
In 2015, there was a measles outbreak that originated at Disneyland in California. Since the beginning of 2015 there were one hundred and twenty-one cases of measles that could be traced back to the Disneyland Outbreak. Scientists and researchers could connect the outbreak with the low vaccination rates, which is also due to the increased number of parents who are choosing not to vaccinate their children due to the anti-vaccination movement (Nierenberg). This movement is due to many parents believing that the negative effects of vaccination outweigh the positive effects that they can give. The anti-vaccination movement is the main reason that parents have chosen to not vaccinate their children. This has negative effects shown by multiple outbreaks and higher rates of vaccine-preventable diseases. The main reason that parents are confused about vaccinations is because of false accusations that are spread around the internet. Another reason that parents have less confidence in vaccinations are due to vaccination scares as well as the lack of information that parents can receive. The benefits of vaccinations greatly outweigh the negative effects that can occur. The main benefits of vaccinations are that vaccines save children’s lives, vaccines protect future generations, and have greatly reduced the spreading of disease. These reasons are why we should regulate the vaccines that children should have before they can enter school. Vaccines are an important medical breakthrough that should be exploited to further the growth of society. 

One reason that parents choose to not vaccinate their children is due to false information that they receive from the internet or from other parents. The main reason that this is involved with the decision of vaccinations is because unreliable and unstudied information can be added anywhere and is spread very fast. Bad news travels faster than good news and this is shown in the way people discuss vaccinations. The news only covers the one percent of negative vaccines and not the millions of other cases that have positive effects because the positive effects do not create a story. Due to the information being spread, it causes a panic in parents and this in turn lowers vaccination rates. Some examples of false information are shown in an article written by Anju Abraham. He states that false information causes a major distrust in vaccinations and this causes parents to become less likely to vaccinate their children. The author also states that researchers link the decrease in vaccinations to outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. Researchers have also found that much of the distrust have come from fears that cannot be proven in a study. These include autism, that natural immunity is better than acquired, and that there is no need to vaccinate due to the low rates of the disease. 

The accusation that vaccines cause autism started with a study that was published by Andrew Wakefield in 1901. This study suggested that the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine was increasing autism in British children. The paper that he published was discredited due to procedural errors, and causing Wakefield to lose his medical license. The paper was also taken out of the medical journal that it was published in. After this was published, many studies were conducted and none of those studies found a link between vaccinations and autism. Another false accusation is that natural immunity is better than acquired immunity. Natural immunity is immunity that is present without vaccination and immunity that comes from contacting the disease and healing from it. Acquired immunity is immunity that comes from vaccinations. Acquired immunity is usually stronger and natural immunity is more dangerous because the child must fight off the disease and heal from it to get the immunity. One example is the measles. If a person gets infected with the measles, then they are immune from the measles but there are one in five hundred chance of death from the measles. There is a one in one million chance of a severe allergic reaction from a vaccine. These statistics show that there is a higher chance of death from the disease than there is of the disease. The next false accusation is that due to the low rates of the disease there is no need to vaccinate. Studies show that even if a disease is not common in a developed country it can be very common in a less developed country, when people who are not vaccinate travel to these countries, they bring the disease back with them. This is how outbreaks get started in the United States. The CDC (Center for Disease Control) states that unvaccinated individuals create a greater risk to society because it causes diseases to spread easier. Another reason that this accusation is false is because if too many people do not vaccinate, it becomes a greater danger because it causes more viruses and bacteria to spread. These false accusations create a larger uncertainty in vaccines due to the false information spreading across concerned parents who only want the best for their children. False accusations are a reason why parents believe that vaccinations have very negative effects and are not needed. 

