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History of vaccinations
The importance of vaccinations
Importance of immunisation
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Recommended: History of vaccinations
Since the creation of vaccinations two hundred years ago, 9 million people’s lives are saved every year. They have been a revolutionary invention that has decreased the amount of deaths due to diseases such as smallpox, diphtheria, whooping cough, measles, and polio. On November 13, 2015 an Australian mother posted a video on facebook of her 4 month old son who was infected with pertussis or whooping cough. She did this in effort to convince parents to vaccinate their children in order to protect them against diseases like the one that she could have prevented her son from becoming infected with through simply getting him vaccinated. The mother stated that doing nothing is just wrong. By not vaccinating children we are putting them, their families,
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
“Vaccinations are causing a major upsurge in childhood diseases, adult maladies, and even deadly ailments such as Gulf War Syndrome and Lou Gehrig’s disease” (Blaylock). Every now and then an individual’s doctor calls telling them about the latest vaccine they should receive. The person immediately schedules a time to come in and get it done. But do they even give a second thought about it? Have they ever thought that maybe they do not need another vaccination? Many people have not taken the time to seriously think about the process of immunization. The truth is, there are many dangers that the average person should be unaware of. Rarely do vaccines actually accomplish what the public has been told. In fact, a lot of vaccines contain harmful substances that have been linked to disorders such as autism. The lack of education and dishonesty from doctors are putting people in danger of health problems without even realizing. Many parents feel obligated for their children to get vaccinated because of school, not knowing they have the alternative option of refusing immunization.
Vaccination was first introduced globally for small pox and later on extended to other communicable diseases which are now known as vaccine preventable disease. Vaccination is beneficial both for individuals and community. This bring us to the ethical dilemma - Vaccination of a healthy child with the intention of protecting both the individual child and the community at the same time exposing the child to the theoretical risk of exposure to disease products whether live, attenuated or killed. There was a time when people never questioned the government or their physicians. Now because of more public awareness and accessibility to medical information, they are questioning the safety aspects of vaccines.
The simple injections have potential to save thousands of lives every year and they are making the world a safer place. Vaccines can help create an environment where children are not receptive to disease which would have taken lives in previous decades, and for the general population to be healthy, and to keep children safe from illness and disease people should vaccinate themselves. Throughout my research for vaccinations, I didn’t realize the many stances parents could support. I knew previously before researching that many parents didn’t agree with the idea of giving their child a vaccination that could possible cause an issue that wasn’t present before. Although, I always supported vaccinations strictly because of scientific facts; when I read about the many reasons why parents didn’t it was a shock and ultimately overwhelmingly disappointing. Mainly, because it seems like parents are only looking at the few effects vaccinations could have on a child. Overall, I believe that everyone should be vaccinated, not only to help themselves but to help the public from outbreaks that can easily occur if the anti-vaccination movement continues and makes
Parents must be forced to vaccinate their children. The detrimental effects of failing to vaccinate a child can be spine chilling for not only your child but you and your loved ones around. Despite our best efforts to keep our children safe, their lives are unhygienic, a proverbial germ fest some might argue. Children must be vaccinated as they are unaware of their surroundings and a vaccination will save their life; only the child’s but also the people around them.
Mumps, Measles, Whooping Cough, Smallpox, Polio and, Diphtheria are all deadly diseases that were once a death sentence to children and adults around the world, but there is something that can help combat these fatal diseases. Vaccinations can change the course of these lethal diseases, but some families are still refusing to vaccinate the future of the world. Vaccinations can not only be beneficial to the child itself but to rest of humanity as well. There is evidence that goes against false claims bashing vaccination and the positive effects of vaccination overrule all of the negative. Vaccination can have a positive effect on the world due to its life-saving properties, effects on humanity and the extensive amount of safety and care that
For parents, the responsibility of taking care of a child is their number one priority. They tend to build up a list of what their child needs to stay safe and healthy. Even the smallest way of a taking care of a child is important like putting them in a car seat is one of the ways to keep children protected. There is another important way that parents should not forget to do – vaccinating their children. Parents should not miss all of their children’s vaccinations. Children can be protected against severe diseases, such as polio, which was “America’s most-feared disease, causing death and paralysis across the country” (“Five Important Reasons to Vaccinate Your Child”). Today, there hasn’t been any news about Polio for the longest time because of vaccinations. However, there are people who don’t have an option to not get vaccinated because they aren’t allowed due to their protection such as pregnant women and newborns. In order to avoid contagious diseases, people who are allowed to do so should get themselves vaccinated for the benefit of those who can’t get vaccinated and have a higher risk of getting severe diseases. For example, “Newborns who are too young to get vaccinated for whooping cough are also most at risk of severe illness from the disease” (“10 Reasons To Get Vaccinated”). Newborn infants have a high risk of getting serious diseases, which should encourage more people to get
Many parents do not want to get their children vaccinated because they are harmful to children, but vaccinations are not as harmful as they think. Parents should have to have their children vaccinated because there are less diseases now since the use of vaccinations, other people that can’t get vaccinated won’t contract any infectious diseases and there are less problems caused from being vaccinated than non-vaccinated. Vaccinations have proven to be useful time and time
Vaccines should be put in children when are born to prevent any diseases when they are
Childhood vaccinations have received a lot of media in the past few years, and parents continue to question whether or not they should have their children vaccinated. This topic is a very important issue because it seems to be a trend in our society where parents are not vaccinating their children. This then leads their children becoming more susceptible to unnecessary diseases/viruses that can be prevented with vaccines. The focus of the following articles was on the association of the specific vaccines measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR), and vaccines containing thimerosal, which has been a speculated reason for the cause of autism. This contentious hypothesis has many parents failing to vaccinate their children; this is especially true of many friends and family members of mine. They believe that vaccines can cause autism, and I want to prove otherwise.
