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Numerous people have become afraid of vaccines due to the countless amount of false accusations against them. Some of the population is against them for other reasons. This uncertainty does not justify keeping your child from vaccination, which mostly stems from being uneducated on how vaccines work. This is harmful to the human population and is also causing fierce debate between those blindly believing the story of vaccines being harmful. Vaccines do not cause problems in children and are needed for our population to thrive.
The idea for the first vaccine was planted in Edward Jenner’s head in 1796, when he tested a young boy that had cowpox, showing that he was developed an immunity to smallpox. After his test the first vaccine was created in 1798, for smallpox. In the latter half of the 19th century scientists developed a vaccine for the plague that was spreading throughout the world. In 1950 to 1985 a vaccine for polio was developed which would ultimately lead to the near eradication of the disease. Molecular science has recently opened a new window of possibilities for vaccines, with scientists being able to synthesize increasingly stronger and more complex vaccines than ever before. The movement against vaccines started in the 1970s, when lobbyists tried to decrease the profit companies could achieve from developing
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vaccines. (Brandt, 1) While vaccines might seem complex and intimidating, they aren’t as puzzling as you would think. Vaccines at the basic level is just a minute amount of a disease that has been modified in a way that makes it unable to damage you. The modest amount of the disease that is injected into you is then attacked by your immune system. Your white blood cells destroy the disease inside of you, creating antibodies against the vaccine’s injection, which will be used if an active strand of the disease ever breaches into your system. Leading your immune system to grow an immunity to this disease in a safe way, causing your body to be more prepared if you ever actually contract this disease, seeing as your white blood cells will already be accustomed to this disease. Vaccines are extremely helpful in preventing diseases. Developing countries that have problems with diseases but lack the the structure or funds to distribute a vaccine to the public are helped out by more frugal countries that have activist groups distributing vaccines for dirt cheap or even free. These vaccines have saved thousands of lives along with preventing deadly diseases from spreading to other countries. A reason that guardians keep their children from diseases is fear over the vaccine being unsafe for the child which is not the case at all. An article by the CDC states that some of the public has thought that there is a link between sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and the vaccines given when the child is young. This is due to the peak times for SIDS being 2-4 months, which is also the time the newborns are given vaccines. The CDC then says that SIDS has declined in consideration of a 1994 campaign that instructed parents to have infants sleep on their back. (O’Neill, 1) Another reason is that parents think that vaccines are ineffective. This is obviously untrue because multiple diseases have been nearly wiped out by vaccines already. Some of these nearly eradicated diseases have become to come back due to an increasing fear of vaccinations. Some parents even think that the disease that is being introduced into the child’s system is harmful for them. This is an ignorant assumption by reason of vaccines taking years to be engineered, even requiring extensive testing to be certain they are safe for use within the public. An example of a disease that’s nearly gone would be Polio, which was referenced earlier in the paper. The polio virus destroys cells in the spinal cord, leading to paralysis. In 1952 there were 21,000 cases of paralysis due to polio. Polio was becoming more of a problem in view of the average age of those infected with the virus steadily rising. This led to an increase in deaths as well as the severity of the disease. The first vaccine for polio named, the Inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV), was introduced in 1955. The vaccine continued to be updated, becoming even more effective than it already was. The last case of polio that was caught within the US was in 1979. There were over 350,000 cases of polio worldwide in 1988, but only 22 reported cases in 2017. (Zimlich, 1-2) One more reason that people think vaccines are ineffective is due to some viruses, like the common flu, have a new vaccination for them every year. This is not because the vaccination of last year didn’t work but actually because the flu virus evolves so quickly. In some cases, the vaccine can be less effective than it was in prior years, this could be because it is difficult to keep up with the rapid rate that the virus is evolving or that it is unexpectedly fierce that year. Even if the vaccine isn’t effective as it had been the year prior it is still better to be vaccinated. While an abundance of people think that the flu is just a mild inconvenience, the CDC reported 101 deaths of children in the 2016-2017 flu season. The article also wrote “. . . between 80% to 85% of flu-associated pediatric deaths have occurred in children who had not gotten a flu vaccine that season.” (Basurto, 1) This is even more proof that vaccines are effective. Another reason that people don’t vaccinate is because they think that they could cause issues in their children. They think if they’re vaccinated for a certain disease their child could be born with the disease or the child could contract the disease after being vaccinated. A minority of parents even believe that vaccines can cause autism in their children. This belief stems from a paper that was written 20 years ago that claimed a correlation between vaccinations and autism. This