One example of why parents should choose to vaccinate their children is due to herd immunity. Herd immunity is an important aspect of vaccinations that help prevent the spreading of diseases. Herd immunity protects a whole community from disease by immunization of most people. The more people that are vaccinated then the more people that are protected. Vaccines cause immunity without causing the illness. Herd immunity shows that vaccines protect two groups of people; the people that are protected from the disease due to their vaccination and the unvaccinated whom are protected by the vaccinated group. The importance of this is shown because of the people who are not able to receive the vaccines due to another disease or a health risk are able to be protected because of the people that are vaccinated help prevent the spreading of diseases to these people. One example that was shown in a PBS article of this was that the chicken pox vaccination in 1995 greatly lowered death rates in the United States. Studies shows that even though it is not administered to infants, no infants died from chicken pox from 2004-2007. This is because the risk of chicken pox was very low in this time period due to everyone having been vaccinated which helped prevent the disease from spreading to the infants (Willingham). In a Ted Talk, the speaker, Romina Libster argues that if more people would vaccinate, less outbreaks will occur.  She supports this claim by saying that the people around a person that is infected with a disease are vaccinated from that disease then that is as far as that disease can spread. Libster also supports her thesis by stating that the only way this will work is of most the population is vaccinated from the disease. Herd immunity is one example of why parents should vaccinate their children. It shows that not only does the vaccination protect the child from dying or becoming ill from a vaccine-preventable disease, but it also would help prevent outbreaks and protect the people around them in the community that are not able to receive vaccinations as well. 

Vaccinations have made a big impact in child mortality rates. An article by Alice Park, published in Time Magazine showed that the HPV vaccine has lowered infection rates of HPV. The United States began recommending this vaccination to protect against HPV and then eventually fight or prevent cancer. Due to HPV being spread through intercourse, vaccination of young adults before they become sexually active lowered their risk of developing cancer or spreading the disease. Since it was recommended, the rates of HPV dropped by sixty-four percent in teens. The rate of vaccination is less than the protection rate which also proves that herd immunity works with this disease. The Cleveland Clinic statistics show that many major vaccination rates have lowered infection rates by a very large amount. Some examples are that smallpox, diphtheria, and polio has been lowered by one hundred percent and many of the others are lowered by above eighty percent as well. This data shows that many of the diseases that now have a vaccination and how these diseases have been greatly decreased in the United States. 

A way that the government can try to regulate vaccinations is that many vaccinations are required for a child to enter school. These are not only for the protection of the child but also for the protection of other children around them. The less people that are vaccinated, the more the virus and disease spreads. In a PKIDs article, the author describes that Dr. Samuel Katz explained to congress that the level of protection from vaccinations was very fragile because it depends on herd immunity that requires that most people be vaccinated to be the most effective. He also states that this is important because it helps protect the people whose immune systems are weak due to illness or old age. Dr. Katz said that a very effective measles vaccine was in place during the 1969s and ‘70s but there were still regular outbreaks that occurred. The cause of this was because only around seventy percent of children were vaccinated so the disease spread more easily. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, states without vaccine requirements had higher rates of measles compared to states with requirements. Dr. Katz also showed congress statistics that the rates of measles have decrease due to the vaccine being created. According to the court case Jacobson v. Massachusetts, it is within the government’s rights to mandate vaccinations for the wellbeing of the community and the safety of the people. This shows that it is within the rights of the government given by the constitution to make vaccinations a requirement before a child can enter school. This is important because many people believe that the government should not be able to mandate this. 

One benefit for regulating vaccinations for schools is that vaccinations save children’s lives. The American Academy of Pediatrics states that “Most childhood vaccinations are ninety to ninety-nine percent effective in preventing diseases (Vaccinations Required for Public School Kindergarten). The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that three hundred twenty-two million cases of childhood diseases were prevented between nineteen ninety-four and two thousand fourteen due to vaccinations. Another benefit is that ingredients in vaccines are safe due to not using large doses of these harmful ingredients. Children are exposed to more aluminum in breast milk and formula than they are exposed to in vaccinations. The FDA also requires that vaccines be tested up to ten years of testing before they are licensed. This is to make sure that the vaccines are safe. Many major-medical organizations state that vaccines are safe. These organizations include the CDC, FDA, and the US Department of Health (Vaccinations Required for Public School Kindergarten). 

