How to Increase Vaccinations

According to the Washington Post, in the United States, there is approximately 7 percent of children who are uninsured that have not received their vaccinations. If there are 28.5 million uninsured people in the U.S. and we take about one-third of the population in the United States of children aged 0 to 17, there are 9,500,000 children. If we then take 7 percent, we get 66,500 children who have not had their vaccinations. This means that these children sixty six thousand children are not getting the vaccination that they need to keep them safe, which is a danger to them and the others around them who can get exposed to these illnesses again. Child vaccinations should be made mandatory to help protect all children from easily preventable illnesses.

There are many different types of vaccines that keep us safe from a young age. As written in a KidsHealth article, the first type of vaccine is attenuated vaccines which has live viruses and is used in vaccines against measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR). Another type is a killed or inactivated virus, which is used in the IPV vaccine. The third type is a toxoid vaccine which contains an inactivated toxin produced by the bacterium, like in the tetanus vaccines. The last type of vaccine, conjugate vaccines, contain parts of bacteria combined with different proteins. (BenJoseph, para. 4). These vaccinations are insure that we keep these diseases under controll and help stop spread them. These vaccines are what protect us in our everyday lives, and let us live freely. As stated in an article from the CDC,  In 2014, the United States had a record number of measles cases (667) and many were associated with cases brought from the Philippines, which experienced a large measles outbreak. Most of these people were not vaccinated or didn't know if they were vaccinated, and nearly all the cases were associated with international travel (What are the reasons to vaccinate my baby?, para. 4).

The CDC, the nation's center for disease control, is trusted to provide the nation with the latest news about our health and everything that affects our health. If the 667 cases of measles that were reported had a vaccine protecting them from it, almost all of the cases of measles could have been prevented and contained. The measles vaccine makes sure that these types of things do not happen, and helps the body fight off the virus if it was to enter the body. In the same article, they also say how in the United States, scientists and medical professionals carefully evaluate everything about these vaccines to determine its safety. Serious side effects from vaccines are very rare, and most are just tenderness around the area and a mild fever. This provides further evidence that there are no real reasons for not vaccinating children when they are young. The chance that the children will have a severe reaction is very low, and they will most likely only experience mild symptoms. Further along in the article, they talk about how vaccinations can help prevent others in the community who can not for some reason be vaccinated” like if someone has cancer or a newborn baby. Getting vaccinated can also help prevent the spread of a disease or even stop an outbreak. This new information provides further evidence supporting vaccines in the race to stop easily preventable illnesses.

Yet another source validates the argument of whether or not vaccines lead to other serious complications. In an article by the Mayo Clinic, they write,  Vaccines do not cause autism. Despite much controversy on the topic, researchers haven't found a connection between autism and childhood vaccines (Childhood vaccines: Tough questions, straight answers., para. 3). Many people have believed for many years that vaccines are a cause of autism because of an article which claimed this to be true.While many scientists have dedicated their lives to studying vaccines, and have never found a connection between vaccines and autism, anti vaccinists still use this as a valid argument for protesting vaccines. As the Mayo Clinic staff says later on in their article, while a natural infection might be better at providing immunity than vaccinations, it is associated with a lot more risks. For examples, chickenpox could lead to pneumonia, polio to permanent paralysis, mumps to deafness, and Hib to permanent brain damage (Childhood vaccines: Tough questions, straight answers., para. 2). Natural infections may be better for our immunity, but at the same time, increase the risk of becoming worse with every missed immunization. The risk of having a natural infection treating the virus can lead to the body being overwhelmed and leading to something that was not the original problem, effectively causing a worse condition.

Many of these parents who are cautious about injecting their children with vaccines are worried because of the dangerous active ingredients inside of these vaccines. These vaccines sometimes contain ingredients like thimerosal and aluminum. These could be potentially lethal to the body when they are given in large amounts. https://vaccines.procon.org/. This, when looked at through these parents eyes, is a truly terrifying statement. If all of the vaccines these small children are getting stuffed with have harmful ingredients that could hurt the children, why do it? The answer is simple: the first reason is that there is such a small amount of these harmful things in the vaccines that it is almost virtually impossible to be exposed to these things from vaccines. Even breast milk contains more aluminum than these vaccines, and based on the arguments above, one question arises: would people protest breastfeeding their children for the same reasons, because they are scared of them getting hurt because of this ingredient? In an article on the U.S. National Library of Medicine National Institute of Health, they say one of the ingredients that most parents are most worried about, thimerosal,  has been banned for more than a decade. This completely diminished the argument of protesting vaccines because of dangerous active ingredients, as there are not enough dangerous ingredients to actually cause any harm to the body, even if it is as small as a newborn baby. After all, these are tested by multiple professionals who are looking out for the safety of the population.

The amount of money that is spent on treating children with preventable diseases and disabilities from those diseases have taken a financial toll on many parents in the United States. Because of the stigma surrounding vaccines, many people don't vaccinate their children, one of the reasons being they cost money. Though these vaccines are relatively inexpensive, many people feel like it is an unnecessary thing to spend money on. According to vaccines.gov though, if the child is from a low-income family, the government gives the option of getting vaccinated through a federally funded program. Also, vaccines are usually covered by insurance, so there is no extra cost to the receiver.

The biggest fear I think every parent has about vaccines is that they don't want their child to be one of those very rare statistics in which their child suffers a very severe reaction.  Something like 1 in 100,000 babies has a very severe reaction (Boghani, para. 5). Dr. Robert W. Sears says in Priyanka Boghani's article on PBS.  Due to the alarming rise in parents refusing child vaccinations, Dr. Robert W. Sears came up with an alternate schedule as to when to give vaccinations to children. He took a look at the CDC's vaccine schedule and found the vaccinations that are not necessary at the time of birth, like hepatitis B, a sexually transmitted disease. He allows the parents to then choose if they want the vaccine around preschool time, or until they are teenagers. (Boghani, para. 10 through 12). He also alternates when vaccines are given, for example instead of giving babies a three three-dose vaccine, he splits it up into different months, that way it is less stress on the body, and the children can bounce back quicker. Through this method of spreading out vaccines until they are necessary and spreading them out by months, Dr. Robert W. Sears has encouraged many more parents to vaccinate their children and help prevent the spread of diseases. This new method could be used in offices around the states, to ensure the increase of vaccinations in children, raising a safe and healthy generation.

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