Immunizations are one of the greatest public health achievements, but also have been extremely controversial since they were first created in the late 1700s. Vaccines can be seen as dangerous, unconstitutional, and unethical to anti-vaccinators, but pro-vaccinators see them as an absolute must to keep communicable diseases at bay. Public health officials have been relentless in their efforts to keep immunization rates high through education and laws – with laws ultimately having been more successful than education, especially for school-age children.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) endorsed by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a list recommended vaccines for school-age children. However, each state …show more content…
Jenner observed that milkmaids became infected with cowpox, but not smallpox when smallpox outbreaks occurred in the community (Stern & Markel, 2005). Edward Jenner decided to test this observation using cowpox (Stern & Markel, 2005). In 1796, Jenner took pus from a cowpox lesion and inoculated James Phipps, who was eight years old at the time (Stern & Markel, 2005). Edward Jenner inoculated Phipps with smallpox several weeks after the inoculation of cowpox and Phipps never contracted smallpox (Stern & Markel, 2005). After repeating this process several times, Jenner concluded that cowpox protects humans against smallpox, and created the first vaccine (Stern & Markel, 2005). Edward Jenner is the pioneer of vaccinations, and protected the world against a fatal disease. It would not be for almost a century later that we got the definition of a …show more content…
Laws for vaccinations and the organization of departments started to occur during this period as well (Vaccine Timeline, 2016). Today, there are 23 vaccinations available to the public (CDC, 2016). In the last two centuries, vaccines have gone from one to 23, making vaccinations one of the greatest public health achievements. Many vaccine-preventable diseases have been eradicated or almost eradicated because of the availability of vaccines (Malone & Himan, 2003). Hesitancies and rejections of vaccinations have existed since they were first created and the reasoning behind these hesitancies has changed over time.
Perceptions
Vaccination hesitancy is currently an increasing trend in the United States even though a majority of the country has accepted that vaccinations are a necessity (Dubé et al., 2013). According to Dubé et al., (2013) "it is estimated that less than 5 – 10% of individuals have strong anti-vaccination convictions" (p. 1763). Vaccine hesitancies can be broken up into two separate groups: personal beliefs and outside influences.
Personal
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) endorsed by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a list recommended vaccines for school-age children. However, each state …show more content…
Jenner observed that milkmaids became infected with cowpox, but not smallpox when smallpox outbreaks occurred in the community (Stern & Markel, 2005). Edward Jenner decided to test this observation using cowpox (Stern & Markel, 2005). In 1796, Jenner took pus from a cowpox lesion and inoculated James Phipps, who was eight years old at the time (Stern & Markel, 2005). Edward Jenner inoculated Phipps with smallpox several weeks after the inoculation of cowpox and Phipps never contracted smallpox (Stern & Markel, 2005). After repeating this process several times, Jenner concluded that cowpox protects humans against smallpox, and created the first vaccine (Stern & Markel, 2005). Edward Jenner is the pioneer of vaccinations, and protected the world against a fatal disease. It would not be for almost a century later that we got the definition of a …show more content…
Laws for vaccinations and the organization of departments started to occur during this period as well (Vaccine Timeline, 2016). Today, there are 23 vaccinations available to the public (CDC, 2016). In the last two centuries, vaccines have gone from one to 23, making vaccinations one of the greatest public health achievements. Many vaccine-preventable diseases have been eradicated or almost eradicated because of the availability of vaccines (Malone & Himan, 2003). Hesitancies and rejections of vaccinations have existed since they were first created and the reasoning behind these hesitancies has changed over time.
Perceptions
Vaccination hesitancy is currently an increasing trend in the United States even though a majority of the country has accepted that vaccinations are a necessity (Dubé et al., 2013). According to Dubé et al., (2013) "it is estimated that less than 5 – 10% of individuals have strong anti-vaccination convictions" (p. 1763). Vaccine hesitancies can be broken up into two separate groups: personal beliefs and outside influences.
Personal