Health Benefits Of Vaccination

The study of vaccinations to prevent disease, disability, and death has been ongoing for many years, dating all the way back to 1000 C.E. In that year, one of the first recorded uses of variolation occurred. Evidence exists that the Chinese tried to inoculate their people against smallpox by rubbing the scabs of individuals who were infected with the virus into the skin of healthy adults and children. Along with Common Era remedies such as that one, numerous other methods of vaccinating people have been tested and researched for years. In fact, all throughout history, scientists such as Edward Jenner and Louis Pasteur, have worked hard to make discoveries in the field of vaccinations, and even developed many vaccines for viruses such as smallpox, …show more content…
The reasons to receive vaccinations and believe in their pharmaceutical powers are very abundant, and backed up with immense amounts of scientific evidence. Some examples of this are that since 1988, the CDC has reported a 99% reduction in the incidence of bacterial meningitis caused by Haemophilus influenzae. Also, the MMR vaccine helped to reduce the global deaths caused by measles by 78% between the years 2000 and 2008. Vaccines prevent more than an estimated 2.5 million deaths each year. If vaccines were not received, just a single case of a deadly disease could quickly turn into tens or hundreds of thousands. Vaccines also cause “herd immunity” which means if the majority of people in a community have been vaccinated against a disease, an outbreak of the disease is less likely to occur and less people are susceptible to contracting …show more content…
Vaccine denialism has already shown to have had a negative effect on public health in some regions, and it is leaving communities open to outbreaks of diseases that had been all but eradicated. One example of this is that researchers confirmed that a 2010 whooping cough outbreak in California- the worst in the U.S. in over 50 years- was spread primarily by the children of parents who received non-medical exemptions for school vaccinations from the state. There were more than 9,000 cases of the disease in California and 10 deaths occurred. This is proof that by not receiving the proper vaccinations, individuals are suffering because of the uncontrolled spread of diseases. Along with the health impact, vaccine denialism is affecting children’s educations and social development by them not being allowed to attend public school without their vaccines.
While every individual is entitled to their own beliefs and the rights to their own bodies, vaccine denialism is an ideology that is illogical and insufficient. Not only does this pseudoscience topic have no scientific proof to back it up, and infinite amounts of evidence to disprove it, but it has the potential to cause mass illness and low immunity throughout the world, even for the people who disagree with it as a