Last year there was a large measles outbreak at Disneyland in California. According to one article published in the BU Today "there were 121 cases of measles in 17 states and the District of Columbia, and 80 percent occurred among unvaccinated individuals" (Shea BU.edu). That's from one incident. In the year 2014 there were 614 cases of the measles reported in the United States (Kluger 42). These are surprisingly high numbers for a disease that is preventable through a simple vaccination. The problem is that there is a small minority that refuses to vaccinate their children for reasons that range from; they not believing vaccinations are safe, to refusing to for religious reasons due to immoral materials in the vaccinations (ProsCon.org). While some reasons for refusing have more merit than others, all are used and all are accepted. Despite these reasons I argue that parents should vaccinate their children because the benefit of vaccination far outweigh the risks. 

The best way to understand vaccines is to first look into the history of vaccines and analyze how they work. The very first vaccine was given in 1796 by the scientist Edward Jenner. Jenner injected an eight year old boy with the cowpox virus obtained from his mother. Cow pox is a mild disease that can be spread from cow to human via sores, but is not life threatening. After the injection, the boy felt poorly for several days but made a full recovery. Afterwards Jenner injected the boy with the smallpox virus and to everyone's surprise he was immune, thus the first vaccine was made (Dhanasarnsombut Ted-Ed). But why did it work?  When a body is infected with a bacterial disease you experience symptoms such as a fever or coughing which is, your body trying to eliminate the bacteria. However the body also triggers a second response which is known as adaptive immunity. Adaptive immunity is when your body creates "special cells called B cells and T cells are recruited to fight microbes [bacteria], and also record information about them, creating a memory of what the invaders look like, and how best to fight them" (Dhanasarnsombut Ted-Ed). The cowpox virus Jenner injected the boy with is very similar to the small pox virus. So due to the prior cow pox exposure, the body was prepared to fight the introduction of the similar small pox virus. 

Now I'm not advocating for parents to inject their children with full-fledged diseases. That would have some pretty dangerous possibilities. Thankfully, as technology advanced so did the science behind vaccines. Modern vaccines don't contain full fledge diseases such as the cowpox virus. Instead they either contain a weaker and tamer versions of a pathogen, a dead pathogen, or a specific part of a pathogen that triggers an immune response.  All three of these options are far less dangerous than a live virus and are way more effective than their predecessors (Dhanasarnsombut Ted-Ed). However, some parents still don't want their child to be injected with anything that has any sort of pathogen in it. I can understand the cause for concern but they are completely safe. For example "According to the CDC, all vaccines carry a risk of a life-threatening allergic reaction in about one per million children" (ProsCon.org). Your child runs a one out of a million chance of having a fatal reaction. That's more than the odds of you getting struck by lightning this year! On the other hand it is very possible your unvaccinated child could come into contact with someone carrying the measles pathogen either at school, daycare, or on vacation. Why run the risk of exposing them to a possibly fatal disease when you can vaccinate them and ensure their safety? 

Despite the overwhelming odds that their child won't have a serious reaction to the vaccines some parents still refuse to vaccinate. One possible reason for this is that there is a common misconception that the MMR vaccine causes autism. Some parents will defend this by saying that autism diagnoses have gone way up in the past decade so there must be a connection. However, that assumption is not correct. Yes there are more and more children diagnosed with autism each year, but that isn't because of the MMRs vaccine. The reason there are more and more diagnoses is simply because scientist are learning more and more about the disease, and as they learn more about it "they become more effective at diagnosing it, and change in how the diagnosis is reported" (Green The Science of Anti-Vaccination). The unsettling truth about the matter is, we don't know what causes autism. Furthermore, one video explains you can detect the onset of autism in the following two ways: "Either parents notice a delay in language development, typically around the first birthday. Or they notice an apparently sudden loss of existing development, which might happen all the way up through the third birthday" (Green The Science of Anti-Vaccination). If a child were to experience a sudden loss of development one would wonder what could've caused the onset of autism. Well it just so happens that in the first three years of a child's life they are getting a lot of vaccinations, so if the child suddenly starts showing autistic symptoms it almost seems natural to blame vaccines for causing the disease. Now couple this with the fact that doctors don't know what causes autism and that if you conduct a quick google search of the issue you'll find a plethora of websites that claim there is a correlation between the two, and further claiming that government and big pharmaceutical companies are covering it up for one reason or another. Considering all of this it is not surprising that some parents will believe that there is a connection between the two.

What the parents don't usually see is that there haves not been any credible scientific studies to suggest there is a link between the autism and the MMRs vaccine. In an article by Aaron E. Carroll, a professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine, he explains this in his discussion of the latest study when he says, "More than 15 million children took part in this research. No one could find evidence that vaccines are associated with autism (NYTimes.com). In fact there has only been one study that has found any correlation between the two. This study was released in England in 1998, by Andrew Wakefield, suggesting that there was a connection between the MMRs Vaccine and Autism (Knopf 1). Following its release " ...  [The] study has been retracted. Wakefield lost his medical license" (Knopf 1). Furthermore, the countless studies after Wakefield's have all failed to find the connection between the two. In fact, the group Autism Speaks, a pretty popular and well respected autism advocacy group, urges vaccination. As a matter of fact in the article "MMR vs. Autism: A False Choice", Autism Speaks chief science officer Rob Ring states "'over the last two decades, extensive research has asked whether there is any link between childhood vaccinations and autism ...  The results of this research are clear: Vaccines do not cause autism. We urge that all children be fully vaccinated'" (Knopf 2). The fact that Autism Speaks, a non-government, non-big pharma, motivated source, has not found any data suggesting a link between vaccines and autism proves that there isn't a cover up, there isn't a connection; the two just simply have nothing to do with each other. So why needlessly put your child's health at risk over a retracted study that was released in 1998?

