Essay On Mandatory Vaccinations

California has been recently hit with an outbreak of whooping cough recently with almost 8000 cases in 2014. The strange thing about this epidemic is that whooping cough was all but eradicated from the country 20 years ago. This was baffling to researchers until it was discovered that in some of Southern California's schools more than 50% of children are unvaccinated. This rate has even been increasing in the past years and it has been leading to outbreaks of illnesses that have not been problems in the US for decades. It should be mandatory for children to be vaccinated before being admitted into schools to prevent the spread of these illnesses. The first reason that children should be vaccinated is that vaccines prevent many illnesses. Vaccines.gov claims that vaccines produce immunities 90-100% of the time. Meaning a large majority of children who receive the vaccine will develop an immunity to the illness and
It is not very well know that there are about half a million people in the US that are not able to receive vaccines due to things like allergies, being too young, and even being on chemotherapy for cancer. These people rely heavily on others around them to be vaccinated and not carry these illnesses to keep themselves healthy. When outbreaks of illness break out, like the one in california, “they are often the first to suffer,” Offit states, “and because no vaccine is 100% effective, everyone , even those who are vaccinated is at some risk”(2). When parents decide to not vaccinate their children they are also making the choice to put the people around them, who cannot receive vaccinations even if they wanted to, at risk. So by requiring children to be vaccinated before entering school it insures not only their safety from illnesses but also it helps those around them who are not lucky enough to be able to receive