The Importance Of Vaccination

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.

The state of Florida has a selection of laws in place regulating vaccinations and vaccination exemptions, but what drives them? Vaccines against meningococcal meningitis and hepatitis are mandatory for enrollment in the K-20 public education system. An individual enrolled in any postsecondary institution who will be residing in on campus housing must provide documentation of these vaccinations. A majority of parents argue that its unethical to force someone else’s child to be immunized, in any situation. There is a request that can be made for religious requirements, and must be presented to the facility or school on the Department of Health’s Religious Exemption from Immunization form -DH 681 Form-. The DH 681 Form is issued by county health departments and is only for a child who is not immunized because of their family’s religious practices. (nvic.org) The vast majority of parents are so strongly opinionated on whether vaccinations will positively or negatively impact their children, but no one takes into consideration the parents who differ in opinions themselves.

However, vaccinations do not always ensure safety; rather, they can cause many dangerous health issues. As more vaccinations become mandatory, the potential side effects grow drastically. An article by Mary Holland analyzes the dangerous side-effects and limited regulations regarding vaccine injury, “Some children are permanently disabled or die from their vaccine exposures. A broad spectrum of suspected and confirmed adverse vaccine events has grown in the decades from the beginning of mass vaccination. In total, over 600,000 people in the United States have filed vaccine adverse event reports since 1990. Furthermore, people receive little warning of the risks of vaccination because of minimal information requirements under the Vaccine Act” (Holland 420). As time goes on, more dangerous events regarding vaccinations occur. Consequently, children can be disabled or killed from vaccination exposure. Additionally, no information regarding the dangers of vaccines reaches parents; therefore, they believe they are making the right choice by vaccinating their children. Doctors, drug companies, government agencies, and the Center for Disease Control tell parents that vaccinations protect children and keep them safe from dangerous diseases and without them their child could grow severely sick, or worse, die. In reality, the vaccinations themselves can severely harm and kill young children. Therefore, laws should not mandate vaccines, as this gives companies power to place fear on parents and put more money in their own

"In the United States, the childhood immunization schedule recommends that children receive approximately 15 vaccinations by 19 months of age, and it specifies ages for administration of each vaccination dose" (Luman, Barker, McCauley, & Drews-Botsch, 2005, p. 1367). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a vaccine is "a product that produces immunity therefore protecting the body from the disease" (Vaccines and Immunizations, 2015). Currently, there are many individuals advocating for and opposing the effects of the administration of vaccinations and immunizations in the United States. There are both legal and ethical issues surrounding the controversy, which include both deliberate and exogenous reasons not to vaccinate, and the mandatory nature that is required by many schooling districts and places of employment. Within this paper, I will discuss some legal implications surrounding vaccination, ethical debates that are current in the topic, as well as my point of view regarding immunizations and vaccinations.

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 incidents of measles arising from this outbreak (“Morbidity and Mortality” 373). Considering this outbreak, it is not unexpected that the role of vaccination would come to the forefront. The CDC presently advocates 29 vaccinations for children from birth through the age of six years old (“2016 Recommended Immunizations” 1). However, each state respectively establishes the laws for vaccination and corresponding vaccine medical, religious, and philosophical 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 corresponding 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

We all have a right to freedom, but there have been many arguments that compulsory vaccinations may be considered a violation of civil liberty. With this being said, we allow the government and public school systems to force vaccinations on our society. Society as whole losses their rights in the debate regarding child immunizations. In all fifty (50) states, it is a requirement for

Ethical concerns regarding pediatric vaccinations span several viewpoints including clinicians, policymakers and parents. A parent’s concern is to protect their children. Parents want to know more about how vaccines work - the risks and side effects, vaccine ingredients, and vaccine safety - before deciding to vaccinate a child. The responsibility of the medical professional is to protect the public while preserving the rights of the patient. The ethical issues concerning childhood immunization in the United States affect policy development and clinical practice. The question of whether to vaccinate or not is a hotly debated question. The proponents of vaccinations hold that without them horrible diseases would once again plague society and are required for the public good while opponents say vaccinations are personal and should therefore be decided individually. The ethical considerations of vaccinations provide complicated views.

Whether good medicine is for the better of the people or not, there’s always going to be opposing viewpoints. One popular argument that arises when debating whether vaccines should be mandatory or not, is that vaccines are against the people’s religion. Families will request exemptions for their children from mandatory school vaccinations. Consequently, the government has no choice, but to give the exemption to the families because of freedom of

According to the law, doctors must keep children and teens up-to-date on all of their vaccinations to ensure that diseases do not spread throughout a school or community. However, many parents are questioning whether the board of health has the right to require children to receive a vaccine. Kohrs explains that “the problem with these regulations in today’s society places the boards of health at odds with the civil liberties and rights of each citizen.” However, he also explains that “an individual may invoke [religious] exemption where compulsory treatment for life-threatening diseases violates his or her religious belief or it is forbidden by their religion,” or they can receive philosophical exemption (Kohrs). This type of exemption “is

Some states still do not allow religious exemptions for vaccines. These states will argue that religious exemptions violate equal protection of the laws covered under the Fourteenth Amendment. The reasoning for this is that they do not believe it is right to require the majority of the school children to be vaccinated but at the same time expose them to the hazard of associating in school with children exempted from immunization (Salmon,

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)

According to the History of Vaccinations currently, “Forty-eight states allow exemptions to vaccination for religious reasons” ( par. 10). Some states statutes indicate that to receive a religious exemption, a family must belong to a religious group with bonafide objections to

What is a vaccination? Why are they so important ? A vaccination is a live virus administered into the body to build immunity against deadly diseases. When a child is little and is exposed to a disease their bodies are not strong enough to fight it off and can make them very sick. Before vaccination came into play children would get diseases such as pertussis(whooping cough),polio,diphtheria, and tetanus, all of these being extremely deadly.Why would someone want to give a young child these deadly viruses? Studies have shown that no medicine is perfect but most childhood vaccines produce immunity about 90 - 100% of the time.(vaccines) Before vaccinations were invented people were only living 50-60 years, they now are living 20-25 years longer. How does this protect those who physically can not have vaccinations? Vaccinations protect those who can not be vaccinated, whether is be from a disease they are already fighting, chemo / radiation, and being allergic. All of those being reasons to hope others get their vaccinations. Vaccinations not only protect children from harmful diseases, but also those who can not be vaccinated.

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

The decision of whether or not to vaccinate children has been a debated topic since the 1800s, beginning with the small pox vaccination. The “Anti-Vaccination Movement” arose from the fear these vaccinations did more harm than good to children. From causing autism to frightening side-effects, the anti-vaccination and pro-vaccination movements have spread rapidly over the last few hundred years. Researching this topic, a word that appears many times is evidence. In the context of the anti-vaccination movement, evidence does not mean research and studies, but rather personal experience and accounts of other’s; while in the context of the pro-vaccination movement, evidence means an idea or theory is proven by research and/or studies.