John Caldwell
Erik Bean
ENG102
July 16, 2017
The Importance of Being Vaccinated
It is human nature to want to understand the risks of vaccinations, especially when the benefits of that vaccine are invisible. It will never be known how many times people might be exposed to a vaccine-preventable disease, and how it could affect the immune system. There is sufficient data to help adults, and parents, weigh out the pros and cons of getting vaccinated. The benefits of preventing a disease with a vaccination can far outweigh the risks of not getting get. There are skeptics out there that believe vaccinating your child could give them neurodevelopmental issues, such as Autism. There is no scientific proof to back up this theory. Getting
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Vaccines are one of the safest, convenient and most preventive care measures that is available. Getting vaccinated can mean the difference between life and death. Vaccine preventable diseases can be very dangerous. Every year, there is approximately 50,000 United States adults who die from vaccine preventable diseases (McLaughlin, p265). Vaccines will not give you the disease that it is designed to prevent. Some vaccines contain the killed virus, and it impossible to catch a disease from that. Other vaccines contain live, but weakened viruses that are designed to ensure that a person cannot catch the disease. There is very strong data from many different medical investigators that all point to the safety of the vaccines (Williams, p3176). There is proof that vaccines are among one of the safest products in all medicines used. When one person gets sick, children, grandchildren and parents are at a higher risk. A vaccine-preventable disease that could make a person sick for perhaps a week or two, but could prove to be deadly for a person’s children, grandchildren and parents if it is to spread to them. When a person gets vaccinated, they are not only protecting themselves, but also their children and community. An example is that adults are the most common source of whooping cough infection in infants, which can be extremely deadly to infants. In 2010, there was at least 25 cases in the United States of infants who
Can you imagine life without vaccine? In the reading "Not Being Vaccinated is not Acceptable" by David Ropeik argues that we should all get vaccinated because it’s necessary. Vaccinations are designed to help us go through our daily everyday life. A vaccine is a modern type of medicine that has been added to the world early on in life to prevent us all from diseases. It is called a modern medicine because of how many lives it has saved throughout the world. The earliest documented examples of vaccination are in the 17th century from India and China, people infected with smallpox were used to protect against the diseases. Vaccine have become better, to where they are safer for the human body. Vaccinations protect you and everyone around you, saves public money, protects future generations and it’s reliable.
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.
According to the CDC (2014) vaccinations are one of the best ways to put an end to the serious effects of certain diseases, some that can be deadly. Parents who choose not to vaccinate their children are not just gambling with their child’s life, they are also gambling with the lives of others. It is always better to prevent a disease than to have to treat it after it occurs. People with weakened immune systems are not as strong such as pregnant women, newborns, cancer patients, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) positive people, transplant recipients, and the elderly are also affected by the choice not to vaccinate.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, “732,000 American children were saved from death and 322 million cases of childhood illnesses were prevented between 1994 and 2014 due to vaccination” (“Should Vaccines Be Required”). If vaccines were never invented, then people would die from many diseases because of the serious symptoms that each disease presents. Every disease is different and presents its own set of symptoms and levels of seriousness. Doctors and medical researchers have not yet discovered cures for these diseases, so being vaccinated as a preventative measure is the safest and smartest thing that a person could do. It is better to be protected from getting a disease than getting it and dealing with it until it either goes away on its own or kills
Some People have expressed concern about vaccine safety. The fact is that vaccines save lives by limiting the spread of diseases. If you choose not to immunize, you are not only putting your kid at risk who has a high chance of getting it cause you don’t have the protection that the vaccine provides you are putting others at risk also. Getting vaccinated is a smart choice because it blocks out a lot of the diseases that try to enter your body so therefore you stay safer than if you didn’t have it. Most of the deadliest diseases that have affected children have been greatly reduced thanks to the help of the vaccines. Today we vaccinate 16 different diseases so that kids don’t have lifetime effects from getting all of these diseases. Through
Vaccines have been around for many years and I am sure they have saved many lives, but there are many precautions that come along with getting vaccinated some being life threatening. Vaccines have also been proven to cause long term seizures,comas, and brain damage. Not only can there be many risks in getting vaccinated, but vaccines contain harmful ingredients. For example some vaccines contain Aluminum and an excess amount of Aluminum in the human body can cause neurological problems. Formaldehyde is also found in vaccines, studies have shown that Formaldehyde may be a leading cause to cancer. Children who attend a public
Everybody has their reasons either to vaccinate or to not vaccinate. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services gave some of these reasons to vaccinate yourself and even your child which are as follows: getting vaccinations can save you and your family time and money, it also protects all those around you such as coworkers and even your loved ones, vaccinations can even save your child’s life and your life, and they will protect the future generations as well. Vaccinations can save you and your family money and time because getting a vaccination against the different diseases will cost you way less money than a hospital bill will cost you when you do get said disease and need to be hospitalized. When you get vaccinations, it helps protect
Lets look at what a vaccination is first: “a vaccine introduces a antigen (a foreign substance that triggers an immune system response) into the body, and the person produces antibodies and develops active immunity to a disease without having the clinical disease” (Ball, Bindler and Cowen 370). Research reports of vaccination progress show supporting data of the decline in morbidity from nine vaccine-preventable diseases and their complications. The diseases being: smallpox, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, poliomyelitis, measles, mumps, rubella and haemophilus type B (cdc.gov). Vaccinations have proven their benefits over time, they improve the quality of life and allow the parents to have a piece of mind in this area concerning their child's
In today’s world, the topic of conversation is whether parents should vaccinate their children or not. There are families who believe it is beneficial to vaccinate their children and there are families who believe it is not beneficial due to potential health consequences as a result of vaccines. There are rumors being passed along about vaccines causing autism or the vaccines simply have no effects, though this is something I do not believe. Due to the current research and simply because my family is vaccinated and there have not been any harmful side effects, I believe vaccines are beneficial. Vaccinating is crucial for the individual and for those around them too.