paper was debunked almost immediately, but this information is still spread as fact on social media pages & other news sources. The paper was a study of children that had been given the MMR vaccine. It was wrote by Andrew Wakefield & his colleagues, then published by The Lancet. The sample size of the study was only 12 children which were of the ages 3 to 10. The conclusion of the experiment was that there was a link between autism and the MMR vaccination. It wasn’t disclosed that nearly all of the children that were examined had already shown signs of possessing a mental disorder before the vaccine was even given. After a great deal of studies had been done to disprove Wakefield’s claims, The Lancet made a retraction of the claim that there was a link between the MMR vaccination and autism due to a lack of evidence. At this time The Lancet also revealed that Wakefield’s studies were funded by lawyers amidst cases against vaccine making companies. Consequently, the paper was completely retracted, leaving Wakefield & the other writers with charges of ethical violations and scientific misrepresentation. (Rao, T. S. Sathyanarayana, and Chittaranjan Andrade, 1) A large amount of time and effort was put into disproving Wakefield’s claim. A slew of parents stopped vaccinating their children out of fear caused by this paper. Those not vaccinated are at extreme risk of the diseases they aren’t protected against. The recent outbreaks of measles have been attributed to children lacking the vaccine of this preventable disease. (Rao, T. S. Sathyanarayana, and Chittaranjan Andrade, 2) Some parents choose not to vaccinate over fears the child’s immune system will react in a way that can hurt the child. Whenever a child is born there is always a possibility that children will be allergic to some substance. Some children are born allergic to the substances within certain vaccinations. This is much less common, nevertheless it could still cause a serious problem in the child, but alas, not getting vaccinated has harsher consequences. People might choose not to vaccinate themselves due to the cost of the vaccine. This isn’t justifiable due to how much more it would cost to treat the disease if they contracted it. According to O’Brien the cost of treating whooping cough can be up to $9,500 if the child is admitted into the hospital, but the vaccine for the virus is only $31. (O'Brien, Judith A, and Jaime Caro, 2) That is more than a 3000% increase in cost. Vaccines would also be covered by healthcare or at least paid for in part. While the hospital bills would also be partly covered, it would cost an exponential amount more to take the gamble of skipping the vaccine. There is also the added cost for parents having to take off work to care for their sick child. It is argued that vaccines contain harmful ingredients like formaldehyde, which is commonly used to preserve organisms for dissection, thimerosal, which contains mercury, even aluminum. These ingredients actually do the opposite for the vaccine. Formaldehyde is used to kill any bacteria or virus that might infiltrate the vaccine that could cause complications during its production. Thimerosal is used as a preservative which also prevents harmful bacteria from growing within vaccines that contain more than one dose. Aluminum is used to create a response to the vaccine that is more potent along with an increased persistent. These ingredients that seem harmful are put into the vaccine for specific reasons. (Malone, 2) The companies that create vaccines put decades of research into testing them to make sure that they are safe for the public, if the ingredients had any signs of being harmful, they wouldn’t be put into the final vaccine. If the anti-vaccine fever continues to the point of vaccine producers being required to take these ingredients out of their vaccines, it would take even longer to create the finished products, possibly even leading them to becoming less effective at preventing diseases. Another reason that the fear of vaccines is so outlandish is because of just how many agencies declare that they are safe. The CDC, which shows only the US agencies, lists 18 national organizations in support of vaccinations. There are innumerable amount of organizations outside of the US that preach how vaccines are safe as well as effective at preventing diseases. (Rakhange, 1) Some of the public believes that since a disease is rare there’s no need to be vaccinated for it.
This is extremely inaccurate with the recent outbreaks of measles being an example of this. Measles has been almost eradicated in the US but is still common in places outside of the country. If a traveler with the disease flies into the US then comes into contact with someone that is unvaccinated they could contract the disease. This is even more dangerous because it leads to the disease getting spread to more unvaccinated people, leading to more becoming infected. This is one reason why vaccines are so important, they provide herd
immunity. Herd immunity is the resistance to a disease due to a very high percentage of the “herd” being immune. The “herd” of this comparison is the human population. Herd immunity has been shown with polio. There were zero cases within the US last year, but it is safe to assume that the minute percentage of the population that had not been vaccinated is still susceptible to the virus. The percentage of the population that is immune is so high that it provides enough immunity to the disease that the US had no cases. Another reason that some people have stopped getting vaccines is due to a fraction of the diseases not being extremely detrimental. While this might be the case of some diseases when the person is at the healthier and stronger points of their life, it is still dangerous for young children in addition with the elderly to not be vaccinated. This is because of the weakened immune systems they have at their ages. Vaccines have been developed for over 100 years and are only getting more effective.
