Vaccinations

Vaccines use your body’s ability to learn how to terminate almost all germs or microbes that attack it. The body memorizes how to protect against microbes that it has previously came across. Specifically, the immune system is the part of your body that remembers and attacks diseases. Your immune system is the reason for every illness you’ve ever defeated, and without it you most likely wouldn’t be alive. It takes approximately a week for your body to learn how to fight off a new microbe/germ. However, some microbes are so infectious that that your immune system can’t quite grasp it and defeat it. In this case, a vaccine can make a world’s difference. Vaccines contain weakened or dead pathogens (microbes) that are put into the body so your body can learn how to recognize and terminate them.
Ever since vaccines came about in the late 18th century, there has been major controversy. The scare of another outbreak common to the flu pandemic of 1918 (that wiped out more than 675,000 Americans) is what pushes the United States today to stay prepared. Since this outburst, America has put out countless vaccines, medications, and intensive care facilities. Whether or not vaccines should be mandatory is a hot topic currently. I believe that the United States should make it mandatory for citizens to get vaccinated.
Although there are many reasons to make vaccines mandatory, there are also reasons not to vaccinate. Some who are for vaccines wonder why anyone would risk acquiring a gruesome disease when they could just simply get a shot. However, the amount of people who decide not to get vaccinated is increasing. According to pediatrician Dr. Sharon Humiston, roughly 1.8% of children are not being vaccinated due to the fact that their paren...

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...weigh the risks of not getting vaccinated. Therefore, I believe that vaccinations should be mandatory to help better our society. Hopefully in the upcoming years we will know more about vaccines than we could have ever imagined.

Works Cited

Offit, Paul A. “Vaccine Risks Are Outweighed by the Risks of Not Vaccinating.” Should Vaccinations be Mandatory? Ed. Noël Merino. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2010. At Issue. Rpt. from “Common Concerns About Vaccines.” Vaccines: What You Should Know. 3rd ed. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2003. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 4 Feb. 2014.
“Understanding Vaccines.” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. N.p.: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, 2003. N. pag. Print.
“Vaccines.” Current Issues: Macmillan Social Science Library. Detroit: Gale, 2010.Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 4 Feb. 2014