To Vaccinate or Not to Vaccinate
To Vaccinate or Not to Vaccinate
The topic I chose for discussion is whether I would chose to follow the CDC’s (Center for Disease Control) recommendations for having my child vaccinated against certain vaccine-preventable diseases.
Although no federal laws exist for mandatory vaccinations, each state has a group of required vaccines for children, prior to the enrollment in public and some private schools. So basically, if you’d like your child to go to school, they must be vaccinated. Forty eight of our fifty states allow for religious exemptions and all 50 states allow medical exemptions, such as allergies to certain ingredients. These exemptions allow certain students to go to school without the required vaccines. The required vaccinations include: MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), TDaP (tetnus, diphtheria and pertussis, more commonly known as whopping cough) and the Polio vaccine , which is usually given in oral form.
Deciding whether to vaccinate your child against these diseases could be a difficult decision for some people to make. For some people it’s not even a question whether or not to have their child vaccinated, they feel they are protecting their child from disease and its consequences, and the temporary discomfort that the child (and sometimes the parent!) experiences will quickly be forgotten. They also feel that it is in the best interest of the population as a whole, and simply follow their doctor’s recommendations, to have their child immunized. Others however, believe that there are serious side-effects from these vaccines and they are not willing to expose their child to that risk. Perhaps they know a child who has had an adverse reaction to a vaccination and are afraid that the same will happen to their child. They may also feel that because some diseases have been nearly eradicated, the threat of their child contracting these diseases is minor, so why risk the side effects? Some opponents to these immunizations believe that
The topic I chose for discussion is whether I would chose to follow the CDC’s (Center for Disease Control) recommendations for having my child vaccinated against certain vaccine-preventable diseases.
Although no federal laws exist for mandatory vaccinations, each state has a group of required vaccines for children, prior to the enrollment in public and some private schools. So basically, if you’d like your child to go to school, they must be vaccinated. Forty eight of our fifty states allow for religious exemptions and all 50 states allow medical exemptions, such as allergies to certain ingredients. These exemptions allow certain students to go to school without the required vaccines. The required vaccinations include: MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), TDaP (tetnus, diphtheria and pertussis, more commonly known as whopping cough) and the Polio vaccine , which is usually given in oral form.
Deciding whether to vaccinate your child against these diseases could be a difficult decision for some people to make. For some people it’s not even a question whether or not to have their child vaccinated, they feel they are protecting their child from disease and its consequences, and the temporary discomfort that the child (and sometimes the parent!) experiences will quickly be forgotten. They also feel that it is in the best interest of the population as a whole, and simply follow their doctor’s recommendations, to have their child immunized. Others however, believe that there are serious side-effects from these vaccines and they are not willing to expose their child to that risk. Perhaps they know a child who has had an adverse reaction to a vaccination and are afraid that the same will happen to their child. They may also feel that because some diseases have been nearly eradicated, the threat of their child contracting these diseases is minor, so why risk the side effects? Some opponents to these immunizations believe that
References: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2012, June 26). Retrieved August 26, 2012, from http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Concerns/Autism/Index.html Rulings in cases testing MMR/thimerosal-autism link. (n.d.). Institute for Vaccine Safety. Retrieved August 26, 2012, from http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/autism-testcases.htm Staff, M. C. (2010, July 31). Childhood vaccines: Tough questions, straight answers. Mayo Clinic. Retrieved August 26, 2012, from http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/vaccines/CC00014 Staff. (n.d.). Immunization. American Academy of Pediatrics. Retrieved August 26, 2012, from http://www2.aap.org/immunization/