
 Today, there are numerous vaccines that are available at any physician’s office, work, or local pharmacy. A vaccine is a product that produces an immunity to a certain disease such as MMR (measles, mumps, rubella), hepatitis, or the flu. Everyone who is physically capable needs to be vaccinated because vaccinations are used to protect against many diseases that used to be common. However, there are people who disagree with getting vaccinations. These topics and questions are interesting because they can be exceptionally opinionated because essentially, vaccination is regarding one’s body. It is an opinion of one’s body and the human rights of the individual. A big question comes up with how people were raised and if their family gets vaccinated. Then the realization that people have the choice to be vaccinated or not is baffling. But, everyone who can be vaccinated should be vaccinated so more lives can be saved through the prevention of disease. And not only will they be saving their own lives but also the lives of their families, friends, and the rest of their communities. 

Vaccines are widely known to help prevent disease but there are also people who fear them for other reasons. One of the largest fears of vaccines is the relation between the MMR vaccine and the likelihood of autism. In 1998, Dr. Andrew Wakefield published a case series suggesting that the MMR vaccine may predispose children to autism. The case series was published in the Lancet which is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal. It is one of the world's oldest and best known general medical journals. The case series received much more publicity than imagined so more research later began to confirm Dr. Wakefield’s findings. In 2010, the study was found faulty, therefore was retracted from the Lancet. According to the retraction, no causal link between the MMR vaccine and autism was ever established. Since the publishing of the case series, many people have chosen not to vaccinate their children because of the fear of their children contracting autism. But, that study was found not to be true, therefore people need to vaccinate their children. The above information comes from the US National Library of Medicine which is not biased because of the corrections made in the database. The goal of the retraction was to get the proper information out to the public.   

It is not mandatory for people in the United States to be vaccinated which seems irresponsible. Every parent who cares about the wellbeing of their children, themselves, and their family should get their children vaccinated when recommended. According to vaccines.gov, there are five major reasons why vaccinations are crucial to the overall health of the country. They claim that immunizations can save many children’s lives. In the past century, medical science has evolved dramatically especially with the advances in vaccinations. Some diseases that in the past injured or killed thousands of children have now been completely eradicated from existence, such as smallpox. Vaccinations are safe and effective to use on children after careful and intensive research. They only cause discomfort, tenderness, and redness at the injection site and are far less detrimental than the pain that can be experienced from not receiving a vaccine and contracting a preventable disease. Immunizations protect those you care about because receiving a vaccination at an early age can not only protect your child’s life but all the other children surrounding them in public areas. Immunizations can save time and money because of the potential risks involved with paying for the medical assistance. Obtaining immunizations can also be covered by insurance, and in low income homes can come free of charge. Immunizations protect not only people and their children now but can protect further generations as well. Immunizations protect further generations by decreasing the likelihood and eventually eradicating a particular disease from existing just like smallpox. The only people who would disagree with this are those who by their faith disagree with vaccinations or those whose children have fallen victim to adverse effects. A small percentage of children in the United States experience adverse effects after receiving the vaccination. A large portion of people in the United States would agree with vaccinating their children because their health is one of the most important concerns of them. However, the end goal is for an overwhelming majority of the US population to be vaccinated. The above information comes from vaccines.gov which is a reliable source because vaccines.gov is a federally approved and regulated website managed by the United States Department of Human Health Services. The article is biased towards everyone getting immunizations because the whole purpose is to prevent disease. The belief system behind being healthy for vaccines.gov involves the use of vaccines.

On immunizeforgood.com, they claim that vaccinations are healthy for people because vaccinations prevent disease. The benefits of receiving a vaccine versus not receiving one is unknown because if the vaccine works, you will never know the difference. What makes people not want vaccinations is when they see the bad versus the invisible good. For example, since the vaccines for smallpox and polio were introduced and began to be distributed, in 2006 there has been zero cases of either disease, which is down 100% from the early twentieth century. Vaccines for polio continue because the disease still exists in the world, therefore, there must still be vaccination programs to keep everyone is the United States polio free as many visitors from other countries can bring in other diseases. Some people who may disagree with these statements may be from other countries and are not used to the way Americans go about their health system. It is easy to agree with these statements because of how factual they are. Eradicating smallpox due to vaccines and coming nearly close with polio is not much to argue with. The only opposition comes when someone becomes infected with a disease after vaccination then they see negatives rather than the invisible positive of living a healthy life. Even though there are some possible negatives to vaccination such as the risk of autism, anaphylaxis, hospitalization, or disability. According to focusforhealth.org, only one in forty five children are diagnosed with autism due to vaccines. Although parents don’t want their children to suffer with autism, the likelihood of autism is still lower than the likelihood of another disease. Focusforhealth.org is slightly biased towards vaccination because the website has numerous stands supporting vaccination and informing parents on possible risks. Immunizeforgood.com is biased towards receiving vaccines because it issues facts that support a claim and this website is reliable because after researching, it contains numerous articles about the overall health of people and not just children. This website stems from the Colorado Department of Health and Environment which works closely with the Center for Disease Control to ensure the health of Colorado public schools. The government wants to protect against disease because the population is more effective when most if not all people are healthy.

