What Can Happen Without Vaccination

 According to an article written by Eleanor Goldberg for the Huffington Post, Vaccines avert between 2 and 3 million deaths each year. Compared to anti-vaccinators, they believe that vaccines are not the cause of averting deaths in children. They believe that the children getting the vaccines are causing them more harm than good. We are all affected by vaccines. We need certain vaccines to get into college and even public schools. For instance, in order to get into Maryville College students are required to have Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Chickenpox, Meningitis, and Hepatitis B vaccinations. With these vaccines being required, many people have a need to know what is inside the vaccines. Even though some of the vaccines are already inside our body. Vaccination clearly shows that they prevent many diseases that are still prevalent today. The vaccinations contain ingredients that are very safe for you. Also, the types of diseases that are being fought off have not disappeared nor have they completely gone away so, getting rid of vaccinations could be very disastrous.

Henceforth, the historical background of the two groups of pro-vaccination and anti-vaccinations needs to be explained. The controversy over vaccination became very popular when in the mid-1970s a group of children suffered neurological conditions following a set of vaccinations that were given to them.(The Historical Medical Library of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia) These children drew a huge public attention to the controversy of whether or not the vaccines caused the neurological conditions. This report of the children caught the eye of an advocacy group called The Association of Parents of Vaccine Damaged Children (APVDC). The Association of Parents of Vaccine Damaged Children worked with news networks to dynamically show what the effects of their children were to these certain types of vaccine. When APVDC worked with the news networks, a group called Joint Commission on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) tried tremendously to prove to people that vaccines were very safe and that there would be no harm done to their children. In response to the outpour of parents throughout the nation, JCVI responded by starting a study called National Childhood Encephalopathy Study (NCES). This study determined whether a child that was vaccinated was truly hospitalized for the vaccination or if it was another underlying cause. The results showed that the vaccinations had little to no effect on the children that were hospitalized.

When all of this research popped up on the news many parents essentially did not want to get their children vaccinated. However, when JCVI provided their information many parents started to get very confused about what was coming out in the news. With the parent's confusion and some other parents anger, the parents essentially divided into two known different groups. The two groups are considered in a technical term to be pro-vaccination and anti-vaccination. The pro-vaccination group was in principal founded in 1938. The anti-vaccination group was technically not founded until 1940. The anti-vaccination group was not founded until two years later because of the lack of the information that was being brought up and that no one wanted to really question what was actually going on with vaccines. Also, no one had the general knowledge of what was actually in the vaccine and what they actually did to your body.

The pro-vaccination group debate many aspects of vaccination for adolescents. The pro-vaccination group will give any information on the types of ingredients in the vaccines, the types of state laws that are for vaccines, and how different vaccines will affect an adolescents body. The pro-vaccination group generally give background and supporting evidence on the things that are being stated in the anti-vaccination group. Many of these topics are debated toward the public not strictly for people who worked within any type of the medical field. The anti-vaccination group will usually give information on the harmful ingredients in vaccines, the serious side effects from the vaccination, and how the vaccines are unnatural and the natural immunity in our body will protect us. The topics that the anti-vaccination group go over are usually presented to the public in a way of any type of media. The anti-vaccination group will usually be brought to attention in the news media. When the anti-vaccination group is brought on the news with some type of vaccine that is harmful, the public will usually go in a scare. When the public is going into a scare they start to rely on science. Many people rely on the fact that we need to understand what is going in order to feel safe. For instance, the CDC issued a report stating that children who received a vaccine against measles, mumps, and rubella had no connection to autism as stated by a group of anti-vaccinators(Reuters) According to Jesse Goodman, It's also the nature of science to seek and implement improvements which make for safer and more effective medical products. (Meadows) So the public usually will rely on what is being stated by actual facts or statistics because it is human nature.

Up to the present time, people usually want to know whether or not vaccines that are given to their children are safe. They usually want to know what types of ingredients are in the vaccinations, and if those ingredients are safe for our bodies. The ingredients are certainly safe in the amount they put in the vaccinations. Correspondingly, Vaccinations are made by the weakening of the disease itself. Any vaccine that is made is actually a disease that is extremely weakened. The vaccine then helps you to fight the actual infection when you come in contact with it. Next, one of the main concerns for vaccinations are the types of ingredients inside the vaccines. Two main ingredients found in commonly known vaccinations are thimerosal and aluminum. Thimerosal is an organic mercury compound found in some flu vaccines. Aluminum is found in Hepatitis B vaccines. Vaccines contain numerous active agents, such as live viruses, bacterial agents, preservatives, and toxic chemicals, including formaldehyde and mercury, as well as human, animal, and plant [genetic material],"(Koch) So most vaccines have some form of aluminum and mercury, but many people have the concern they could seriously harm your body. In reality, these ingredients could not cause much harm because they are given in smaller doses. This following statement shows that being exposed to aluminum can be efficient if you are exposed to it in small proportions. "Most experts believe the amount of aluminum contained in vaccines is safe, but studies in human infants haven't proven that," says Dr. Sears. "Spacing them out seems like the best way to limit overexposure."(Heyworth) When you are exposed to smaller doses when you are younger, they cannot cause you to much harm in the long run as anti-vaccinators are lead to believe.

The next topic that anti-vaccinators wildly debate is that natural immunity is better than vaccinations. Vaccinations are something that helps you fight certain diseases, not natural immunity. Natural immunity plays a part in the vaccinations flowing in our body through immunization. Furthermore, many people have no clue what the difference between immunization and vaccination are. According to this statement, immunizations are very similar to vaccines. You may acquire it naturally, by getting the disease at some stage.(Mukherjee) However, vaccinations are done in a safer and artificially way. Natural immunity will, in turn, no way protects you a second time from an infection. Others are very confused by what natural immunity is and how it could possibly help you. Natural immunity is where you are exposed to a certain disease and you get over the infection naturally. Your body then, in a sense, becomes immune to the disease and will possibly try to fight the infection within the body faster. In a sense, Natural immunity works with vaccines to boost your effectiveness from whatever disease or infection you face. Without vaccine protection, we can easily contract and transmit infectious diseases.(Meadows) When you don't vaccinate you can easily catch anything that is being exposed to you.

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