Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Nicole Munoz
ENC 1101
Professor Lewis
22 November 2017
For a while now people have been a little skeptical on the topic of vaccinations and if
they should or should not receive vaccinations and the health risks involved. This controversy is
not a matter of whose right and wrong, it is educating the public on how important it is to receive
the vaccination. False rumors and research have led to this unfortunate misunderstanding. Kids
should be required to receive vaccinations because it prevents against a population getting wiped
out, side effects against the vaccine are rare, it protects future generations against a catastrophe,
For starters, it helps to know what an actual vaccine is before stating facts about why
anyone should receive them in the first place. Vaccines as stated by the book The Gale
person to stimulate the immune system against the microbe and prevent disease (927-931).
What does that mean? The doctor receives from a lab the dead virus or disease (which has been
tested thousands of times before even being released to the public) in a little vial and then the
doctor injects the dead/practically dead version of the disease inside of the patient. Then after
some time as again stated by The Gale Encyclopedia of Prescription Drugs the body builds
immunity to the disease or virus by creating anti-bodies (927-931) that can recognize what the
virus looks like and destroy it the second it enters the body. Normally these vaccines do not carry
any threat especially since every patient is given a dead virus. There are cases where a person
could experience a side effect, but the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services website
lets individuals know that Vaccination is very safe and effective; serious side effects following
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vaccination, such as severe allergic reaction, are very rare. If a side effect were to occur it is
more manageable than if a person were to contract the virus or disease itself. Normally doctors
offices and pharmacies have shots to give a person if they were experiencing some kind of
allergic reaction or a bad response to the vaccine. They also know how to react when something
of that nature were to occur, they are trained to deal with situations such as those.
In addition, receiving a vaccine protects the population from getting wiped out. For example
an article on Statista that shows the statistics of before and after vaccinations were common
Diphtheria cases before vaccines- 21,053 and Diphtheria cases after vaccines- 0. Then the
same statistic website states Measles cases before vaccines- 530,217 and Measles cases after
vaccines- 61 and finally the most shocking statistic Varicella cases before vaccines- 4,085,120
Varicella cases after vaccines- 449,363. There are people that actually believe that vaccines do
not do or accomplish anything and that they should not be forced to give their kids a shot. People
also do not understand that vaccines drastically reduce the number of cases, and how much it has
actually helped not only the United States, but all over the world. Just looking at Varicella alone
is shocking; the number of people infected dropped 3,635,757 persons, thats about 1% of the
United States population. It does not seem like much, but thats just one of the many vaccines
offered to the public, and those numbers add up, just think about how many people the black
plague wiped out. Things like that can happen again if people are not careful. Avoiding receiving
a vaccination because of a false claim would be a pretty good way for something like the black
plague to start up again. Corinne McLeod states in a public health journal that 1 in every 200
cases of polio results in irreversible paralysis, particularly in cases of children under 5 years to
age 2 (8-10). That can all be avoided just by a simple injection, and allowing the body to create
antibodies against it. People are unaware that vaccines are there to protect people from receiving
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a life threatening illness, which could leave anyone paralyzed. It is better to be safe than sorry
with something as serious as the inability to walk. It could also protect the future generations
from having to deal with diseases. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states
completely, parents in the future may be able to trust that some diseases of today will no longer
be around to harm their children in the future. In other words if people continue to vaccinate
their kids today, parents in the future will not have to worry about half of the diseases everyone
has to worry about today. With a big population comes big responsibility, tons of new diseases
come out every year and scientist are doing everything they can to prevent a population from
getting wiped out, they are just trying to protect the people. Anytime a scientist comes out with a
new vaccine to protect from a new viruses that pops up they are trying control how far that virus
actually gets.
Next, preventing future catastrophe and getting individuals those vaccines. Most people
understand how serious it is to actually receive these vaccines and do not care of those minor
side effects. Others are reading information off of non-credible websites and Facebook
allowing those misleading facts to alter their opinion on giving their kids or themselves a
vaccine. For example the journal article Anti-Vaccination and Social Media Warning asserts
Nurses and midwives found promoting anti-vaccination could risk their registration status and
face prosecution by national regulatory authority (12). Even a journal article intended for those
in the health field is warning people to not give out misleading information. According to that
quote nurses can lose their jobs for telling people not to receive a mandatory vaccination. People
are trusting doctors and nurses to tell them the right information and guide them from making a
bad decision, to make sure they are not going to hurt their kids, and as Corinne McLeod states in
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her journal article asserting unscientific claims that a vaccination is unsafe and unhealthy, as
well a threat to the personal freedoms (8-10). If people cannot even trust what the doctors and
pharmacist are saying who can they trust? Everyone is trusting that a doctor is going to tell
people the correct information and if giving them or their kids a vaccine is a good or a bad idea.
