Why Vaccinations Should Be Mandatory For All Children In 2000, American health officials declared that measles had been eradicated within the United States. However, in 2015 more than 140 cases of the measles, one of the most contagious of all childhood diseases, have shown up across the country since an outbreak in California. The reason for this current outbreak is that more and more people have begun to go unvaccinated in the United States. Outbreaks of dangerous childhood diseases like the measles is one of the many reasons every child should be vaccinated. Vaccinations also protect the community, defend future generations, and are safe and effective. The first reason every child who can should be vaccinated is that vaccinations protect the community with herd immunity. When most of a community is vaccinated against a contagious disease, most members are protected from it because there is little chance of an outbreak. Even those who cannot be vaccinated, such as infants, pregnant women, or immunocompromised people are protected because the spread of a contagious disease is contained. This is herd immunity and it protects everyone, especially those who cannot be vaccinated, from getting contagious diseases. Especially someone like Riley Beck, a 5-year-old with leukemia, who cannot be vaccinated due to her illness. She was …show more content…
Vaccinations eradicated smallpox worldwide and now children don’t have to receive vaccinations for smallpox because of the work the vaccines did. Vaccines also played an important role in ending the polio virus. If we continue vaccinating now and completely we can trust that some diseases will no longer be around. This almost happened with measles, but the increase of people going unvaccinated prevented a deadly childhood disease from being eliminated from the U.S. Vaccinations are also very safe and