Vaccination For Children

A trip to the doctor; a terror-stricken child fights off a persistent parent while a psychiatrist attempts to inject a needle into the child’s vein. As the syringe unwaveringly enters the body, the life-saving serum is activated. At that moment, the child realizes the shot wasn’t so painful after all, relaxing as a Hello-Kitty band-aid is placed on their arm. A trip to the doctor; another young life saved. For over the span of 200 years, millions of deaths in the United States by a severe disease have been prevented due to vaccines distributed by a medical shot. Such a simple prick of a needle, however, is controversial; sparking the debate as to the whether or not vaccinations are healthy. Despite the fact that there are existing arguments

As such, when there is even the tiniest of doubts about something due to the potential dangers that it may impose on the health of their children, they tend to be cautious towards the subject of the matter. Nevertheless, mothers and fathers who know what is best, know that vaccines will immunize their children. It was discovered found that a child who is not vaccinated for measles has 35 times increased risk of acquiring measles (Boom and Healy). Another incident according to Boom and Healy is that children not immunized against pertussis, commonly known as the whooping cough, are 6 to 28 more times likely to catch the sickness. Instead of facing the probable and deadly consequences of catching any given disease, parents who are aware that vaccines do prevent potentially fatal outcomes avoid having their child be one the poor children who fall ill because their negligence parents fail to recognize the benefits of vaccinations. Unless this message gets spread widely and well, countless doctors and parents are going to find themselves in emergency rooms, watching children suffer from the devastating effects of measles, whooping cough or some other readily preventable infectious

In a recent survey of more than 1,500 parents, one quarter held the belief that vaccines can cause autism in healthy children (Daley and Glanz). However, this notion is highly false. In 1999, former doctor Andrew Wakefield published a now disproven study that connected the vaccine for measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) to autism. Wakefield took a sample study of 12 children who had been given the MMR vaccine and analyzed them for any gastroenterological symptoms that are associated with autism. Based on his observations, he concluded that because eight of twelve children had intestinal abnormalities, the MMR vaccine had a link with autism. However, this study was proven to be unethical due to the fact that Wakefield paid children at a party in exchange for blood samples involved in the study. Ultimately, though the study was retracted, it had already sprung an increase in vaccine hesitancy, which is defined as the “delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines despite the availability of vaccination services” (World Health Organization). False claims towards vaccinations such as Wakefield’s are what spark a fear in parents and lead to the misconception that the harms of vaccines outweigh the