Vaccination Debate

The debate about vaccination amongst children continues to be an ongoing discussion for people across the United States. Many cite the discovery of vaccinations as one of the 20th centuries major successes, yet resistance and criticisms toward vaccinations still exist. Parents, doctors, and scholars acknowledge that vaccinations have plenty of benefits but they still carry a degree of risks. Existing studies have examined vaccination attitudes and beliefs of parents, but the same question still remains; why don’t some parents vaccinate their children? As of 2015, one hundred eighty-nine cases of measles were reported by the Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The majority of people affected by the illness were unvaccinated, raising

Similarly, a study examining under immunization of children interviewed parents/guardians of children eighteen to thirty-five months old. The researchers gathered consent to contact all vaccination providers for the child and then surveys were sent to the providers. There were 1,015 control subjects who are defined as fully immunized children. Case subjects totaled to 462 and were defined as under immunized children, (Battaglia; Gust; Maurice; Schwartz; Smith; Strine; Wilkonson; Wright; Yusuf 2004). The results of the research determined that socioeconomic status and family-size influence vaccination beliefs and status. According to the researchers listed above, “although concerns were significantly more common among parents of under immunized children, many parents of fully immunized children demonstrated similar attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, suggesting a risk to the currently high vaccination levels,” (p. 6). Like the results above, Deborah Gust and Allison Kennedy (2005) learned that the majority of parents agree that vaccines are safe and important but some still felt uneasy about vaccine safety and its usefulness. Still, seventy-three percent of parents believed vaccines are safe and eighty-six percent of parents believed vaccines are