The Health Benefits Of Vaccines

Polio, mumps, and diphtheria are a few of the diseases that have killed numerous amounts of people in the past. Yet, in today’s time, they are diseases people rarely hear about others dying from unless they are discussing the past. The reason for this is modern day vaccinations. Vaccinations are shots that help prevent against certain diseases. Vaccinations not only prevent diseases, but can also cause them to become nearly extinct in treated areas. One example of this would be the small pox vaccine, people were dying from this disease every day, and now you rarely, if ever, hear people talk about it. Although these vaccines are lifesaving, parents are becoming reluctant to provide these treatments for their children. For this reason, all children should be required to get particular vaccinations, unless they have certain medical conditions.

Unvaccinated people can cause outbreaks of viruses that have been eradicated. In late 2014 a measles outbreak occurred when an unvaccinated child who was a carrier of the disease visited Disneyland. This caused 173 people from seventeen different states to contract the virus that was eradicated from the United States in 2002. In order for measles to be under control 94-99% of the population must be vaccinated. With the recent trend of not vaccinating, measles, along with other once eradicated, or nearly eradicated diseases are making a come-back.

Symptoms include high fever, cough, runny nose, and a rash, and can lead to pneumonia, hospitalization, or death. The infection can leave permanent damage to the brain and lungs. There is no antiviral medication for measles so it is easier to prevent it than to treat it. In 2016, the US had 70 confirmed cases of measles, mostly in unvaccinated people, and there were 73 confirmed cases of measles in unvaccinated children in Minnesota June 2017 alone (Howard, 2017, ¶2-3). Kristen Ehresmann, the director of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Prevention, and Control Division at the State Department of Health said, “Many of the cases could have been prevented if people had gotten vaccinated” (Ehresmann,2017, ¶4). At least 8,250 people were exposed to the measles, mostly in schools, daycares, and healthcare facilities. There were a total of 21 hospitalizations (Howard, 2017, ¶6). A situation where vaccines did stop an outbreak was in 2005 when an 18-month-old Amish girl contracted polio and spread the disease to four other children who were too young to be vaccinated, but because the community had their vaccines, the herd immunity prevented a massive outbreak (Vaccine ProCon, 2018,

As widespread as vaccinations can be they are very critical for your health and well-being. There are some certain people who cannot get vaccinations for their own health reason and it could lead to risks to that person but there are other people who simply don’t get it because of reasons including parents who choose to take their child out of vaccination process because they think they will harm the child even when they know nothing about the vaccination, people have decided that not vaccinating a child is dangerous, selfish, and anti-social. Studies have been done to show that only 55% of people think that all children should get vaccinations and only 22% of people think it should be the parents’ choice and the rest rather disagree or simply

Vaccines are safe and a crucial component of childhood and community health. They do not just protect the children of America, they protect those who cannot receive vaccines, because of severe allergies, and weakened immune systems from other diseases. So, to keep them safe we need to make sure that everyone else is fully immunized. There are a lot of specific groups in America, who cannot receive vaccines, including newborn babies, who are too young to receive vaccines. According to CDC, 10-20 babies die each year, because of contracting a vaccine preventable disease (7). This is from the babies encountering children and adults who have decided to not only risk their own health, but the health of someone else’s child. “As long as the majority of children receive their vaccines, we will be able to maintain our current level of disease control. However, should the level of community protection drop to the point where the viruses and bacteria travel unimpeded from person-to-person, from school-to-school, and from community-to-community, we instantly return to a past era when epidemics were an accepted part of

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

Many parents choose not to vaccinate their children because of the risks that can develop from the vaccine. However, if parents choose not to vaccinate their children, they are putting each person around them at risk from contracting a dangerous or deadly disease(CDC 2). They also think that because of the disappearance of the diseases, there is no point to vaccinate their children. For example, one out of 30 children with measles develops pneumonia. For every 1,000 children who get the disease, one or two will die from it. Thanks to injections, we have few cases of measles in the U.S. today. However, the disease is extremely contagious, and each year, dozens of cases are imported from abroad into the U.S., threatening the health of people who have not been vaccinated and those from whom the vaccine was not effective(CDC

