Persuasive Essay On Vaccination

Should giving vaccinations, a practice supported by medical professionals for over 100 years, still be a topic debated today? Both scientists and doctors have stood behind childhood vaccinations for as long as they have been in place, but scientific illiteracy has led to more and more parents refusing inoculating shots for their children, which puts people young and old at risk. Because of falsified evidence, the vaccination debate has erupted again, and if it is not put to rest, the lives of children and adults alike will be endangered. Over 200 years ago, doctors began vaccinating children against small pox. Edward Jenner discovered the idea of vaccinations after studying how milkmaids who had contracted the cowpox virus did not get small pox. He injected the cowpox virus into a child in 1796, and the child did not contract smallpox, nor did the cowpox affect him dramatically (“Vaccine Timeline”). Since Jenner’s breakthrough, scientists have created vaccinations for life-threatening diseases like polio, measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, and more. The world has not had a single case of naturally-acquired smallpox since 1977, and there has not been a case of polio in the Western Hemisphere since 1991 (“Vaccine Timeline”). Clearly, vaccinations have been doing their …show more content…
In 1998, Andrew Wakefield and 12 colleagues published an article in the Lancet with “evidence” of MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccines leading to autism and bowel disease; but, in 2010, the article was retracted because people discovered Wakefield had falsified evidence and used unethical practices in his research for his own financial gain (Rao 1). Even though professionals proved the evidence false in 2010, the repercussions were still evident in 2015: 26 states did not meet their 95% vaccination target for MMR