Should Vaccines Be Required For Children

As early as 1,000 years ago, smallpox, measles, and whooping cough were terribly common in the 1500’s with outbreaks recorded around the world contagious diseases like these spread quickly especially in crowded, dirty, cities. Children were especially vulnerable. Records from the 16th century as many, 30% of all children died before the age of 15, likely from dysentery, scarlet fever, whooping cough, Influenza, Smallpox, and pneumonia. (Public Health) However, today in most all around the world vaccines are required to prevent any diseases from spreading, with today’s laws all children are required to have their vaccines up to date to be able to attend school, causing arguments between parents from both sides about the pros and cons of the
effects of vaccines it does on children. Should Vaccines Be Required for Children?
It’s a question Many parents are concerned about giving their children too many vaccines in a short period of time, Over the past decade, American parents have become increasingly anxious about following their pediatrician’s recommendations to fully vaccinate their children. As a result, about 40 percent of American parents today have chosen to delay certain vaccines or outright refuse to allow their children’s physicians to vaccinate their children with one or more of the recommended or mandated vaccines. Their anxieties arise from several sources, but the most widely discussed concern among parents is the claim that vaccines may cause autism. Despite assurances from every mainstream scientific and medical in situation that vaccines do not cause autism, millions of parents fear that they do, and it shapes their decisions about whether and when to vaccinate their children. The modern American debate over vaccines and autism is a proxy debate. It is a debate in which both sides uphold claims that are simplistic stand ins for real problems. (
EBSCOhost)
So what do vaccines really have that causes parents to ever think about getting their kids' vaccines: Vaccines function by stimulating the immune system and promoting a primary immune response to an infecting pathogen or to molecules derived from a particular pathogen.
The immune response elicited by this primary exposure to vaccine pathogen creates immunological memory, which involves the generation of a pool of immune cells that will recognize the pathogen and mount a more robust or secondary response upon subsequent exposure to the virus or bacterium. In successful immunization, the secondary immune response is sufficient to prevent disease in the infected individual, as well as prevent the transmission of the pathogen to others. For communicable diseases, immunizations protect not only the individual who receives the immunization, but also others with whom he or she has contact. High levels of vaccination in a community increase the number of people who are less susceptible or resistant to illness and propagation of the infectious agent. Unvaccinated individuals or those who have not developed immunity to this pathogen are afforded an indirect measure of protection because those with immunity reduce the spread of the pathogen throughout the entire population. The larger the proportion of people with immunity, the greater the protection of those without immunity. This effect is called “herd immunity.” Herd immunity is an important phenomenon as immunization programs rarely achieve 100 percent immunization in a population; and in some cases, previously vaccinated persons
may not exhibit effective immunity and disease may result from exposure to the pathogen. For protection, immunization of not only ourselves, but also our neighbors is important.
According to, Dr Lee, who is also a consultant pediatric gastroenterologist and hepatologist at the University Malaya Medical Centre, said the danger was that many parents were relying on the Internet for information “What these parents do not know is that they are endangering the lives of their children, as well as that of other kids." "Parents fail to realize that there is absolutely no correlation between autism and the MMR vaccine. Parents found it easier to blame a vaccine for autism, rather than environmental or genetic factors. "I have spoken to those who refuse to immunize their other children after having one child with autism. What parents with autistic children fail to understand is that by refusing to immunize their other children; they are exposing them to measles, mumps or polio." Dr Lee said there was another group of parents who were agreeable with other types of vaccines, but were against the MMR vaccine.
"If parents have concerns about the MMR vaccine, they should speak to doctors and not look up information on the Internet. The Health Ministry has booklets on the vaccine, to which they can refer.” (Lexis Nexis)