On January 2015, the, “Happiest Place on Earth,” Disneyland, was the setting of one of the largest outbreaks of measles in recent American History. Health care experts were caught off guard by the rapid spread of a disease that was believed to have been exterminated in the United States. People questioned how a disease that had appeared to be eradicated had made such a rapid reappearance. However, measles is only one of several infectrious diseases that have experienced a resurgence over the last several years. The major factor behind this resurgence is a growing number of people who oppose vaccinations of any kind. All of this leads to one major question; what is causing such a large number of people to risk their health and their children’s

According to the WHO, “Immunization currently prevents between 2-3 million deaths every year”. Parents haven’t been vaccinating their children due to fear of negative effects, thus putting others at risk. Vaccination should be enforced to keep ourselves and the people around us protected, especially now that preventable deadly diseases such as measles have been resurfacing in the U.S. If parents continue to refuse vaccinating their children, we’ll be facing more consequences. Parents should be forced to vaccinate their children because it will decrease the chances of outbreaks in the U.S., it will protect babies and people with impaired immune systems that can’t be vaccinated, and the benefits outweigh the risks.

Each year, more than 10 million vaccines are given to children under the age of 1, thus preventing approximately thirty three thousand deaths each year due to disease. (Center for Disease Control, 2012) I believe that the symptoms and complications from these diseases, if contracted, are far worse than the chance of a slight adverse reaction at the injection site. And the fact that some of these diseases have been nearly eradicated, prove the need to continue widespread inoculations. If people stop immunizing their children, these diseases could make a comeback, and unlike a hundred years ago when poor travel conditions limited the size of the outbreaks, today these diseases could spread very quickly throughout the world and devastate some third-world countries where medical services are limited. Dr. David Tayloe, a past President of the American Academy of Pediatrics, made the following statement during an April 2009 interview: “For viral illnesses such as polio and measles, we do not have antibiotics, and therefore, the vaccine is absolutely essential”.

The consequences of not vaccinating a child can have serious effects on them as well as the people around them. The virus will continue to grow and spread if vaccination is reducing in children. People who decide to stop vaccinating their child can easily cause an impact on society. Not only do parents jeopardize their own child health but they are also putting other children at risk, especially children that cannot be vaccinated. Children that cannot receive vaccination is because of allergies in the medication, so they rely on others who are vaccinated. Because of the lack of vaccination there were multiple outbreaks, “In 2014 there was a massive measles outbreak in the United States, 668 cases reported by 27 states” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 1). Measles is an easily contagious disease and can be passed on from one person to another. The death percentage it has on people is provided by Public Medical Heath: “Each year measles causes more than half a million deaths and is

“I would love to believe the huge response to vaccination would prevent another outbreak, just like I would like to thing measles could be eradicated worldwide. It can happen, but there are populations who refuse (vaccination), whether it's a fear of the west, an anti-government sentiment, or loss of their own public health systems,” said McFadden, adding, “If we could overcome it worldwide, we could see measles never come back

Benjamin Franklin spoke of the remorse he felt relating to his son’s death and regret of not vaccinating him when he had the chance; he wrote “in 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by smallpox, taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of parents who omit that operation, on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it; my example showing that the regret may be the same either way and that, therefore, the safer should be chosen.” Franklin did not vaccinate his son because he was already ill with another disease; he did not want to risk his son’s health by vaccinating him and causing

Recently, there was a nationwide outbreak of the measles in 2014-2015 that originated from a few different places. According to JAMA, a study showed that over half of the outbreak that occurred included individuals that were unvaccinated (Davis). These preventable diseases are happening more often than they used to.

Since this vaccine debate, “about 40 percent of American parents today has chosen to delay certain vaccines or outright refuse to allow their children’s physicians to vaccinate their children with one or more of the recommended or mandated vaccines” (Largent). As the rates of being vaccinated go down, it is putting not only that child in danger but also the whole community. Diseases that were once gone are on the rise.” A 2013 study published in the journal Pediatrics reports that California’s worst whooping-cough outbreak, which infected more than 9,000 people (Rothstein)”. Also “the CDC reports that from Jan. 1 to Feb. 28, 2014, 54 people in the U.S. have reported being infected with measles” (Sifferlin).