Why Vaccinations Should Be Mandatory

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Boyd Wilson Mrs. Dodson English II-Pre AP April 8th, 2024. Vaccinations are a fundamental part of our medical system and have saved millions of lives. With the recent Covid-19 pandemic, debates occurred regarding the necessity of vaccinations due to individuals questioning the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. Individuals are using this reasoning as a way to justify not getting vaccinated, and in doing so they are putting themselves and others at risk. To combat a future health crisis caused by people declining vaccination, vaccines should be made mandatory because they reduce the risk of illness, save lives and are safe to use. Vaccines should be mandatory because they play a major role in keeping society healthy by reducing the risk …show more content…

If a vaccinated individual is infected with a deadly disease, the individual already has been exposed to a template of the virus from the vaccine. This allows the immune system to use the template to fight the virus, producing antibodies, which can be the difference between life or death. Immunity from vaccinations saves lives by preventing deadly diseases from being as strong and mandatory vaccines would save even more lives because the vaccinated individuals would have enhanced immunity. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states that getting vaccinated can lead to herd immunity, which decreases the ability of the virus to travel from person to person and as a result the entire community is less likely to get sick (“Vaccines Protect Your Community”). Herd immunity especially helps to protect at-risk people such as the elderly and immunocompromised because they have a weakened immune system and they can more easily get infected with diseases. While the disease will potentially be less potent because of their vaccines, the disease can still cause serious harm or death. Mandatory vaccines could help protect these people because the community as a whole would …show more content…

Vaccines are the safest of all medicines because they are tested and studied in a larger population than most drugs (“Vaccinations Are Safe: Explaining Why”). Vaccines have been proven to be safe after extensive testing. If vaccines were made mandatory, there would be significantly less health risks in the community getting vaccinated. The extensive testing that vaccinations undergo can disprove anti-vaccine statements because people say that vaccines are not tested enough. However, more safety tests are done on vaccines than on the medicines taken every morning. After vaccines are released to the public, federal agencies like the FDA, CDC, and other departments that regulate citizen safety continue to monitor the vaccine to make sure there are little to no adverse side effects (“Vaccine Safety”). The constant monitoring done by the federal government ensures that the vaccines continue to be safe and effective. Worries about safety concerns with mandatory vaccines will be put to rest because the government ensures the vaccines people receive are safe and constantly monitors them to ensure their safety. Vaccines are among the safest medicines and

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