This fear was the reason the authors explained the creation of vaccines early on. At this point, the authors again used fear in an attempt to convince readers/parents to ignore these warnings. The authors placed blame directly on those spreading negative propaganda, as well as those who accepted it as fact by stating, “such warnings, if widely heeded, raise the specter of widespread refusal to practice vaccination, thus putting the wider society at risk” (Lee, Carson-Dewitt, 2016, p.2). This directed blame seems to claim that every unvaccinated child puts all members of society at risk, without considering evidence of how an individual’s choice to vaccinate one’s self would offer protection in any
There is a war going on against parents that refuse to vaccinate their children. It is coming from the government that makes and enforces laws requiring parents to vaccinate their children, hostile parents of vaccinated children, and doctors that refuse to see unvaccinated children. They are concerned about the potential health risk unvaccinated children pose to the public. These parents aren’t lunatics but are concerned parents that are trying to make the best choice for their children. In fact, these parents aren’t fighting alone; a number of pediatricians and medical experts are apart of this crusade and have taken the lead. They will tell you there is an agenda, “Vaccine manufacturers, health officials, medical doctors, lead authors of important studies, editors of major medical journals, hospital personnel, and even coroners, cooperate to minimize vaccine failings, exaggerate benefits, and avert any negative publicity that might frighten concerned parents, threaten the vaccine program and lower vaccination rates.” 4
People who do not vaccinate their children do so for many different reasons. Groups such as Generation Rescue provide a support system and anti-vaccine advocacy. From the research done by British Gastroenterologist, Andrew Wakefield, they believe that vaccine have a negative affect and cause autism as well as regression in their children. Children, from
Vaccines have been used to prevent diseases for centuries, and have saved countless lives of children and adults. The smallpox vaccine was invented as early as 1796, and since then the use of vaccines has continued to protect us from countless life threatening diseases such as polio, measles, and pertussis. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2010) assures that vaccines are extensively tested by scientist to make sure they are effective and safe, and must receive the approval of the Food and Drug Administration before being used. “Perhaps the greatest success story in public health is the reduction of infectious diseases due to the use of vaccines” (CDC, 2010). Routine immunization has eliminated smallpox from the globe and led to the near removal of wild polio virus. Vaccines have reduced some preventable infectious diseases to an all-time low, and now few people experience the devastating effects of measles, pertussis, and other illnesses.
Why would anyone want to leave their child at risk of developing a sickness that could easily be preventable? Some people believe that vaccines do not work and are only harmful; they are wrong. Vaccines can be helpful not only to the child of the concerned parent, but also the children of other parents as well. Parents should vaccinate their children because it prevents illnesses, rarely has negative effects, and vaccines have increased the human lifespan. If an illness is preventable, parents should ensure that their children are getting the medical protection available.
A time where vaccines were beneficial was when small poxs found its way around the human population. It was only till the end of the 18th century where an effective vaccination created by Edward Jenner was made for
Vaccinations began approximately 1000 C.E. beginning with the Chinese inoculating for smallpox. Vaccinations became widely practiced throughout the globe. More vaccinations were invented to prevent multiple diseases such as smallpox, diphtheria, tetanus, and typhoid. These vaccines have greatly reduced the burden of the diseases. Today this practice causes controversy because many view it as unnecessary and harmful. Without the practice of vaccinations, the prevented diseases will return with a lasting impact.
Edward Jenner invented a method to protect against smallpox in the late 1700s. The method involved taking substances from an open wound of someone with small-pox or cow-pox and injecting it into another person’s skin, also called “arm-to-arm inoculation”. The earliest actual documented examples of vaccination date all the way back to the tenth century in China (Lombard, “A brief history of vaccines and vaccinations”). The mention of early vaccination was taken note of by a French scholar, Henri Husson, written in one of his journals (Dictionaire des sciences médicale). The Ottoman Empire Turks also discovered a method of immunization a few centuries later. Lady Montagu of Great Britain, a famous writer and wife of the English ambassador of Istanbul, between 1716 -1718, came across the Turkish vaccine for small-pox. After surviving as a child with small-pox, she insisted her son be vaccinated (Henricy, “Letters of the Right Honourable Lady Wortley Montagu”). When she returned to England, she continued to publicize the Turkish tradition of immunization and spread their methods to the rest of her country. She also had all family members also vaccinated. Immunization was soon adopted in England, nearly 50 years before Jenner's smallpox vaccine in 1796 (Sharp, “Anti-vaccinationists past and present”). Edward Jenner’s target for smallpox was to eradicate it. And later by the 1940s, knowledge of the science behind vaccines had developed and soon reached the point where across-the-board vaccine production was a goal that was possible and where serious disease control efforts could start. Vaccines for many dangerous diseases, including ones protecting against pertussis, diphtheria, and tetanus were underway into production. ...