Vaccinations have been around for years and recently they have been a big topic of conversation. The big decision that parents are dealing with now is, is it healthy and should they vaccinate their young children or not. Some diseases have become so common over the years that choosing not to get vaccinated is a risk to natural infection, which is a form of immunity against the diseases (Merino-2). It is not believed that any of the vaccines offered are absolutely harmless to your immune system, however, vaccinations are recommended to protect people from diseases and to help prevent having outbreaks within the society.
In contrast, a positive aspect of many people having vaccinations is herd immunity. Herd immunity is the occurrence where a large proportion of a specific population is vaccinated to provide them immunity, and as a result, it also gives some protection to the people of the population who have and yet developed immunity. This happens as the a large group of vaccinated individuals are protected from a virus and creates difficulty for the it to spread because there is only a small percentage of the population left that could be infected by the disease. It is a very crucial aspect of immunity for the community as the people who cannot receive vaccinations (i.e. people with weak immune systems, very young children and patients who are too ill)
“Proponents argue that vaccination is safe and one of the greatest health developments of the 20th century. They point out that illnesses, including rubella, diphtheria, and whooping cough, which once killed thousands of infants annually are now prevented by vaccination” (“Vaccines”). Many deaths occur simply because children, along with adults, do not get the required shots needed. Medical treatments are not given to do a person any harm, but to keep a person and environment safe. Kids being vaccinated will give them less of a possibility to obtain a disease that could lead to death. Benefits outweigh any possibility of risking accumulating a disease. When people say that vaccinations are harmful, does not necessarily mean to develop a deadly disease, simply means some small risks. “Vaccines are not entirely harmless, but the small risks are outweighed by the benefits of a disease prevention” (Offit). Indeed flu shots must be tested in order to be able to give anyone the shot. Receiving vaccinations is only meant to help people prevent many illnesses and deaths. Although some small risks could be accumulated, those small risks are very small possibilities of anything happening to anyone. Getting immunized is not a one-time thing; people must follow up on required dates to receive them.
Vaccines have been considered one of the greatest medical achievements, and are instrumental in health promotion. Vaccines play a major role in lowering the risk of exposure to diseases. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommends 29 doses of 9 vaccines plus an annual flu vaccine for children ages 0 to six (CDC, 2017). There are twelve diseases that have been considered potentially dangerous that children are routinely vaccinated against. They include: Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Diptheria, Tetanus, Pertussis, Polio, Hepatitis A and B, Pneumococcal disease, Varicella (Chicken Pox), and Haemophilus Influenza Type B (HIB disease). There is much debate about the safety of vaccinations. Those who oppose vaccinations believe that a child can
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.
Throughout history, humans have suffered and died from various diseases. From 1346 to 1353, up to 200 million Europeans died from the bubonic plague (Staff 4). The death caused by this Black Death, is nearly equivalent to today’s population of Brazil at 209,288,278 people (“Countries in the world by population” 1). However, since this atrocious pandemic in the Middle Ages, there has never been such a detrimental outbreak due to an extreme improvement of quality of life. Those who are still in close contact with the pathogens for the disease, such as researchers and Peace Corps volunteers are now protected by the plague vaccine as advised by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“Plague Vaccine” 3). Nevertheless, this vaccine, developed in 1890, is just one of many vaccines that have improved human life. Vaccinations are beneficial because they have saved lives, improved the quality of life, and will prevent future outbreaks of such diseases.