The Importance Of Vaccination

The phrase “herd immunity” is often utilized as a way for anti-vaccination parents to justify why they do not vaccinate their children. Herd immunity works under the premise that as long as majority of the population is vaccinated, those who are not, or unable to, will be protected. However, this concept only works when the majority of society is up-to-date on vaccinations. As has been seen in recent years, the number of parents vaccinating their children has been continually decreasing. This issue is so significant that the reason parents are refusing to vaccinate their children needs to be determined in order to provide proper education. Hopefully, once the factors for this epidemic is determined, targeted information can be given to these parents and the number of vaccinated children and adults will start to rise once

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) describes vaccination as being one of the ten greatest achievements in public health of the 20th century (CDC 1999) Despite this regard, speculation regarding the matter of vaccines has been around for nearly the entirety of their existence (Wolfe 2002). In his book, Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All, Author Paul Offit does well in informing readers of the ongoing debate regarding the safety and implementation of vaccinations. Offit begins his book by equating this debate to an ongoing war between hesitant parents and weary doctors. Both sides are motivated by fear. For parents it is the fear of possible side effects that may arise in their children. For doctors it is the

Vaccination is a primary prevention of disease and has been strongly integrated into modern medicine. For generations, epidemics of measles, whooping cough or polio have been largely nonexistent from populations across the globe. However, there are still many parents who choose not to vaccinate their children and adults who are unaware of or unable to access vaccines that prevent infectious diseases. There are college students still being exposed to meningitis and even some people in the healthcare industry not staying current and questioning the efficacy of them. The purpose of this paper is to present some facts about vaccinations/immunizations, barriers to obtaining them and suggestions from research on how to overcome those barriers from a community health perspective.

Although it is a policy that all children are immunized before going to school or a day care program, there are exemptions to the rule. Some people do not want themselves or their children to be vaccinated because of religious or philosophical beliefs. According to an article from the Center of Disease Control (2017), “Nationwide, fewer than 1% of school entrants have medical, religious, or philosophic exemptions to mandatory vaccination,” showing that most people are vaccinated in a public setting preventing outbreaks of unwanted diseases. In fact, those few who are not vaccinated are shown to have a higher risk of infection. This should go to show that being vaccinated does more good than it does harm.

When individuals are not vaccinated, they have less of a chance of fighting off those diseases that vaccinations would have otherwise protected them against. Additionally, measles has been making a comeback in the United States with 65 cases reported in Minnesota as of April 2017 (Hall et al., 2017). Most of those cases were from unvaccinated individuals who contracted the disease out of North America and brought it back to the United States. Those unvaccinated people infected numerous babies who were too young to receive the measles vaccine, and many of those babies lost their lives. These young lives would have been saved if the people they were exposed to had been vaccinated.

A big controversy among parents is vaccinations. Should children get vaccinated? Should parents have the right to choose if they vaccinate their children? Many people believe the risk factors of a vaccination outweigh the helping abilities. A few claims on why i find this invalid include the lives saved rather than the lives lost to vaccines, the future generations protected from outbreak, and the amount of each ingredients safety in the amount used.

I am writing to you in hopes that you will publish the following information regarding the importance of vaccinations. Vaccines prevent communicable diseases and save lives. Diseases that were once running rampant through our society are now few and far between due to the introduction of vaccines. More than a billion lives have been saved thanks to implementation of vaccines over the last 50 years. It is my hope that individuals will see the benefits of vaccines for them and their children and will be proactive as they strive to prevent diseases that ravage the body.

Each year, about 2.1 million people die from vaccine-preventable diseases. Many children may not receive their necessary first year vaccinations because of lack of availability, religious beliefs, and safety concerns (Healy, Rench, and Baker 540). Although all 50 States in the United States require children to be vaccinated to certain diseases before entering school, the states also have exemptions for these vaccinations (Lu 870). The conflicting party states that children’s immune systems can fight against the majority of infections naturally and vaccines will cause children to have side effects. The announcement has directed individuals to the assumption that immunizations are not

Vaccines are crucial when it comes to the health and the well being of individuals by protecting against specific diseases, and by preventing the spreading around the community.

Vaccinating, in my opinion is one of the most important things you can do as a human being, not just for yourself, but for everyone around you. Vaccines have few ingredients, almost all of which you come in contact with every day. The government tests and regulates vaccines continuously, not just while they’re being manufactured so you know they’re safe. The overall impact vaccinating has had on the world is great, some diseases have even been eliminated. People have many concerns involving vaccinating, my goal for this essay is to clear those up.

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

For years children have been immunized against dozens of infectious diseases. Routine shots starting at birth protect them from illnesses such as polio, measles and hepatitis. In recent years, since the outcry that too many immunizations, too early may cause autism, many parents have decided against immunizing their children. In this debate that has continued for years, non-vaccinating parents believe that by forcing them to vaccinate or not allowing them to go to school is a violation of the child’s human rights. But vaccinating parents believe that by other parents choosing not to vaccinate they are trampling on the rights of others and putting them at a greater risk of contracting diseases.

Vaccinations have been developed to prevent the human-to-human transfer of diseases. Not everyone gets vaccinated, but if the number of unvaccinated people is contained by the government then that means that the little percent that are not vaccinated will benefit in the world. Benefiting from something one is not paying for is called free-riding. Therefore, if free riding is not controlled there will be a huge problem within a community. The rate of people who are vaccinated must be high, so diseases are less likely to spread. The government should contain the percentage of free-riders.

Vaccinations per year save three million lives worldwide, and it saves millions more from suffering lifelong disability and illness(WHO estimate,2009).Immunisation in Australia was traditionally the responsibility of the states and territories in line with the federal system.As the demand for immunisation increased, there was a disparity between states regarding funding of and access to vaccines this lead to the first immunisation strategy, the establishment of ACIR(Australian childhood immunisation register) in 1993 and introduction of Immunise Australia program(NIP- National immunisation program)in 1997.

Public health is a topic garnering more attention with each passing year. Epidemic’s like the Zika virus outbreak in 2015-2016 have propelled the vaccine controversy into the spotlight. Proponents have argued that vaccinations are not only safe but one of the greatest medical advances of the twentieth century. They accredit vaccines with not only saving millions of lives through prevention but also the elimination of many diseases in regions across the world. However, opponents believe the exact opposite. Many believe that the immune system in children is capable of fighting off infections naturally, without injections. They believe vaccinations cause harmful and irreversible side effects. However, undeniably, vaccination is a medical marvel and is critical to the control and eradication of deadly infectious diseases.