To truly understand the importance of vaccination the beginning is a good starting point. Before the creation of vaccination people died from infectious diseases.  The word vaccine was coined by a doctor Edward Jenner from England. Jenner is famous for his experiment on cowpox in 1796 on an eight-year-old boy named James Phipps. Jenner’s theory was that if he injected Phipps with pus from a cowpox blister, the child would become immune to the smallpox disease. His theory was proven to be correct when after doing so James Phipps become immune to smallpox. Vaccine comes from the word vacca-, which in Latin means cow, and the word was coined by Jenner. (Offit, Paul). Jenner was the pioneer for vaccinations which led to the global eradication of smallpox hundreds of years after his initial experiment. Smallpox is the only vaccine that is no longer frequently given because the disease is no longer a threat (Offit, Paul). Vaccinations are an important part of society to thrive, but there has been a decrease of children being vaccinated due to false information and personal belief. To combat this, vaccinations should be mandatory to protect society.

Vaccines work because they contain the antigen of a disease. The antigen is the weakened disease which is located inside the vaccine. It is weakened enough so that an individual cannot contract the disease, but so that your immune system creates antibodies which in turn lead to an immunity against that disease. Vaccinations expose children to the disease without exposing the symptoms and the risk of death. Public health experts consider vaccinations to be the number one achievement of the 20th century (CDC). 

Vaccinations are not only beneficial to the individual receiving it, but to the population as a whole. Each vaccine that has been created has saved countless lives and allows people to avoid the suffering that a disease can bring. For example, in 1995 the chicken pox vaccination was created. The number of causes per year since 1995 has declined drastically from four million a year, to 400,000 cases a few years after being introduced. Even though the chicken pox vaccine has done wonders to help decrease the number of cases per year, chicken pox is still far from being eliminated (Offit, Paul).   A writer for New York times talks about her first-hand experience with chicken pox when she was younger. She describes chicken pox as “robb[ing] children like me of many weeks of school, left long lasting physical and emotion scars”, and……(Jane E. Brody). Since the creation of the measles vaccination in 1963, it has nearly eliminated the disease in the United States. Before the vaccination, measles caused birth defects like blindness, deafness and even cognitive problems. Because of the vaccination, this disease can be prevented and is able to help prevent birth defects if pregnant individuals encounter someone with measles. 

Some individuals have decided to opt out of vaccination on the belief that herd immunity will prevent their children from contracting a disease. Herd immunity is known as the concept of protecting a community against certain diseases by having a high number of individuals in the community be immunized (Lecture notes). However, the theory of herd immunity has its problems because for herd immunity to completely be effective, 80 percent of the population needs be immunized. This means that if the number of individuals that are vaccinated drops below 80 percent, there is a high chance of disease spreading and the non-immunized children being left unprotected because he or she is not vaccinated against the disease. Herd immunity is helpful for individuals who medically cannot get vaccinated because of an autoimmune disease or even being allergic to the ingredients inside the vaccine. It is also helpful for pregnant women who cannot get vaccinations during their pregnancy. For these individuals, they have no choice but to opt out of vaccination and are relying on others to protect them diseases (Lecture). 

One of the biggest reason of why people are choosing to opt out of vaccination is a false medical report releases in 1997 by Dr. Andrew Wakefield that suggest that the MMR vaccine could increase autism in children. The report was proved to be false and since has been discredited but some people still believe that vaccines cause autism (Offit, Paul). There have been dozens of studies done to discredit Dr. Wakefield but some individual stills believe that the MMR vaccine cause autism. This still one of the main reason why parents decide not to vaccinate their children, which is hard to believe considering that it has been disproven. Other reason for the decrease of vaccines deals with a theory by Robert Putnam stating that American are becoming more distant from one and another which is leading to less social trust. American have become solitary since the 1950’s. Putnam’s blames in the increase of entertainment technologies like TV to Americans become more solitary, are engaging less with others and this is causing us to lose trust in each other’s. Also, people have lost their trust in social institutions like the government, medical professions and the US health care systems. Without trust then individual will not think of others which is needed for herd immunity. (McCoy, Charles). 