Vaccines have been around for hundreds of years starting in 1796 when Edward Jenner created the first smallpox vaccine. Jenner, an English country doctor noticed cowpox, which were blisters forming on the female cow utters. Jenner then took fluid from the cow blister and scratched it into an eight-year-old boy. A single blister came up were the boy had been scratched but it quickly recovered. After this experiment, Jenner injected the boy with smallpox matter. No disease arose, the vaccine was a success. Doctors all around Europe soon began to proceed in Jenner’s method. Seven different vaccines came from the single experimental smallpox vaccine. Now the questions were on the horizon. Should everyone be getting vaccinations? Where’s the safety limit? How can they be improved? These questions needed answers, and with a couple hundred years later with all the technology, we would have them(ncbi.nlm.nih.gov).
Vaccines are a controversial topic. While there are many benefits to getting vaccinated, there are also some concerns. The benefits include immunization against many deadly diseases, debilitating diseases, and other simply annoying diseases. The concerns include everything from fears about vaccines causing autism, feeling they aren’t necessary for what they cost, and contracting the disease from the vaccines. While certain concerns may be valid, others are much less so, and will be examined and explained why I would choose to vaccinate my child.
The history of vaccine started with the spread of smallpox disease. Smallpox was a contagious disease and, it was spreading fast leaving permanent scars on patients' faces or worse taking their lives. At the time, there were several attempt to treat and prevent smallpox, but Edward Jenner had the greatest rule in eliminating smallpox.“Jenner's work represented the first scientific attempt to control an infectious disease by the deliberate use of vaccination”. ( “Conclusion” 1,2). Nowadays, Statistics show significant reduction in the cases of infectious diseases after the widespread of vaccination. There were annually 63,000 cases of Pneumococcal among children in the United States. After the beginning of vaccination, the cases redu...
Those who choose not to vaccinate their children are endangering the health of those unable to be vaccinated themselves, such as infants, pregnant people, and the immunocompromised, by jeopardizing community immunity. According to vaccine.gov, a federal government website managed by the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, community immunity or “herd immunity” occurs when “a critical portion of the community is immunized against a contagious disease, most members of the community are protected against that disease because there is little opportunity for an outbreak” (Community Immunity). An infographic featured in an NPR article entitled “How Vaccine Fears Fueled the Resurgence of Preventable Diseases” illustrated the rise in measles cases in Western Europe and of pertussis (whooping cough) cases in the U.S (Doucleff). In the first eight months of 2014, there were eighteen measles outbreaks, and six hundred cases of measles.
Vaccination has been described as one of the top ten achievements of the 20th Century according to health and medical scholars, but Anti Vaccination protests were around since the start of this new form of medicine in early 1800’s in England. There are Pros and Cons in everything. Vaccinations cure diseases, saves lives, eradicates dangerous diseases that killed unmerciful back in time where medicine was not advanced, where people prayed on their knees for their loved ones to get better. But also religious beliefs provoked controversy, basically if God wanted you to die of this disease he would either let you meet your destiny, or save you. Parents asking if the Vaccination ingredients were safe for their children and personal freedoms of their bodies. So who's Right and Who's Wrong?
This, in turn, will deteriorate the prevalence of preventable diseases and hence decrease the likelihood that medically incompatible individuals will contract them (Kim, T. H., Johnstone, J., & Loeb, M., 2011). According to the World Health Organization, “The decline of disease incidence is greater than the proportion of individuals immunized because vaccination reduces the spread of an infectious agent by reducing the amount and duration of pathogen shedding by vaccinees, retarding transmission” (Andre, 2008). This enables a significant percentage of individuals who oppose vaccines to reconcile with those who do not, as this eliminates the concern regarding adverse reactions. According to an article titled “Vaccine herd effect,” herd immunity has pervaded many communities to help minimize the spread of disease. For example, in the 1990s, a vaccine was introduced that targeted a strain of disease known as streptococcus pneumoniae, which can potentially cause pneumonia. The CDC discovered a fifty percent reduction in pneumonia cases among the elderly despite the vaccine being offered primarily to children (Kim, T. H., Johnstone, J., & Loeb, M., 2011). This scenario is indubitably a prime exemplar for herd immunity, and it is the greatest reason that mandatory inoculation is
Vaccines were first invented by Edward Jenner in 1796 to protect against smallpox, which involve...