Against Mandatory Vaccines

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Over the last few decades vaccinating children has been up for debate. Vaccinations have been in use for over 150 years for potentially dangerous diseases, but there has always been protest to governments making them mandatory. Modern believers in the anti-vaccination movement have used case studies to “prove” their thesis that there are negative effects of vaccinations on children 's well-being. Consequently, an increasing amount of research has become public to prove there are no negative effects of vaccines on a child 's body or health. Government mandated vaccinations have shown a positive trend, parallel with the increase in scientific evidence and proof of the effectiveness and the lack of side effects of vaccines. Thus, the leading …show more content…
Those put at risk are people that have an immune system which is too weak permanently or for a temporary amount of time. Those whose bodies cannot withstand the vaccine include, but aren’t limited to, anyone with HIV/AIDS or diseases that deter the immune system or those with an allergic reaction to the vaccine. When diseases spread, like the recent Measles outbreak, only those who haven’t taken the vaccine and those who can’t are affected. Nonetheless, the amount of children who don’t receive vaccinations is actually very small, as the US mandates a number of vaccines for children entering public schools. The MMR Vaccination, which received the heaviest critique when it was first introduced, now covers 95% of all kindergarten students in the US. But the US sees a large dip in meeting the 95% coverage goal in states where there are more exemptions, of up to 20% lower on critical vaccines, like the MMR vaccine. However, diseases can travel easily and it will attack those who haven’t received immunization. When the CDC was asked why not stop immunizing if the disease is gone they said, “Unless we can "stop the leak" (eliminate the disease), it is important to keep immunizing. Even if there are only a few cases of disease today, if we take away the protection given by vaccination, more and more people will become infected and will spread disease to others. Soon we will undo the progress …show more content…
In older history of vaccinations, those who opposed vaccines, believed that the government shouldn’t be able to mandate what they put in their bodies. Today we know the benefit of the vaccine shot and preventing the disease far outweighs the minor side effects. When Andrew Wakefield concluded through his case study report, that the MMR vaccine can lead to Autism, the argument of anti-vaccinating turned to focus on supporting Wakefield 's findings. In response the scientific community found through research his report was fraudulent and founded on false accusations. Even so, the protests continued, but what changed is now the two main arguments against vaccinating have been scientifically proven unsound: that babies develop autism from vaccines, and that we are uncertain of the side effects of vaccines. Nonetheless, people continue to not vaccinate their children and because of this the current outbreak of measles, has been able to move from unvaccinated person to person along the western United

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