Vaccinating Benefits

Immunizations can save a child’s life; due to the medical advances that have taken place, kids are now protected from many illness/ diseases. At one point in time, Polio was a horrible illness that is now preventable by simply receiving a shot (USDHHS, n.d.). Immunizations protect not only the individual receiving the vaccination, but others as well. Certain individuals are not suitable for specific vaccinations, therefore, if everyone else has the vaccination, the people who cannot are more likely to be safe from the illness (USDHHS, n.d). Generally, immunizations are safe, effective, cheaper in the long run, and can save families time.

Choosing not to get vaccinated negatively effects you and those around you, decreases our growing potential toward herd immunity, and “actually leave[s] the door open to outbreaks of diseases that have been all but eradicated by modern medicine” (Healthline). For example, “in developing countries, one in every four children born annually will not be vaccinated . . . so, each day, 4,000 – 8,000 people, mainly children, die from vaccine-preventable diseases” (Ulmer and Liu 292). However, if a law was created that made getting vaccinations mandatory, these numbers would go down and fewer children would be dying.

To vaccinate or not to vaccinate? That is the question. Vaccination has sparked heated debate since its development amongst the following groups; parents, naturopaths, medical professionals, etc. Fuel has been added to the fire of the vaccine debate by the media and anti-vaxxer fear mongering tactics, making it hard for those considering vaccination, to decipher fact from myth. It is vital that we first understand the facts rather than believing the latest rumor before making an informed decision to vaccinate or not.

Since infants and young children are very vulnerable and lack independence, healthy physical development is dependent on protecting them from outside harms. Vaccines protect not just the child being vaccinated but also other children who may not be vaccinated. Some children cannot receive vaccines due to health conditions, such as child with allergies or a deficient immune system. These children are at risk for catching devastating illnesses when they come in contact with unvaccinated children. When parents have their children vaccinated it is good for the health of both the vaccinated children and other children in the

compulsory vaccination not only provides benefits to the person being vaccinated but also to the society that we live. A utilitarian would say not being vaccinated would cause more harm than good to our community. Before vaccination thousands of people died every year from disease such as MMR, Diphtheria, Pertussis Poliomyelitis and many others . As vaccines were developed and became widely used, rates of these diseases declined until today most of them are nearly gone from countries around the world.

The lives of millions across the globe are at risk if the population does not stay vaccinated. Without vaccines, the spread of disease would be rampant and we must value the use of vaccines against these diseases. Schools should require students to be vaccinated because vaccines are an effective way to prevent infectious diseases, vaccine protect vulnerable students who cannot be vaccinated, and personal opinions of parents who oppose vaccines hold no value when the spread of deadly diseases is at risk. Legislators and school district across the country should uphold current immunization requirements and crack down on those who have exempted from vaccines for non-medical

The health of others around should be taken into consideration when making this decision. “If the vaccination rate drops significantly within a community, the population is no longer protected, putting the unvaccinated at risk. Some people specifically choose vaccination because they feel that it will protect others from disease”

Of all the branches of modern medicine, vaccinology can claim to be the one that has contributed most to the spectacular increase in life expectancy in the last two centuries. Currently, it is estimated that immunization saves the lives of 3 million children a year but 2 million more lives could be saved by existing vaccines. The Science Behind Why Vaccines Help Some scientists estimated the population-wide benefits of routinely vaccinating US children against influenza.

Getting vaccinated lowers the possibility of a person getting sick. When a person gets vaccinated their immune system builds a resistance to the sickness in their system and makes the person stronger than the virus. If infected people are around the person that has the vaccination, the possibility of the person who has vaccination getting infected are lower than a person who doesn’t have the vaccination in their system. Getting vaccinated keeps people safe by keep them immune to some life threatening

One of the most common reasons people give for requiring vaccinations is that vaccination can lead to “Herd Immunity.” In other words, the greater the percentage of people in a population that are vaccinated, the less likely it is that unvaccinated people will come into contact with a contagious person. According to one doctor, “‘Someday we may live in a world that doesn’t scare patients into making bad health decisions…. vaccine mandates are the best way to ensure protection from illnesses’”(Finnegan 2). Maybe in the future the scariest diseases will not exist.

Beyond preventing more than 100 million cases of illness and averting 3.7 million deaths in young children over the next ten years, immunizing children with three crucial vaccines against pneumonia, diarrhea and meningitis would hold major economic benefits for both families and governments. Averting short term costs of disease treatment saves $1.4 billion and avoiding the lost wages of caretakers saves $313 million while averting the long term economic costs of lost productivity due to disability and death may add savings of $61 billion to these economies in the long term. The ability to avert 3.7 million deaths by using pneumococcal, Hib and rotavirus vaccines has an estimated value of $115 billion for those in at-risk

Each year in the U.S., 50,000 adults die from a disease that could have easily been prevented if they simply got vaccinated. Also, most vaccines are for deadly diseases; if someone neglects getting vaccinated, that makes them very vulnerable. Vaccines are a very safe way to prevent illness. In fact, each vaccine has to pass through a major inspection to make

Vaccines are able to prevent disease in a single child, but their usefulness to society lies in their ability to prevent outbreaks. Vaccines prevent disease through the concept of herd immunity. Herd immunity is the idea that a disease will have a harder time spreading if the majority of the population is unable to contract it (Martinez). For example, if more than 90 percent of people are vaccinated against measles, an outbreak is unlikely to happen even if a person in the community is infected (Oster).

Many people may think that vaccination is a bad thing, that instead of preventing it causes illness, that is not natural. Natural or not, there are many reasons as to why we should vaccinate us and the younger generation. Most of the time children don’t like vaccination because it hurt, but is the responsibility of a parent to seek the wellbeing of his or her child. Vaccination it’s a preventive measure of various diseases. Unfortunately, things like the anti-vaccination movement, the misinformation on the Internet, and the believe that vaccination causes more damage than is worth, have led our society to think that it’s right not to vaccinate.

Globally, vaccination has proved as a tremendous asset in curbing the spread of communicable diseases. Communicable disease such as smallpox, which is highly infectious, was thoroughly eradicated in the 20th century with the help of vaccines. Other notorious contagious diseases, such as measles, polio and rubella are also in the brink of eradication in this modern age through the widespread application of vaccines. By implementing mandatory vaccination, it’s not impossible to achieve that due to vaccination preventing new human carriers of disease from appearing. As vaccination prevents an individual from contracting a particular disease, the individual will not be a carrier for that disease, thus limiting the spread of the disease to others.