Truth About Vaccines

The argument encompassing whether or not parents should vaccinate their children is ongoing. It is a very interesting matter to learn about and I possess some strong feelings about the case. This issue interests me because there are parents who don’t have their children vaccinated, and there are parents who do have them vaccinated. But all these parents share one particular quality: they all would like for their kids to be safe.

Between 1924 and 2013, vaccinations prevented 103 million cases of polio, measles, rubella, mumps, hepatitis A, diphtheria, and pertussis (Bailey). Vaccinating is “the process by which pathogenic cells are injected into a healthy person in an attempt to cause the body to develop antibodies to a particular virus or bacterium—successful creation of antibodies is referred to as immunity to the disease caused by the particular pathogen” (Introduction to Should Vaccinations be Mandatory). Popular conflicts regarding vaccination include the worry that this form of immunization isn’t natural, the idea that vaccination schedule for children in the U.S. takes away parents’ rights to make decisions for their children, and the concern that vaccinations aren’t safe for all children. Most doctors and scientists advocate for vaccinations in the name of herd immunity, protection against foreign diseases and prevention against pockets of disease outbreaks. Vaccinations should be mandatory for all children in the United States for who they are deemed safe and effective.

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.

The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is a national non-profit advocacy organization established in the early 1980s in an effort to create transparency and dialogue regarding childhood immunizations (NVIC, 2016). The NVIC is one of the most prominent consumer led organizations that have led the pursuit of “advocating for vaccine safety and informed consent protections in the public health systems” (NVIC, 2016, para.1). The NVIC advocates for an

After reading and hearing about multiple news reports about parents refusing to vaccinate their children over the years, it might come as a surprise that American children actually receive more vaccinations than ever before due to government policies. Less than 0.5 percent of children receive no vaccines at all. In Vaccine Nation, Elena Conis argues that the widespread adherence to vaccination is as important of a study as vaccine resistance is. She turns her perspective on to the spread of vaccines in the postwar era when new vaccines targeted the “milder” diseases of childhood such as measles, mumps, and whopping cough. More recently, vaccines have been developed and promoted that protect against diseases that largely affect adults. Elena

The databases used for this paper included CINAHL and PUBMED. The first search on CINAHAL, using the search string “education + vaccines + children” the results were too broad and resulted in 522 full-text hits. The final search used “educational intervention + improve vaccines” resulted in 18 full-text hits and 8 full text hits respectively. Most articles were on point and up-to-date.

Throughout the article, Hendrix evaluates the possible arguments of parents who turn down opportunities to vaccinate their children and later discusses methods to evoke better communication. For example, Hendrix states, “Some parents do invoke the herd immunity argument as a reason not to vaccinate, suggesting that it is unnecessary that they expose their child to the risk of side effects from vaccination if everyone else is vaccinated to a level that prevents the spread of illnesses” (2). While her stance calls for policymakers and health officials to consider the reasoning behind parental opposition to vaccinations, she also refutes

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

Millions of lives have been saved thanks to a global effort to vaccinate for deadly diseases. Peter Yeo reports “Immunizations have saved more children than any other medical intervention in the last 50 years” (Reforming the U.N. 118). Yet, a new trend for parents is opting out of vaccinating their children for personal beliefs or religious exemptions. Although, the majority of Americans believe vaccines protect children, and conclusive evidence has proven vaccines can prevent the spread of deadly diseases. Still, a few parents believe vaccinating children is not essential for their health, additionally, they believe an increase in mandatory vaccines has insufficient scientific research to prevent serious medical side effects.

Herd immunity occurs when a critical number of individuals in a community are immunized so that spread of disease is limited to the point that unvaccinated individuals are protected ("Community Immunity", 2010). The percentage of individuals that need to be immunized in order to reach herd immunity may be as low as 40% for some diseases, but as high as 95% for highly infectious diseases such as measles (Fine, Eames & Heymann, 2011). The problem for communities is that each must reach appropriate herd immunity vaccination levels despite state laws that allow for vaccine exemptions and the recent surge in anti-vaccination rhetoric that has been spread by both traditional and social

This topic is extremely significant to my audience because a growing number of parents do not vaccinate their children due to fear of side effects. Parents today have lost confidence in in the vaccination industry as a consequence of sensationalism brought about by false evidence published and the celebrities that latched onto that claim. Sadly, some people have taken to considering the strong opinions and may not research vaccinations before making decisions

Wherever there is vaccination there is some number of people who oppose it. The first step to identifying a solution to a problem in understanding how it is caused. Public support for vaccinations had been at an all time high of 95%, before the anti-vaccine movement swept across the United States. The new anti-vaccine movement in the United States can be attributed to the wide use of technology to spread ideas,

Vaccines are a very large controversy in the United States today. From California requiring all children to be vaccinated before entering schools and the Disneyland Measles outbreak, to the claim that vaccines may cause autism, there is huge talk throughout families and the media today about vaccinations. There are many people with differing opinions about vaccines. Whether it is about what the vaccine consists of, whether it is a right that we, as American’s, are allowed to make regarding our freedoms, or the risks when children are vaccinated or the risks when they are not vaccinated, there is a very large variety of thoughts that are involved in this topic.

Throughout history, it has been shown that vaccines make a significant impact on the health of our communities and “administration of these vaccines led to dramatic reduction in the number of cases of, as well as deaths from smallpox, polio, diphtheria, pertussis, measles, mumps and preventable diseases” (Jacobson, 2012, p.36). Generally, those involved in campaigns for and research in these preventable diseases attribute vaccines for children as the main contributing factor to the overall decline in diseases such as measles, mumps, smallpox and pertussis (Jacobson, 2012). In the public health setting, there are many issues that threaten the health and safety of the public, not just in the local community but the nation and world-wide. One such issue, surfacing in public health, is the issue of vaccinations; those who choose to vaccinate, those who choose not to vaccinate and those who do not

Thesis Statement: Recently, the United States has seen a resurgence of many different diseases that we haven 't seen in decades. Much of this problem is caused by failure to get vaccinations, and a key step to solving the issue is education.