The Pros And Cons Of Vaccination

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Public opinions about vaccination include varied and die-hard beliefs, a result of the tension between cultural viewpoints and value systems. These social views on vaccination sprout from individual rights and public health positions toward vaccination, various religious views along with family values, and most distinctly skepticism of vaccines among different U.S. communities. This mistrust towards vaccination has been around for as long as vaccines have, and are prevalent to this day, and this can mainly be attributed to the parents of young children, who for one reason or another have made up their minds. However, this becomes an issue when a child dies from something that is completely preventable such as whooping cough. For example, in …show more content…

Moreover, through science we have been able and are still able to make discoveries that benefit the human race. For instance, the first smallpox vaccine being developed by Edward Jenner in 1798. This scientific breakthrough led to countless lives being saved and further knowledge and investigation of disease and how to treat and cure it. As a result, an estimated 200 million cases of polio, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella, adenovirus, rabies and hepatitis A -- and approximately 450,000 deaths from these diseases -- were prevented in the US alone between 1963 and 2015 by vaccination (“Ten million lives saved by 1962 …show more content…

Suspicion and mistrust of vaccines have been around for as long as vaccines have, and are prevalent to this day. For a period of time, there was the implication that the measles, mumps, and rubella or MMR vaccine caused autism. By the same token, this information was from an article that was not peer reviewed. As a result, many listened to an individual who was not all that knowledge on the subject. However, the experts say that that study is not accurate as there is no substantial evidence. Moreover, "Not only is there no evidence that it causes autism, there's evidence that it doesn't cause autism," Dr. Offit says (Howard). "In fact, there have been 14 studies that show your risk of getting autism isn't any different if you got the MMR vaccine or if you didn't."

This diagram here demonstrates the odds that a child is more likely to become a pilot, get struck by lighting, make the US Olympics Team, get elected into US Congress, and become a billionaire than have a severe reaction to the MMR vaccine or Hepatitis B vaccine.

Even so, parents still refuse to get their children vaccinated. Thus, children are facing the consequences because of it. In the