There is another important breakthrough thanks to the introduction of the HPV vaccine. Currently in the United States, around four thousand women die each year to cervical cancer. Unlike breast cancer which has significantly more detrimental, the etiology of cervical cancer is viral, meaning that the development of cervical cancer stems from the Human Papillomavirus infection. According to focusforhealth.org, the presence of HPV usually does not develop into cancer, however, the prevalence of HPV infection in the U.S. is twenty seven percent. Although the outcome from HPV infection to cervical cancer is traditionally low, the opportunity to kill HPV then leads to the eradication of cervical cancer in the United States. Shalanda Byum in 2009 wrote her dissertation on HPV from the University of South Carolina called “HPV Vaccine Acceptance among Southern Black College Students: The Influence of Culture, History, and Health Beliefs”. Byum discusses why so many black women choose not to receive the HPV vaccine, let alone all others. Black women are also the most susceptible to get HPV thus leading to cervical cancer. She then proceeded to interview people on their thoughts of vaccines. A few reasons why they were not for receiving the vaccine are due to them being skeptic of the vaccine not working. Some of the interviewed people expressed their beliefs that getting vaccinated would lead to adverse effects such as autism, death, or infertility. Shalanda’s goal is to state that the HPV virus (Human papillomavirus) can be harmful without the use of a vaccination to prevent you from being infected. She then goes on to explore cultural influences and health beliefs on HPV vaccine acceptance among black college students. She also considers how not getting the vaccine can possibly lead to other cancers as well. “Hence, cervical cancer can be prevented through avoidance of genital HPV infection, routine cervical cancer screening, follow-up of abnormal results, and HPV vaccination” (Bynum 1). She goes on to make claims such as “HPV vaccination and other preventive measures (e.g., continued cervical cancer screening as recommended) have the potential to change health disparities downstream not only for Black women, but for other groups of women disproportionately affected by the disease” (Bynum 2). Her end goal is to find out why some African American people choose not be vaccinated and find out why others don’t know about it then educate them. As she came to find out more about the underlying reasons African American students choose not to be vaccinated, the main cause stems from their parents and the fact that they never pushed for vaccination (Byum). The point is to push the education of HPV and the possibility of cervical cancer to young African American students and families. Bynum has a Bachelor and Master of Science from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University and a Master of Public Health from  the University of South Carolina. Now she is the scientific review officer of the National Institutes of Health in Washington D.C. She is biased towards understanding more of the African American culture because she herself is African American and would have a greater impact on the community. It is crucial that African American adolescents and families look into her research because being educated on this certain vaccine can lead to saving thousands of lives over generations and eventually eradicating the HPV infection. 

