To Vaccinate or Not to Vaccinate

A lot of parents stress over the choice of deciding wither or not to vaccinate their children. The reason why deciding to vaccinate children is so difficult is due to the wide range of myths and side effects that are connected with vaccinations. Examples of myths spread to parents all over the United States is that the diseases don’t even exist anymore, rumors of vaccinations weakening a child’s immune system, and the risk of a child becoming autistic due to thimerisol in vaccinations causing autism. Side effects also scare parents out of getting their children vaccinated like brain damage, seizures, or allergic reactions. But then parents are pulled back to the thought of the possibility of their child or children catching a very serious life threatening disease. Any of these terrible things occurring in a child’s life makes it very easy for a parent to steer clear of the whole situation, and in ending result, not get their child vaccinated.
When children aren’t vaccinated, they are left defenseless against diseases like hepatitis B, measles, mumps, chicken pox, polio, pertussis (whooping cough), rubella, and more. All these diseases have the ability to easily kill a child within days, and if it weren’t for the vaccines protection over many children in the United States, the spread of these diseases would travel rapidly.
There are a lot of people that do not recommend or get vaccinations for children because they think it is unnecessary to vaccinate for a disease that is no longer around. But let’s look at the big picture. If everyone stopped getting the vaccinations what would happen? Todd Neale from Medpage today inquires in San Diego 2008, “ Although the rate of two-dose immunization against measles was 95% in the area, a single case of measles from a 7-year-old child returning from overseas sparked an outbreak that exposed 839 people and sickened 11 other children”. If those 839 people weren’t protected with strong immune systems or