs. An important fact to keep in mind is that many cases of diseases like measles, smallpox, and polio have been prevented from turning into an outbreak because a majority of the population in the United States is immune to them. If it were not for this majority, diseases would be spreading rapidly. We have progressed as a society to protect each other’s health and allowing an alarming number of individuals to opt out of getting these vaccinations will cause a serious threat to our society. Is it ethical to allow people to put the lives of others in danger?

Today we seem to take in many conversations on whether mandatory vaccinations are good for our kids. With nearly 90 percentage parents in the U.S. understand the risk vs. benefit factor to be in favor too vaccinate, when handed the choice, about a 10 percent of parents delay or cut some shots with 1 percent that don’t vaccinate at all. (Pemberton, 2015) We see viruses from our past, which were heavily infected among our grandparents or parents ' time, such as poliomyelitis and measles, as children, appear in certain parts of the U.S., but have the feeling that these are isolated or have no significance. Many of these diseases have all but been eliminated, do with vaccinations. But the growing concern is that if we continue to choose not to vaccinate, the viruses we are straining to prevent will resurface, and may produce more potent forms of themselves. The part that grows not to vaccinate, fear or have queries on whether the risk is worth the benefit, and are usually comparing this to the narrations of others or some of the few examples that are perceived linked to side effects from receiving a vaccination. This only will lead to serious consequences, more so for infants, or young children, which could lead to be deadly. Mandatory vaccinations should be applied to all children because the importance it bears on our communities, the effect that vaccinations have, and the misplaced fears linked to vaccinations are vital to ensure that we live a healthier

The advances in medicine, such as the discovery of vaccines has presented a tremendous impact on health, and prevented future epidemics. Despite its incredible benefits, the amount of parents choosing to refrain from vaccinating their children continues to increase. This controversial topic began in the early 1800s as a reaction to the widespread smallpox vaccination. The public’s reaction led to the study of vaccines, which has shown that failure to vaccinate would put people at a higher risk of contracting diseases. A risk that parents are willing to take because of their deep-rooted beliefs, which claim that vaccines harm more than they help. Parents should not be able to opt out of vaccines for their children because they are threatening

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.

The Center for Disease Control describes vaccines as the greatest development in public health since clean drinking water. For several decades, vaccines have saved countless lives and helped eradicate some fatal diseases. The push to do away with vaccines will not only endanger our youth, but our society as a whole. Vaccination is needed to maintain a healthy balance within our country. Vaccines provide the immunity that comes from a natural infection without the consequences of a natural infection. Vaccinations save an ever-growing amount of lives every year. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimated that 732,000 American children were saved from death and 322 million cases of childhood illnesses were prevented between 1994 and 2014 due to vaccination (“Vaccine ProCon”).

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

“Standard immunization currently averts an estimated two to three million deaths every year in all age groups” (“General Information”). Children along with adults should be vaccinated because these Inoculations prevent diseases, even deaths, from going around, along with keeping the environment a safer place. As people know, kids get vaccinated from the time born to about the time the child reaches teen years, although getting immunized does not precisely stop at any age. In fact, required vaccinations continue throughout the years. Of course these medical treatments must be tested in order to be given to anyone. In spite of the fact many people themselves argue that inoculations are not safe for children, others are thoroughly certain in

Vaccinations have been proven safe for consumer use time and time again, yet people are still wary or hesitant to have their children receive vaccinations. Often times, people who argue against vaccinations are undereducated or miseducated about the real advantages and dangers of vaccinations, and many times these concerns are due to widely spread misconceptions. However, these have been proven wrong by a plethora of reputable pharmaceutical companies. Proven by many , vaccinations prevent epidemics, save money for the nation, and protect the future.