Despite this, parents may still refuse to vaccinate their children on the grounds that there are harmful and immoral materials in the actual vaccine. However this claim is only partly true. While it is true that some vaccines may contain ingredients such as thimerosal, formaldehyde, and aluminum, they are in such small concentrations that they won't have any effect on the health of your child (ProsCon.org). As a matter of fact, in an interview with a local news station in Pennsylvania, Dr. Craig Shrift, raises the point that " ...  I always get the question 'well I hear there's aluminum in there' well there is more aluminum in the dirt outside then there is in the vaccine. If you play outside for a day you'll get exposed to more aluminum then all of the vaccines you're going to get" (CBS 21 News YouTube). With this fact in mind "dangerous materials" isn't an acceptable excuse for choosing to not vaccinate. Along these same lines some catholic parents will refuse to vaccinate their children because the Catholic Church has been raising concerns about vaccines. They are specifically concerned about " ...  vaccines manufactured with human cell lines derived from voluntarily aborted fetuses" (Madden NCROnline.org). With this in mind, the Church allows the usage of these vaccines when there is an "absence of ethical alternatives" (Madden NCROnline.org). While the church would like for its followers to avoid the unethical vaccines in favor for others, they understand the need for vaccines. The church says that the "burden of this important battle" with the pharmaceutical companies shouldn't "fall on the innocent children" and "the health situation of the population" (Madden NCROnline.org). So basically the Church, unlike some people, understands the danger that diseases pose, and is willing to make some moral sacrifices in order to ensure the health of its followers and the rest of the population. 

Part of the Catholic Church's concern about the need for vaccinations is due to a concept called herd immunity. Herd immunity is "the tipping point at which vaccine coverage levels are too low and are thus ineffective in preventing disease spread" (Hendrix 274).  This is a major protecting feature of vaccines. For instance, let us say you have a child that attends a daycare. Your child is currently too young to have received the measles vaccine. Now if one of the older kids at the daycare never received his measles vaccination and comes down with it, he not only is putting himself at risk, he is putting his younger, unvaccinated daycare goers at risk as well. That's what herd immunity is; the concept of receiving a vaccine to not only protect yourself but the rest of the "herd", those who are too young for vaccination or are elderly with weak immune systems. The thing about herd immunity is that for it to be effective it needs a relatively high vaccination rate up to 95% for some diseases such as the measles (Kluger 41). The problem with this is that not all states meet this requirement. For example, in the article "Who's Afraid of A Little Vaccine" by Jeffrey Kluger, he lists out states that don't meet this requirement. One state he mentions is Colorado. He specifically says "Colorado rolls in last at a woeful 85.7% [measles, mumps and rubella vaccination rate] and 82.9% [diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccination rate]" (41). These low numbers not only put you and your child at risk but other people's children and everyone else around you at risk as well. This is why it is selfish to not vaccinate your children, because it not only puts them at risk, but everyone around you. 

In response parents would argue that vaccinating is an ineffective way to build the immune system and that other ways are more effective. They believe that through the "'preventive' eating habits", "Lifestyle", and avoiding "All kinds of things that do not overcharge the immune system" they will build a healthier immune system than through vaccination (Harmsen 7). Some parents will also argue that if the child catches one of the diseases and overcomes it, their immune systems will be even stronger than if they were vaccinated against the disease. While this is technically true, there are several flaws with this line of thinking.  The first and most obvious problem is that the child actually catches a disease that could be prevented by a vaccination. Usually these parents perceive the risks posed by vaccines as worse than the diseases they protect. This lack of disease perception is illustrated in a study conducted by Irene Harmsen. In this study she holds an online forum where she invites parents to express why they don't vaccinate their children. One of the man reasons was that "Most of them [the diseases] are not life threatening and, with support of the family pediatrician or homeopathic doctor, they are easy to treat" (7). This is a common perception that isn't true. The measles, for example, can be fatal to children. It can also lead to hearing loss and possibly brain damage. The second problem with this way of thinking is that treating the measles or any other vaccine preventable disease is expensive. You not only have to go the doctor to get diagnosed, but you must also buy prescriptions to treat the child's illness. The most expensive vaccine on the CDC's list of recommended vaccines is 141 dollars, but most of them fall around 30 dollars which isn't too bad.  For instance, the measles vaccine is 20 dollars. This is much cheaper than if you were to have to treat the illness. Not to mention that having a disease, such as the measles, is very stressful on a child. With these points in mind the build your own immune system strategy starts to look a lot less appealing than just getting the vaccine and preventing the pain and suffering. 

So in review let's look at the facts about vaccines. First and for most they are not dangerous. There is an extremely low chance of your child having a serious adverse reaction to a vaccine. Second, despite some people's insistence, the MMR's vaccine does not cause autism. There is not any credible scientific evidence that suggests there is a link between the two illnesses. Even organizations such as Autism speaks recognize this as fact. Third, while some of the ingredients in vaccines could potentially be harmful to kids, such as aluminum, the concentrations of them in the vaccines are so small that they do not pose a risk to health. Fourth, while the Catholic Church doesn't approve of some strings of vaccines, they still urge parents to vaccinate their children for the greater good of their health. Fifth, vaccines are one of the most selfless things to do. Not only do they protect your children, but they also create herd immunity, which protects those that have weak immune systems, such as the young and elderly. Sixth, vaccines are relatively cost efficient when you consider the amount it would cost if you had to treat the diseases. So when you take into consideration all of these factors, what possible reason could you give for not vaccinating your child? The shot could upset your child? In the end the slight discomfort of a shot will be worth it time and time again when your child returns home each day happy and healthy. Not only do vaccines give you peace of mind they also give it to your neighbors who know that their children will be safe from exposure to diseases as well.

