You're sitting at the dog park watching your new puppy chase the other bigger dogs around. You laugh and take videos of him because he is so much slower than the others. Then all of a sudden a huge dog with rabies comes out of the woods. The big dogs run away and leave your little puppy all alone. They don't try to protect him when he can't protect himself and there is nothing you can do, nothing your puppy could do, because after all, he is just a puppy. Your poor puppy gets bitten by the dog and now has rabies himself and dies. 

This type of thing, sadly, is happening with children as well. Children, who can't protect themselves, are being infected with diseases that are vaccine preventable. One case is a month old baby who had whooping cough, a disease thought of as extinct (Libster). This baby wasn't old enough to get the vaccination for the disease and those who she was exposed to didn't have a status of herd immunity to protect her. After being admitted to the hospital, three days later she passed away (Libster). This baby should not have died from whooping cough. To prevent more innocent deaths such as this one, those people who aren't being vaccinated, aren't having their children vaccinated, need to learn the importance of vaccinations. They need to know the true value of them so that those who are against vaccinations are swayed to the pro-vaccine side to protect those who can't protect themselves.

So what exactly are vaccines and vaccinations? Vaccines are the weakened or dead diseases which causes your body to become immune to it and a vaccination is the actual injection of the vaccine into your body. Before they were invented, there were many outbreaks of different diseases. Some of the main diseases that we know about are smallpox, measles, influenza, polio, whooping cough, rubella, and mumps. In the grand scheme of the population of the United States, most of these outbreaks don't seem that important because it is only a couple thousand people. For some of these outbreaks, it would be like all of the people in my hometown and part or all of the neighboring city all contracting the disease. It would be everyone I know being sick because there were no vaccinations or no one received their vaccination. So while most of these outbreaks may not be country wide, the people affected by the outbreak could be one person's whole world.

In 1916, there was a measles outbreak killing almost 12,000 people in which seventy-five percent of the cases were under five years of age (All Timelines Overview). That is 9,000 innocent children who were not able to protect themselves because they were too young and had weak immune systems. They didn't have the vaccination at the time, but if they had, they would have had to rely on herd immunity to protect them. Would they have been protected? In 1918, there was a flu epidemic named the "Spanish Flu" that killed fifty million people. More people were killed in this outbreak than during the Black Death Bubonic Plague that lasted for four years. In 1934, there were more than 260,000 cases of whooping cough. In 1952, there were 57,628 cases of polio and 21,000 of them caused the people to become paralyzed (All Timelines Overview). Polio is a disease of the nervous system and at the time they didn't even know it was contagious so they weren't careful about being around people with the disease. In 1964, there was a Rubella outbreak. Rubella can affect unborn babies severely if pregnant women get the disease which is exactly what happened with this outbreak. Almost fifty thousand pregnancies were infected with Rubella. This created thousands of miscarriages, eight thousand babies born deaf, 3,500 born deaf and blind, and twenty thousand cases of congenital Rubella syndrome (All Timelines Overview). These babies didn't even stand a chance. At the time it's not like it was the mom's fault for contracting the disease, there were no vaccinations, but if there were, would they have been protected?

There are vaccinations for not only all of these diseases that were causing horrible outbreaks and deaths, but also for many more diseases. The very first vaccination was introduced into the United States in 1802, the smallpox vaccination. Since then, smallpox has been eliminated because people saw the good in the vaccine and put it to great use. They learned how important and valuable the vaccines were. In 1855 Massachusetts was the first state to pass a law mandating that all children who are going to attend school had to be vaccinated. This would make it to where all children, whether they supported vaccines or not, were required to get vaccinated or they would not attend school. Massachusetts understood the importance of these vaccines. In 1946 the influenza vaccine was approved for the use on civilians. In 1963 the measles vaccine was licensed, 1969 the rubella vaccine was licensed and then 1971, the measles and rubella came together as one vaccination called the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) that all children were required to get. These vaccinations, for the most part, are all suggested to get as soon as you can so you can protect yourself against them. After all of these vaccinations were introduced to the population, the rate of outbreaks of these diseases decreased majorly. Vaccines have caused smallpox, whooping cough, measles, polio, yellow fever, rubella and many other diseases to either become extinct or nearly extinct. 

Vaccinations are beneficial to receive. When children receive vaccinations, they have 90-100 percentage rate of creating immunity to the disease (Vaccines are Effective). This is a high percentage that the vaccination will do what it is made for and protect your child. They are also beneficial because they not only protect yourself, but they also help protect those who are not able to get them. Receiving vaccinations can help yourself in one of two different ways. Vaccinations either cause your body to become immune to the disease so you won't get it if you come in contact with it or if you do get the disease, it will be a milder case instead of full blown. This is because the vaccination causes your body to quickly recognize the disease and your white blood cells already know how to defeat it sooner. Receiving vaccinations help others because of a concept called herd immunity. Herd immunity is when a community or group of people have enough people vaccinated that if one person does get the disease, an outbreak won't occur because most people are vaccinated (Salathe). 