The next benefit of vaccinations is that they protect future generations. Vaccinated mothers protect their unborn children from viruses that could cause birth defects and vaccinated communities can help eradicate diseases for future generations. Women who were vaccinated against rubella have a greatly decrease the chance of passing the disease, which can help eliminate risks from the diseases. Another important aspect is that vaccine-preventable diseases have not disappeared so vaccinations are still necessary. Many of these diseases have become very rare in the United States are still common in many other less developed countries and if an unvaccinated person travels and gets infected it brings the disease back and that is how outbreaks in the United States usually occurs. The benefits for vaccinations show why parents should choose to vaccinate their children. Many of the arguments against vaccinations have a counter argument and studies that back up the argument that vaccinations are safe and an effective way to protect children from disease that can be prevented from these diseases. 

Vaccine confidence is a major factor in vaccination rates. If more parents are skeptical of vaccinations, the less children will be getting to be vaccinated. In an article from Plos one, a study was done regarding parental hesitancy of child vaccinations and why this occurred. The reason this research was done was due to the amount of cases of the measles, eight hundred in the United States, between January 2014 and June 2015. The authors conducted a study based on a vaccination confidence scale. The data of the study was collected from the two thousand eleven National Immunization Survey. This is a population based survey that was conducted annually with a goal of assessing child vaccination status. The survey also included questions regarding parents’ beliefs regarding vaccinations. The final sample consisted of nine thousand, three hundred and fifty-four parents. The results of this study were that fifteen percent of parents refused any vaccination for their children and twenty-seven percent stated a delay of vaccination and showed that vaccine confidence was inversely related to the delay of vaccinations. The harmful factor was positively associated with delay. The data found that vaccination confidence was consistently associated with early childhood vaccinations (Gilkey, Melissa and Colleagues).

In June 2010, the seasonal flu vaccine in Australia was suspended for children under the age of 5. An investigation was conducted by the TGA (Therapeutic Goods Administration) and the Technical Advisory Group on Immunization found “no clinical, biological, or epidemiological factors that could explain the higher than expected observed rates of fever with convulsions (Bishop). Catherine King and Julie Leask published a study in BMC Public Health regarding parent confidence of vaccinations in Australia. The authors of this source states that there should be more information given to parents regarding vaccinations. The source also states that safety scares can affect public confidence in vaccination and this can decrease immunization rates and addressing the concerns of parents can help contain the impact of the scares. The authors conducted semi-structured interviews of twenty-five parents of children attending childcare between June 2010 and May 2011. The results showed that for the parents that remembered the vaccine suspension, there was a lasting sense of uncertainty, confusion, and lack of information. This study showed that vaccine confidence needs to be addressed because it is an important aspect on whether a child get vaccinated. Vaccine confidence is an important aspect of vaccinations because it allows for more vaccinations to occur because more parents understand the benefits of vaccinations and how those benefits out way the very small and rare negative effects of the vaccinations. 

The increasing infection rates of vaccine-preventable diseases have been shown to be inversely related to the lowering of vaccination rates in children. Parents should choose to vaccinate their children because they save children’s lives, protect future generations, and reduce the spread of diseases. Vaccines save children’s lives because their immune system is not strong enough to fight out potentially fatal diseases. Vaccinations also protect future generations by not allowing the mother to pass on a disease to the fetus. They also reduce the spread of diseases through herd immunity as well as acquired immunity. Parents have been inclined to not vaccinate their children due to false accusation and a lack of confidence in vaccines. This problem can be fixed by allowing more information to become known regarding vaccinations and requiring vaccination to enter the public-school system. 

By requiring vaccinations in public schools, it would mandate that a majority of society be vaccinated. This would be a positive because it would help eliminate the passing of diseases in the school system and would help protect the children who are not able to be vaccinated. Another way that we can fix the problem of children not being vaccinated is by educating more people about the positive effects of vaccinations and by doing more research about vaccinations to find out how we can make vaccinations more effective. 
