Controversy About Vaccinations Against Infectious Diseases

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Vaccination Against Infectious Diseases

Vaccines are one of the most controversial topics in modern medicine

and will continue to attract more attention in the years ahead. Most

new parents dutifully take their babies to their doctor to be

vaccinated, at the prescribed times. However, over the last few

decades, there have been several scares concerning vaccinations, and

the possible side effects of them. Some parents have refused to have

their child vaccinated because of some of these scares, and the truth

is, they have been blown out of proportion by the press and it can be

very confusing for the general public. In order to balance this

extraordinary influence, parents will need to make a well informed

decision about vaccines for their children. It is, of course, very

important that before anybody embarks on a course of vaccinations,

they should know both the benefits and the risks associated with them.

Therefore, in order to begin thinking about whether vaccinations

should be compulsory for all children, there are some issues to be

addressed.

Some parents may feel it unsafe to put chemicals into such young

children; especially if there have been uncertainties about particular

vaccines.

An example of this is the DPT (Diphtheria, Pertussis, and Tetanus)

vaccine. Infants are meant to receive at 2/3/4 months. However, there

are several side effects that parents fear, although very unlike to

occur, they are very drastic and have stopped parents have letting

their children have the vaccine. People have also been unsure about

the effectiveness of the diphtheria vaccine, infact when the vaccine

was once compulsory; there was a 17...

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diseases that could harm them, and since the vaccines have been

introduced, there have been lower death rates in children. There may

be some side effects to some of the vaccinations, but it is not worth

risking not vaccinating them. It is unsafe to assume that herd

immunity will wipe out the risk of catching the disease as so many

parents today are not having their child vaccinated. I feel that it is

a good idea that under most circumstances, vaccination against

infectious diseases should be made compulsory for all children. In a

situation when a child is more likely to react very badly to a

particular vaccine, alternative methods could be used. But I feel it

important that children of today are all immunised so that, in the

future, hopefully, such diseases would not be a threat to the children

of tomorrow.

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