When A Parent’s Business Becomes Everyone’s Business: Why Canada should Mandate a Vaccination Policy
Vaccinations are one of history’s most cost efficient and effective medical achievements for preventing serious diseases. Over the course of 5 generations, vaccinations have prevented millions of deaths from diseases like polio, measles, mumps, whooping cough, diphtheria and rubella. These fatal viruses, which were once inescapable, have never been so easily preventable. However, this generation seems to have forgotten the horrors of these childhood diseases. What was once dubbed a wonder of modern technology has now become a subject of debate amongst parents. As the rise of the anti-vaccination movement continues to grow, more and more people are choosing not to vaccinate their children. …show more content…
The current measles outbreak in Canada is due largely from misinformed parents refusing to vaccinate their kids. Vaccines are incredibly safe, and the chances of being injured by a vaccine preventable disease are increasingly higher than a vaccine itself. Many claims made against the safety of vaccinations are unreliable and have been debunked by scientific research time and time again. One of the largest opposing arguments comes from a study conducted solely by Andrew Wakefield in 1998 connecting the MMR vaccine to the rise in kids with autism. Since then, seven large medical journals conducted studies finding no link between MMR and ASD, officially retracting Andrew Wakefield’s original paper and stripping him of his doctoring license due to the release of fraudulent information. Yet to this day, many anti-vaxxers refuse to vaccinate their kids in fear of contracting autism. Frankly, risking a child’s life to rather die a highly preventable death than live with the fabricated possibility of a learning disability is not an ethical stance, its
Vaccinations are one of history’s most cost efficient and effective medical achievements for preventing serious diseases. Over the course of 5 generations, vaccinations have prevented millions of deaths from diseases like polio, measles, mumps, whooping cough, diphtheria and rubella. These fatal viruses, which were once inescapable, have never been so easily preventable. However, this generation seems to have forgotten the horrors of these childhood diseases. What was once dubbed a wonder of modern technology has now become a subject of debate amongst parents. As the rise of the anti-vaccination movement continues to grow, more and more people are choosing not to vaccinate their children. …show more content…
The current measles outbreak in Canada is due largely from misinformed parents refusing to vaccinate their kids. Vaccines are incredibly safe, and the chances of being injured by a vaccine preventable disease are increasingly higher than a vaccine itself. Many claims made against the safety of vaccinations are unreliable and have been debunked by scientific research time and time again. One of the largest opposing arguments comes from a study conducted solely by Andrew Wakefield in 1998 connecting the MMR vaccine to the rise in kids with autism. Since then, seven large medical journals conducted studies finding no link between MMR and ASD, officially retracting Andrew Wakefield’s original paper and stripping him of his doctoring license due to the release of fraudulent information. Yet to this day, many anti-vaxxers refuse to vaccinate their kids in fear of contracting autism. Frankly, risking a child’s life to rather die a highly preventable death than live with the fabricated possibility of a learning disability is not an ethical stance, its