In recent years, the correlation between vaccines and autism has become the subject of much debate. On one side, there are the anti-vaccinators, or anti-vaccers. On the other, there’s pretty much everyone else. Despite the fact that the anti-vaccination movement has little base in scientific fact, their campaign to end early infanthood vaccinations rages on. While doctors and scientists try desperately to make parents look at the research studies, vaccination rates continue to fall. But, even in these dark times, there is still hope that scientific fact will prevail and defeat the anti-vaccination fear mongers who have caused many children to fall ill and even die because their parents did not properly vaccinate them. This is one of the most saddening scientific failures of the twenty-first century. A failure to educate the public properly has resulted in child, even infant, fatalities. The anti-vaccination movement was started based on falsified data and continues only because of a lack of knowledge and proper education of the general public.
Those who actively pursue denying the rights of others while trying to further their cause lead to a hatred against their movement. Vaccines, while an important aspect in maintaining proper health they should not be absolutely mandatory. The choice of vaccination should be left to the parents, as it is their right to nurture and care for their kids as they see fit(Anthony). Furthermore, a governmental mandate on vaccination causes many issues, it denies rights to the parents, it denies right to the grown adults and it taxes those who don’t comply. This strategy is not a very American approach, it is a strict mandate, and order then to conform. This goes against the American concepts of individualism(Anthony), this concept is Communist. There are also many circumstances that mandatory vaccination neglects, this includes the civil liberties granted to all citizens by the first amendment, and the equal protection granted by the 13 amendment(US Constitution). There are many reasons why the idea of mandatory
“Childhood vaccines are one of the great triumphs of modern medicine. Indeed, parents whose children are vaccinated no longer have to worry about their child's death or disability from whooping cough, polio, diphtheria, hepatitis, or a host of other infections.” (Ezekiel J. Emanuel, 1). Vaccines helped humanity for many years in eliminating illnesses that disfigured, disabled and a lot of times took lives away. Children who do not get vaccinated not only risk themselves by being an easy target for diseases they also, harm everyone around them. In the end, today's children are the fuel of the future. Every parent should think carefully before taking any chance that may harm the coming generation.
Vaccines are becoming increasingly hazardous for many children and parents are not being informed about the safety of their children. Current reports are linking vaccines to serious life-threatening disorders such as asthma, autism, immune system dysfunction, and mental retardation (Williams). These recent revelations are causing an increasing amount of people to claim religious and medical exemptions from vaccines. From 1999 to 2006, exemptions have more than doubled from 9,722 to 24,919 (Cronin). It is very clear that vaccinations are posing many problems for parents everywhere. Each day researchers are finding out about vaccines and are realizing that there are a lot more risks than benefits. Dr Phillip F. Incao explains: “Today, far more children suffer from allergies and other chronic immune system disorders than from life-threatening infectious disease. It is neither reasonable nor prudent to persist in presuming that the benefits of any vaccination outweigh its risk” (qtd in Spaker). While infectious diseases are becoming uncommon there is no need for any person to get vaccinated.
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. This is incredibly dangerous because outbreaks give these diseases the opportunity to evolve and become resistant to vaccines, putting even vaccinated children at risk (Harmon). Parents making the decision not to vaccinate are doing so out of a place that all parents share: a desire to keep their children healthy. However, these anti-vaxxers are basing their decision not on