Deborah Lee's Point Of View: Vaccines Save Lives

Deborah Lee and Rosalyn Carson-Dewitt MD, a medical and scientific writer (Lee, Carson-Dewitt, 2016, p.2), worked together to write Point: Vaccines Save Lives, found on page two of “Point of view: Vaccines and health hazards” to discuss vaccines. Lee’s article used historical events, expert opinion, and comparison to make the argument that vaccines protect society. With people taking what they read on the internet at face value, it is more important than ever to be sure one knows the facts before making decisions. The authors attempted to clarify the subject to help parents make an informed decision. Did Lee and Carson-Dewitt effectively present evidence in an unbiased way to support the claim that vaccines save lives? The authors used a historical timeline to introduce a need. Stressing the number of lives lost allows the authors show the importance of vaccines. The repeated emphasis on those lives being the lives of children played on the emotions of readers. Once the need is established Lee and Carson-Dewitt clarify the use of “a dead or mild form of a virus” to create a vaccine (Lee, Carson-Dewitt, 2016, p.2). The distinction of the types of

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