Individual who oppose vaccinations are known as anti-vaxxers in the health care world and have different reason why they have chosen to opt out vaccination for their children. One argument that anti-vaxxers have is that vaccination cause autism but recently the American Academy of Pediatrics released about 40 different studies showing no link between vaccination and autism. A scientist said, “correlation simply does not imply causation” for exampling autism. Another argument that anti-vaxxers have against vaccination is that it’s no one’s business whether my child get vaccines, but this argument can easily shut down. When someone decides not to vaccinate their children it could endangered the health of other children. This goes along with herd immunity and how choosing to opt out compromises herd immunity which could cause a disease to spread. Anti-vaxxer also argue that vaccines can overload a child’s immune system but this argument can also be disproven. The CDC and most doctors concur that a child’s immune system can support the immune-stimulating antigens that can be found many of the recommended vaccines for infants. Dr. Laurel Schultz who is a doctor in San Francisco just wrote an article explaining that “children are more exposed to more antigens in the environments everyday” then all the antigens found in vaccinations combined during childhood (Jacqueline Howard).  The last argument that anti-vaxxers have is the concept of natural immunity meaning that your body contract a disease and is able to effectively fight off the disease by its self. This concept can put a child at risk because if the kid is unable to fight off the infection or disease then they could have future complication or even die trying to fight off the infection. By vaccinating children then the risk of contracting a dangerous infection is cut out (Jacqueline Howard). 

The story of a Kristen O’Meara is real life example of the deadly effects opting out of vaccination can have on children. The mother of three decide to skip vaccination after her first-born child after reading sources that confirmed her belief that vaccination could be linked to autism and even ADHD.  Her decision would have horrible effects on her their children after they contracted Rotavirus but also her and husband fell ill. Once O’Meara realized that the pain the family endured could be prevent by a vaccine she become wary about her decision to not vaccinate her children. O’Meara decide to do more research on the benefit of vaccinating and concluded that vaccinating her children was the safest thing to do (Landess Kearns). O’Meara stance on anti-vax quickly changed ones she realized the risk she was putting her children in but also the people around her which is why vaccinating children is so important. 

Not only are vaccination important for Public Health but they also save an individual money on health care. The CDC researchers weight out the benefits of vaccination like the savings on hospitalizations and deaths verse the cost of administration, program cost including the vaccine, work time lost. The researched conclude that for every dollar spent on vaccines then society benefits a total of ten dollars. From 1994 to 2013 CDC researchers established that vaccinations alone saved society a net total of $1.38 trillions and this number was decided by the reducing of health care expenses and the saving from avoiding illnesses. To put this number in perspective based on the United States economy that is about ten percent of the economy GDP (Puneet Kollipara).  Another example of how vaccination save money is with the Hib infection, because the Hib vaccination will prevent a total of 19,000 cases which turns out to be about 1.8 billion dollars in treatment cost (Amanda Z. Naprawa). Vaccination will continue to save money but only if individual choose to vaccinate their children and save families from spending money on hospitalizations. 

Anti-vaxxer are also causing conflict in the public-school system since in some school system you can opt out for personal or religious beliefs which is consider has a nonmedical exemption for immunization that are required to in role in school. School systems are being recommended to eliminated nonmedical exemption when enrolling in school and only accepting medical exemption related to immunization. Schools relay heavily on the concept of herd immunity to help protect those children whose immune system are compromised and cannot get vaccinated.  Once again herd immunity plays a role in society but to be effect then at least 80 percent of the populations need to be vaccinated again the disease. Which personal and religious exemption school risk having less than 80 percent of its students being vaccinated and being a risk of a disease spreading in the school. Currently some states are pushing for laws that would only accept medical exemption for a reason why the child is not vaccinated when enrolling in school to protect other children. On the other hand states who have looser policy on immunization for school experience greater rates of vaccine-preventable disease and illness outbreak in schools (Alyson Sulaski Wyckoff) 

Educating the public about the important of vaccination not only prompts getting children vaccinated but sometimes change the minds of anti-vaxxers for the better.  Public service campaigns is one way of education the public about the important of getting vaccinated. 