What Are The Pros And Cons To Vaccinate Children

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Vaccinations for Children Fewer current issues have a greater impact in the overall well-being of the human race than the debate over vaccines. This ongoing debate could potentially eradicate a strand of disease, should the future generations of children become immune to the illness. “By the age of Even though vaccines are a great thing, some people, especially parents of young children, still resist vaccinations. Claiming side effects such as autism and other developmental disorders, some parents choose to delay or even exempt their children from vaccines. Although some disorders are thought to originate from the use of immunizations, refusal to vaccinate a child will put them Some serious, but highly rare, side effects have been cited for vaccine use in children. This includes:…show more content…
The first link between vaccines and autism came when “British doctor Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues published the first paper suggesting the MMR vaccine was linked to symptoms associated with autism” (Melvin). However, Dr. Wakefield “lost his medical license after an investigation revealed he falsified data” (Melvin). Even after the study was retracted, panics over autism vaccination caused parents to not give the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella vaccine to their children. Refusal to vaccinate children can lead to disease in the coming years. An example of the dangers of not vaccinating children showed in 2012. When Dr. Wakefield’s autism study came out in 1998, many of the parents of Port Talbot, Wales, resisted the MMR vaccine. Close to fifteen years later, a measles epidemic plagued the southwest region of Wales. This disease “infected 1,219 people in southwest Wales between November 2012 and early July, compared with 105 cases in all of Wales in 2011” (Whalen). More recently in the US, “The 117 U.S. cases (of measles) reported in the first half of 2013 alone are up from 54 in all of 2012” (Bednar, 44) Even diseases long thought to be part of the past come back

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