Pros And Cons Of Vaccine Hesitancy

Vaccine hesitancy is not a modernistic thought process. People have been skeptical about vaccinations as far back as 1736. Benjamin Franklin was one of our founding fathers, an inventor, author, and father, who lost his own son to smallpox. He chooses not to vaccinate his four-year-old son. Tara Haelle tells us in her May 2016 Tedtalk, “Why Parents Fear Vaccinations”, most people think those who choose not to vaccinate are uneducated. Haelle clarifies “People refuse, because they are, educated”. Our population should be vaccinating to protect against harmful diseases, but that is not what is happening. Every community across the globe is being affected by the choice others are making to not vaccinate. And if this trend continues we could see
and other locations across the globe. Danzinger and Diamond explained in, “America’s Vaccine Dilemma”, how 2014 saw 668 cases of measles. This was the highest amount seen in almost a quarter of a century (2016). Measles is a disease that could easily be controlled. 95% of the population must be vaccinated for measles and other diseases not to become a problem. This is also referred to as “herd immunity”, meaning if enough of the general population becomes vaccinated, then an outbreak will not occur. Vaccinations were invented to make life more sustainable, we should not have to worry whether we will catch a once eradicated disease when there are preventative vaccinations. All U.S states require vaccinations for children entering school, however, laws about exemptions in each state are not all the same. Children with medical contraindications in every state are allowed to bypass conflicting vaccines. 48 states also allow exemptions for religious and personal beliefs (Danziger 2016). The issue with allowing special exemptions not medically related is that those students are then the ones who can potentially carry the disease, contract it, and even spread it onto others. This plays a huge role in tearing down herd immunity. The people affected by those who choose not to vaccinate are their own communities. This is along with the communities these people visit on
We’re at an age now where people are more afraid of the vaccination itself rather than the disease. The disease is more toxic to a person but because more information is readily available about the vaccination, people will often look at things from that point of view. Small pox for example is something that all people could live through and not catch. This is only true because the earlier generations decided to vaccinate against it and ended up eradicating the disease. This disease is gone but not all of them. However, because small box and other diseases are almost irradiated does not mean that it will stay that way. Parents choosing not to vaccinate as mentioned earier by Haelle are not picking this because they are uneducated. It is because the fact that they are. Parents just like Ben Franklin are scared to vaccinate their children because they fear it will harm them. Franklin warns all family to not make his mistake, “In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the small-pox, taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of parents who omit that operation, on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it; my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and that, therefore, the safer should be chosen