The greatest effect of vaccination within the population is the trickledown effect it has on the rest of the community. There is a huge effect vaccines can have not just on the one who received it but also the surrounding people in a family or community of one who has been vaccinated. Romina Libster, a renowned scientist from Argentina enlightens the Ted Talk crowd on the power of herd immunity. She mentions how in 1918, the flu came in and wiped out nearly fifty million people in Argentina, which is greater than their current population. There was no vaccine to prevent the spread, and at the period of time not being advanced in healthcare, they suffered detrimental loss. She then goes on to explain the polio outbreak in 1956 before there was a vaccine to prevent the spread of disease. She said, “People were going crazy doing abnormal things because they were afraid to get polio and many more suffered from neurological damage” (Libser). She goes on to explain how lucky this generation is to have not had an epidemic like the ones in the 20th century. The reason there has not been a significant outbreak in the 21st century like the ones earlier is due to a majority of the population being vaccinated. Imagine a large community where no one is sick with measles. No one has ever been introduced to that disease therefore, no one will ever be sick. But one day someone sick does come into the community and because no one has ever received a vaccine or avenue of protection, measles will spread easily with no resistance. Imagine the exact opposite where over ninety percent of the population has received the vaccine for measles and someone infected with measles comes in the population. Measles will have a more difficult time spreading because of the higher resistance in the population. What about the other percentage of people who have not been vaccinated? This group of people are the ones who are not allowed to be vaccinated because they either too young, pregnant, or have other health complications. The whole goal of vaccination is not only to protect the ones vaccinated but also to protect everyone else in the population. In a home of two parents and two children where one of the children is an infant that cannot be vaccinated and the others in the family have not been vaccinated. When measles is introduced to this family and the parents and child become sick, the infant will also become sick because he never had the opportunity to resist the disease because his surroundings did not try to prevent it. 

In the same Ted Talk, Libster addresses the issues that happened with the H1N1 virus, more commonly known as swine flu. When the outbreak hit the world, it hit hard in parts of the world where no vaccine was present such as Africa, Asia, and some parts of South America. The outbreak was becoming an epidemic when in Argentina they pushed for rapid research and a new formula for the H1N1 vaccine to be produced. Two hundred fifty-one people were hospitalized in Argentina in 2009 from that virus. When the rapid push for vaccines was released and nearly everyone had been vaccinated, in 2010, zero people were hospitalized. This shows exactly how much the right vaccine can make a difference in a community. Once this knowledge was spread throughout the world, more countries such as the United States began pushing the H1N1 vaccine in schools and less people became sick, ultimately saving lives. This is the point of herd immunity, to build as much resistance as possible against diseases so that less and less people will be infected. 

Although there are many reasons why vaccinations are great and why many people should be vaccinated, there are still others who disagree. There are people who believe that vaccinations can lead to adverse effects such as death, infertility, and even autism. In an article by Barbara Loe Fisher, who disagrees with vaccinations, she claims that there was a lack of knowledge in 1982 from when her son suffered from meningitis shortly after receiving a fourth DPT shot. Her goal from there on out was to join with other parents who had children injured from a vaccine, and now her mission is to educate parents about the possible risk factors of vaccines. Some risk factors of vaccines include the side effects of injecting preservatives such as thimerosal, adjuvants such as aluminum salts, and stabilizers such as sugars and gelatin. Many, if not all, parents who have suffered from having a child with a disease caused by an early life vaccine will be on her side. While many Americans will strongly disagree, and point out all their faults and wrongs for not immunizing their children, her goal is not to say cancel all vaccinations but instead, to educate the people to form their own opinions. Barbara Loe Fisher is the Co-Founder and President of the National Vaccine Information Center and she wrote her personal experience on her case with her son. She is a reliable source when you consider her qualifications, but she is obviously biased towards the situation because of her telling her own experience. 

As seen in the above information regarding whether to be vaccinated, it is crucially important that everyone receive the recommended vaccines as they grow up through childhood into adolescents and so on. The argument on whether to get vaccinated is controversial because there are so many people who disagree with getting vaccinated or even getting their children vaccinated. But, when considering the possibilities of preventing a life-threatening disease versus the slim possibility of contracting autism, it is obvious that more people should be vaccinating their children. While those who agree to get vaccinated think those who disagree are wrong and reasons why children are showing signs of resurging diseases such as measles, mumps, rubella, and whooping cough. There are few agreements between both sides that have been found, but they disagree morally whether to get vaccinated because one argument says the risks of autism is too great versus the risk of contracting a terminal disease, and the pro-vaccine side believes the opposite. These sides on immunizations are not changing my perspective of what I believe myself. Rather, I am learning many people’s perspective to know how to treat them one day when I am in the medical field. Overall, the benefits of vaccination are much greater than the adverse effects. As healthcare evolves, there needs to be common ground made between both sides as well. Currently in the United States only seventy-one percent of the population is up to date on the combined seven vaccine series which include diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (DTP), Polio, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Haemophilus influenzae type b, Hepatitis B, Chickenpox (Varicella), and Pneumococcal conjugate. If this does not improve, then the positive effects of herd immunity may never be seen. If herd immunity from all these diseases is to be reached, then everyone who is able needs to be vaccinated. 
