Childhood Vaccination Research Paper

Vaccines are made to prevent and protect people from diseases that have devastated the country in the past including polio, measles and rubella. Federal laws do not require vaccination but all the states in the United States have state laws that mandate children attending public school to have certain standard childhood vaccinations. To be exempt from this requirement there must be a religious or medical reason ("Vaccines ProCon.org"). Some believe vaccines are necessary to prevent disease, are safe to be administered to people, and should be mandatory. Others believe that vaccines are harmful to people causing serious side effects and making them mandatory infringes on their rights. I believe Children should be required to have their standard

The family has the right to be worried considering “Rhett attends school in Marlin County in California, where just over 84 percent of kindergartners are fully vaccinated” (“7 year old cancer patient...”). Going to a school with that low of a percentage of fully vaccinated children puts Rhett at a high risk for contracting the disease. The recent measles outbreak in Southern California that started in Disneyland is also another justified concern his parents have. The CDC reported that at least 121 have been infected due to the outbreak (“7 year old cancer patient...”). These unvaccinated children in Rhett’s school could have contracted the disease from this outbreak and Rhett could easily be infected. In Rhett’s speech in front of the school committee he said “Now I can say gone with cancer...Soon we will say gone with the measles” (“7 year old cancer patient...”). At the school committee meeting the family requested that personal belief exemptions from vaccinations be abolished. Merlin County, where they live, has the highest percentage of personal exception in the state at 5.89 % (“7 year old cancer patient...”). After going through so much with their child the family should not also have to worry about their child health being at risk for sending him to school. It is well known that some believe having mandatory vaccines infringes on people’s religious rights even if it protects other people. When in fact “parents around the country... are claiming religious exemptions to avoid vaccinating their children when the real reason may be skepticism of the shots or concern they can cause other illnesses”