Vaccines Should Be Mandatory In All Public Schools

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if smallpox was still prevalent today? Luckily thanks to vaccinations this virus was wiped from the face of the earth, but many more still remain. In order to prevent and eradicate other life threatening viruses, vaccines must be mandatory in all public schools. Many people accuse vaccinations with causing autism in infants; causing the very virus they were created to fight against; as well as having too many toxic chemicals for an infant immune system to handle.

Vaccines are shots that are used to help someone build an immunity to certain diseases, so that people are more likely never to get that disease in the first place. Each vaccine is different and made up of different chemicals, but all vaccines contain traces of the disease it is fighting against so that the body’s immune system is better equipped to ward off specific illnesses.

Many people believe that vaccines can cause autism in infants. This assumption is made because the age a child starts showing symptoms of autism is around one year of age, it just so happens that babies usually get around twenty different vaccines in their first year of life.(California Department of Public Health)  Therefore it is pretty easy to assume that the vaccines are causing autism. As of right now no studies have been done to prove that vaccines cause autism, in fact there have been numerous studies showing no connection between vaccines and autism. One of which was conducted by Luke Taylor, Amy Swerdfeger, and Guy Eslick showed no relationship between the two. the idea that vaccines cause autism is like saying that a rooster’s crow causes the sun to rise, just because they are in close proximity to each other does not mean that they are related.  

Some people think that you can actually get the disease from the vaccine itself, which is partially true. All vaccines contain dead or weakened cells form the virus it is trying to protect against and only in the few that use weakened cells is there even a tiny chance you will become sick.(The BabyCenter) Vaccines contain these cells so that your body can create an immunity to them incase you were exposed to a stronger strain of that virus. People who become sick through these vaccines usually only experience mild forms of the sickness that is not life threatening. Because of the chance of getting sick from these vaccines, people with weakened immune systems like individuals battling cancer, will not be given vaccines with living cells.  

Another reason so many people are against the idea of vaccines, is because of their contents, which contain small amounts of various chemicals. Their concern is that these chemicals will add up and cause some problems, that is a reasonable assumption due to the fact that most children receive about thirty different vaccines before kindergarten.(Center of Disease Control) The chemicals in each vaccine vary with different diseases, but the most common chemicals included are; Aluminum, which is used to get a faster, more effective response as soon as the vaccine is injected; Antibiotics are used in vaccines to kill any bacteria or germs that might have found its way into the vaccine; Egg proteins are used to create live cultures of the diseases used in the vaccine; one chemical most find unsettling is formaldehyde, which is used to kill the active disease so that it is no longer harmful to people when put into the vaccine; Monosodium glutamate is used as a stabilizer, to keep a vaccine from going bad over an extended period of time; another chemical that most people find concerning is thimerosal, which is a preservative that contains a minute amount of mercury and is used to prevent the growth of unwanted bacteria. most people are introduced to these chemicals on daily basis, in higher quantities than provided in the vaccines. an unknown scientist once said "Worrying about too many vaccines is like worrying about a thimble of water getting you wet when you are swimming in an ocean."    

Some people don’t understand devastating it would be without vaccines, before vaccines many people, of all ages were dying. Between the years of 1964 and 1965 12.5 million Americans were infected with rubella, 2,000 babies died from this disease as well as an additional 11,000 miscarriages. Since the creation of a vaccine there have been very few cases and only nine reported cases of rubella in 2012.(Center of Disease Control) Vaccines save thousands of lives on a yearly basis and when people willingly refuse a vaccine they are not only endangering themselves but also endanger those around them.

The three main reasons people refuse to get vaccinated have been presented above and have also been discredited; the fear of infants contracting autism from vaccines has no evidence to support itself; the risk of contracting a life threatening disease is only possible for people with immune system problems, such as cancer patients; finally the toxicity of vaccines are so minute there is very little chance of ever becoming sick from it. Vaccines should be mandatory in all public school, because the only way to eradicate life threatening diseases, is to never give them the chance to reproduce in a living host. If everybody were to get vaccinated, diseases such as polio and hepatitis would cease to exist and be come extinct.       

Works Cited

Baby Center. "Is It True That a Vaccine Can Cause the Disease It Was Meant to Protect Against? | BabyCenter." BabyCenter. Baby Center, n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2015.

"Disease Eradication." History of Vaccines RSS. History of Vaccines RSS, n.d. Web. 26 Feb. 2015.

Doheny, Kathleen, MD. "Autism: Cases on the Rise; Reason for Increase a Mystery." WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 05 Mar. 2015.

"Ingredients of Vaccines - Fact Sheet." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 22 Feb. 2011. Web. 06 Mar. 2015.

Mandal, Ananya, MD. "What Are Vaccines?" News-Medical.net. News Medical, 09 Jan. 2010. Web. 06 Mar. 2015.

"Parents' Guide to Childhood Immunizations." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 10 Oct. 2014. Web. 05 Mar. 2015.

Taylor, Luke E., Amy L. Swerdfeger, and Guy D. Eslick. "Download PDFs." Vaccines Are Not Associated with Autism: An Evidence-based Meta-analysis of Case-control and Cohort Studies. Science Direct 17, 17 June 2014. Web. 01 Mar. 2015.

"What Shots Does My Baby Need, and When?" What Shots Does My Baby Need, and When? California Department of Public Health, n.d. Web. 05 Mar. 2015.

"What Would Happen If We Stopped Vaccinations?" Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 19 May 2014. Web. 18 Feb. 2015.

"When Do Children Usually Show Symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)?" When Do Children Usually Show Symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)? Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 16 Jan. 2014. Web. 06 Mar. 2015.