For the Greater Good

            In the recent past, a controversy has begun about whether or not parents should vaccinate their children at a young age.  Some parents believe that if they vaccinate their children, they will develop autism, or other handicaps.  But the majority of parents argue that vaccinating their children is, without a doubt, the way to go.  Despite the risks of vaccinating children at a young age, the risks of not vaccinating children when they’re young are even greater.

            There have been many instances when harmful diseases were stopped or slowed when a vaccine was given to young children.  For example, before vaccines were invented, diseases such as whooping cough and measles caused many deaths among people of all ages.  In another situation, from the late 1940’s to the early 1950’s, a disease called polio struck over 35,000 people a year.  Thanks to vaccines and parents who continued to vaccinate their children, polio has ceased to be a threat in the U.S. for over 30 years.

            When vaccines are injected, the ability to fight off infectious or harmful diseases is increased.  Vaccines are composed of the disease that is trying to be fought off; the disease is either milder, no longer living, or made up of similar components.  Once the small dose of the disease is in the body, the immune system begins to produce antibodies that learn to fight off the disease.  Therefore, if the patient catches the actual disease, their body knows how to react to it.  Different vaccines act in different ways; some take longer to be recognized than others.  Some vaccines have to be taken multiple times while others last a lifetime.  As a result, by not vaccinating a child, they may be exposed to a germ or disease that they aren’t strong enough to fight off.

            Vaccinating a child also helps protect the health of our surroundings, especially others who have not been vaccinated.  Also, those who already have a low immunity, due to some other illness (for example, cancer), are put in harm’s way when exposed to unvaccinated children.

            The bottom line is this: Parents who don’t vaccinate their children are not considering the danger that they put other people in.  Vaccines were developed to protect the population from diseases that were once deadly.  For some parents, too much time had passed, that they don’t realize the devastation or the fear that was in families when illnesses such as polio hit.  There was nothing those parents could do to prevent it from coming into their family.  They hoped and prayed that it wouldn’t affect their family.  Parents today can do something, yet some are choosing not to.  As the old saying goes, “If you don’t learn from history, it’s bound to repeat itself.”