Should Children Be Vaccinated

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When it comes to certain topics there is always going to be controversy surrounding them; this is the case with the topic of whether or not children should be vaccinated. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) they recommend that children get vaccinated against up to 14 diseases within their first two years of life, and receive booster shots as they get older. |3|. This idea has led to numerous debates on why children should be vaccinated before they enter into the public school system. And many other debates on why parents should be able to opt out of vaccinating their children due to developmental concerns or religious beliefs. However, regardless of religious beliefs …show more content…
This is a problem however because when it comes to parents leaving their children unvaccinated, it greatly affects the community as a whole and the entire herds immunity to particular viruses and diseases. What is herd immunity? Herd immunity is when enough people in a community—around 90-95 percent—have been immunized from certain diseases. |4|. The way herd immunity works is since such a huge amount the population is vaccinated against particular diseases, then those diseases cannot cause an outbreak. By maintaining the proportion of vaccinated individuals and susceptible individuals, and keeping the amount of vaccinated individuals high, it can make the difference in whether or not an outbreak can occur. This is why herd immunity is very important when it comes to stopping to spread of preventable diseases. By making parents vaccinate their children it helps to protect and preserve the herd immunity. However in some areas, nearly one out of every five children have not received the recommended vaccines. So when too many parents opt to not vaccinate their children they can put an entire community at risk of preventable outbreaks. The way these diseases spread is because they can then easily jump around from person to person, child to child. For those who cannot receive vaccinations for medical reasons or because they are too young/old, they must rely …show more content…
Natural immunity means that someone actually has to catch the disease and get sick from it. Yes, the results do mean a stronger immunity to the disease than a vaccination. However, building a natural immunity is dangerous. For example, if a child were to contract the measles, they would face about a 1 in 500 chance of death. Whereas, dying from vaccination side effects, is very rare, and hard to calculate specifically. While vaccines can cause mild symptoms that resemble symtoms of the disease the vaccination in protecting against, it is a small percentage. The symptoms that do occur are the recipient’s body and their immune system responding to the vaccination. Schools also play a major role in the herd community. |4|. Mainly when it comes to the spread of influenza (the flu). In Japan there was a policy during the 1990s, which used selective vaccination of school children. It was then shown that it helped reduce the morbidity and mortality rate among the elderly. |4|. Other vaccinations that help the stop the transmissions of diseases are called, “‘transmission blocking vaccines”. |4|. For example the transmission blocking vaccine for Malaria, doesn’t protect the individual from the particular disease, but it does help to produce antibodies that block off the life cycle of malaria in