There are people who rely on herd immunity to protect them so they don't get sick. Children who are too young to get vaccinated yet or people with compromised immune systems that don't allow them to receive any vaccinations. They need a high herd immunity status so that they will have a very slim chance of contracting the disease. Yet there are people who are against vaccinations. 

The outbreaks mentioned earlier killed lots of people and when the vaccines were introduced, the people received them to protect themselves. They didn't care what they were made of or the small side effects that came with the vaccine, they saw the bigger picture (lots of people dying), understood what the vaccines could do, and created herd immunity. Even though there is evidence that vaccinations have eliminated diseases, caused outbreaks to decrease and help tremendously, there are people who have religious beliefs or philosophical beliefs against vaccinations that cause them not to receive them. It's okay to have a couple people who have true religious or philosophical reasons not to get vaccinations because then we still have herd immunity with only a select few not being vaccinated. When the number of people with these beliefs stay low, it is not possible for outbreaks to occur. Lately though, there have been more and more parents and others coming up with more and more reasons not to be vaccinated just because they don't want to take the time to do it. (Ciolli). This is causing more outbreaks to occur because they are lowering herd immunity. When herd immunity is lowered, it means that less people are receiving their vaccinations. When people aren't receiving their vaccinations, they are more prone to contract the disease and cause an outbreak among the others not receiving the vaccine.

There are also people who believe misconceptions about vaccinations that cause them to be against them. A huge misconception, which is considered a philosophical reason, about vaccinations is that they cause autism. A woman named Cathy Jameson believes that her son received autism from a vaccination shot he had when he was younger (Jameson). She believes this to be true because the vaccination and the autism diagnosis were around the same time. The question here is really whether this link is true or does she want to be able to place the blame on someone or something for her son having autism and vaccinations got caught in the middle? In her article she says that enough people have suggested this link between vaccines and autism, but people have only tried to prove it. Never once in her article did she show any evidence of where this claim was proved. Her and other people believing this link to be true have made their opinions greatly known and have caused more people to become skeptical of vaccinations. 

This belief of some cases of autism being caused by vaccinations is due to a substance named thimerosal, which is a mercury found in vaccinations (Autism and Vaccines-Topic Overview). Various studies have been done on this claim and there has been no scientific evidence found that thimerosal causes autism (Salathe). It is true that in large amounts thimerosal can be harmful, but the vaccine companies have taken thimerosal out of vaccinations, leaving only trace amounts. Even though the thimerosal has been taken out, the amount of children being diagnosed with autism has still increased over the years and is continuing to grow (Gorski). Even though this claim has been disproven countless times, parents still have this fear about their children getting autism from a vaccine. The parents haven't been taught about the true side effects of vaccines, which they need to be.

Another big philosophical reason people are against vaccines in because they contain harmful ingredients such as aluminum, formaldehyde, and thimerosal (Should Any Vaccines Be Required for Children?). Which is true, vaccinations do contain these ingredients, but only in trace amounts. These substances are only harmful to the body when they are in large amounts, which means they are safe in vaccines and you have no need to worry. 

A third big philosophical reason against vaccines are that some of these diseases have disappeared and the ones that haven't, they aren't that hard to take care of. We can all agree that some of the diseases have disappeared, but they can just as easily come back. Whooping cough was thought to be eliminated, but we had an outbreak in 2014 of 34,971 cases being reported (Pertussis Outbreak Trends). People stopped getting vaccinated for it because it wasn't around anymore, but it came back. I too agree that some of these diseases are easy to take care of, but when we have outbreaks, parents have to take off of work losing fun vacation days and wages while also creating medical expenses. Plus, under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, there are many vaccines that are available without copay, saving money (Should Any Vaccines Be Required for Children?). Receiving a vaccination beforehand and preventing your child from getting sick is cheaper, money and time wise, then taking care of a sick child. Also, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) estimated that Children who were vaccinated between the years 1994-2014 have a net savings of about $1.38 trillion in "societal costs" (Should Any Vaccines Be Required for Children?). Just imagine our country going that more into debt and how much worse off we would be if we keep having more and more outbreaks.

There are religious beliefs and philosophical beliefs that can't be denied and are acceptable to not get vaccinations. Like said before, it's okay to have some exceptions because it still keeps herd immunity relatively high. Christian Scientists believe that the same God who cast out fear can also save you from these diseases and you don't need a vaccination. The Church of Illumination believes that vaccines are blood pollution and have negative effects of the regeneration of the soul. We can't deny what these people believe with their faith, even if we do not agree with it. I am a strong believer in Christ, but I don't see anything wrong with vaccinations. It's what I believe and you can't convince me otherwise. One philosophical belief that can't be denied is that of vegans. Vaccines have small amounts of some animal substances such as chicken egg protein in them. Their whole life involves not eating any animal product and that includes getting vaccines with animal substances in them. We can't deny them of that. 