Finally, vaccines can save people money in the future. For example if an individual gets a
shot for measles it costs about $100 if the person receives the vaccine from Walgreens (as stated
on the Walgreens website). Most of the time insurance will pick up half and sometimes the
whole tabs depending on the insurance the individual has, but assume they do not have any.
Imagine if that same person would have to go to the hospital and get treatment for the actual
virus itself. Hospital fees run extremely high and would be more than if the person decided to
just get the shot instead. Robert L. Schwartz, a professor at a university states in a journal article
the risk to an unvaccinated child of getting measles is much higher than the chance the vaccine
will cause injuries (17-18). Not only are people hurting their own children by not getting them
vaccinated, but those same people are hurting the kids around them, if those kids contract a virus
they can easily spread it to younger kids who are not old enough to receive the vaccine or a kid
who was about to receive it. Schools are making things like this mandatory because it protects
kids and the environment from being quarantined. Parents argue that schools should not make it
mandatory, that they should have the freedom to choose what to do with their own kids. When
the protection of everyones kid gets involved, schools have to step in to make sure everyone is
safe. Making it mandatory to receive the vaccine is a safety procedure to ensure that no one gets
polio and becomes paralyzed or get measles and have a serious flu that could result in death. Ms.
McLeod states in her journal article In 2013, there were 159 cases of measles in the United
States, almost three times the typical yearly number of measles cases in the US, and only 26% of
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these cases were imported from other countries (8-10). This indicates that 74% of those measles
cases are from the United States from people not receiving the vaccinations. Bringing up Polio
again, think about being paralyzed what kind of financial stress that would put on someones
family. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says it better when they say some
vaccine-preventable diseases can result in prolonged disabilities and can take a financial toll
because of lost time at work, medical bills or long-term disability care. It would cost so much
more to be treated of a disease rather than to get the vaccine preventing it, it is a one-time cost,
and insurance would covers it most of the time. People also would not have to worry about
population getting wiped out, side effects against the vaccine are rare, it protects future
generations against a catastrophe, and it saves people money in the future as well. Now that the
government is revoking the licenses of those who spread false facts about vaccines and schools
are requiring them, the future is protected from those who believe otherwise or want to hurt the
population. People just need to understand how vaccines came into existence in the first place so
that the worry about the harm they cause can be put to rest. It is understood that some parents
just do not like being forced to have their kids receiving a vaccine, but the schools would not
force anyone to do something that is not safe, they are trying to protect the kids. The one time
cost with vaccines as well prevents future costs to the hospital because of a life threatening
illness. Vaccines should continue to be pushed onto kids to prevent future catastrophe and to
protect kids from becoming extremely ill from something that could have been prevented.
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Works Cited
"Anti-Vaccination and Social Media Warning." Australian Nursing & Midwifery Journal, vol.
db15.linccweb.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9
h&AN=119005483&site=ehost-live.
Davidson, Tish, and Denise M. Linton. "Vaccinations." The Gale Encyclopedia of Prescription
Fust, vol. 2, Gale, 2015, pp. 927-931. Gale Virtual Reference Library,
db15.linccweb.org/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com.db15.linccweb.org/ps/i.do?p=GVR
Kostal, Susan. "A Vaxxing Dilemma." ABA Journal, vol. 101, no. 7, July 2015, pp. 17-18.
EBSCOhost,
db15.linccweb.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9
h&AN=103743760&site=ehost-live.
McLeod, Corinne. "Rising Anti-Vaccination Attitudes in the United States: A Plea for
Paternalism." Texas Public Health Journal, vol. 66, no. 4, Fall2014, pp. 8-10.
EBSCOhost,
db15.linccweb.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9
h&AN=99247398&site=ehost-live.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Five Important Reasons to Vaccinate Your
Child. Vaccines.gov, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 11 Oct. 2006,
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www.vaccines.gov/more_info/features/five-important-reasons-to-vaccinate-your-
child.html.