Others say that if you don't want to have your kids vaccinated, then that is okay. They propose that signs should be posted at daycares, schools, towns, etc. (Makielski). Signs consisting of green, yellow, or red. Green represents that this area has high herd immunity, yellow represents herd immunity is okay, but be cautious, and red represents that if you can't receive vaccinations, do not come here (Makielski). This would leave it up to the parents and the older people who can't have the vaccinations to protect themselves by avoiding those areas. It would mean that people would have to share their personal medical records about their vaccination history so that these signs would be able to be posted. Theoretically, this sounds like a good idea and sounds like it would work. But one has to consider what if the person with the compromised immune system has to go to that specific hospital or that specific town because they have to vote for the election, etc. There is no way to absolutely avoid every low herd immunity area if you need to. Also, do you really want to have to share your medical records with strangers so they can have the signs posted?  

So the question is, whose responsibility is it to protect those who can't protect themselves? Is it the responsibility of the parents to make sure their kids are vaccinated to help herd immunity or to keep their kids away from areas of low herd immunity if they have a compromised immune system? Is it the responsibility of everyone else to protect those who can't get vaccinated? In reality, it's the responsibility of both the parents and everyone else. Parents need to make sure that if their kids can get vaccinated, that they do. Everyone else needs to be mindful and think about those who can't protect themselves and get themselves vaccinated as well. Parents and everyone else need to be taught and learn the true facts of vaccines so that they will get them and help save lives of innocent people. I can understand why they can be against vaccines, but the fact that one out of a million can have a life threatening allergic reaction beats the heck out of thousands of kids dying. If we stopped taking vaccines, your child has a more likely chance of getting the disease and dying rather than having a bad side effect from the vaccine itself.

The herd immunity status has been decreasing because of the parents and others who have been making theses philosophical beliefs against vaccinations without doing their research so they wouldn't have to vaccinate their children or themselves. If they did their research, maybe they would see that the "pros" of vaccines outweigh the "cons." This is causing diseases that were thought of to be extinct, to start coming back. History is beginning to repeat itself. 

There were three major outbreaks of diseases after their vaccinations were created just because the people didn't get their vaccinations. When the vaccines for these diseases came out, people got them because they had the deaths fresh in their mind from the previous outbreaks. Along the way, they began to forget about the outbreaks or were not even have taught about them in the first place. This caused people to forget the importance of vaccines and people weren't receiving them as much. In 1925, there was an outbreak of smallpox in Milwaukee. Out of the 386 cases, 87 people died, and 327 people had never been vaccinated (All Timelines Overview). 87 people may not be much, but they could have protected themselves against the disease. In 1989 there was an outbreak of measles killing 123 people (All Timelines Overview). My older sister was born in 1989. Thankfully my mom had her vaccinated so that she wouldn't contract the disease and possibly die. And in 2008, there was yet another measles outbreak because in more than 90% of the cases, the people hadn't been vaccinated (All Timelines Overview). If people would have gotten their children vaccinated, these outbreaks could have been stopped, prevented and saved the lives of innocent children. I can't stress it enough.

Yet still, there have been multiple outbreaks over the past few years because we have lost the importance of vaccines. One big outbreak occurred in Disneyland of the measles. A survey was done on parents not too long before the outbreak occurred on whether they supported vaccinations or not. The survey showed that a lot of the parents said they did support them, but a lot also said they didn't (Norton). At first the survey sounds like it had positive results, people supporting vaccinations, but almost just as many parents didn't support vaccinations as those that did. Then the outbreak occurred. When parents were finding out about it or had their children affected by it, the survey was done again on the same parents. Almost all of those parents who didn't support vaccinations said that they now did (Norton). This survey had much more positive results because there weren't nearly as many people against vaccinations anymore. It took having to see the effects of an outbreak to sway these parents into supporting vaccinations. It should never have to go that far, where it takes thousands of kids getting sick or dying to get support for vaccinations. 

Parents shouldn't have to see these effects first hand to support vaccinations. They should be taught about what vaccinations are, about their safety, how they are tested and shown evidence of these past outbreaks so that it doesn't have to take a new outbreak to have their children vaccinated. They need to be reminded by classes of these outbreaks so that they remember the value of vaccines. Some type of classes should be implemented for pregnant women to learn about the misconceptions so that they don't have fears of vaccinations. When they go to a doctor's appointment have a certain amount of time to discuss vaccinations. To be honest, we could start learning about vaccines and past outbreaks in our schools in health class. We don't learn about the outbreaks and the side effects of vaccines. In my health class we only learned about sex related diseases and things like that, not the ones that aren't caught by choice (in most cases). People need to know the truth, that vaccinations do more good than harm. 

It would also be smart to learn about vaccines and outbreaks so that you will know who to vote for in the presidential election. You don't want to vote for someone who doesn't support vaccinations and will cause outbreaks to occur. When an outbreak occurs, the government has to pay for it. You don't want to vote someone into office who will cause the debt of our country to increase even more. One thing both sides can definitely agree on is the fact that we want to keep our children safe. The best way for that is through vaccinations. If those who are against vaccines can't be persuaded to the side for vaccines, then everyone who is for them needs to get vaccinated so that we can keep herd immunity as high as possible. Children and adults need to be vaccinated to protect not only themselves, but to protect those who aren't able to.

