February 21st, 2019
Written by - Rebecca Bogusz '22
Imagine for a minute that you have a beautiful child, you love them and only want to ensure their safety. Your child’s first 8 weeks of life roll around and now the big question comes into play: Should you or should you not have your kids vaccinated? Some believe that you absolutely should, while others believe that it's the last thing you should think of doing. Will you stand with the Pro-Vaxxers (people in favor of vaccines) or the Anti-Vaxxers (people that disagree with vaccines)? Regardless of where you stand, there’s a clear and safe answer. You need to vaccinate your kids.
People have a lot of concerns about vaccines but, luckily, they have all been debunked. These are some of the biggest problems people have with vaccines accompanied by the facts needed to dispel any concerns:
Firstly, one of the most common arguments against vaccines is that they contain “harmful” ingredients. While it’s true that vaccines contain ingredients such as thimerosal, aluminum, gelatin, human serum albumin, formaldehyde, antibiotics, egg proteins, and yeast proteins, their doses are harmless. Elements that are harmful to humans, things like aluminum and thimerosal, are only harmful if you have too much. The amount of “harmful” ingredients is infinitesimal when compared to the other less harmful ingredients. To put this in perspective, consider fruit. Do you like fruit? Do you like oranges, bananas? Well about 11,000 oranges or 400 bananas could kill you. It isn’t what’s in vaccines that’s harmful, it’s the amount, and there’s not a lot in vaccines
Secondly, parents like to exercise their right to not vaccinate their child because it’s their choice. While yes, you are the one that decides if your child is going to get vaccinated or not, your decision affects more people than you might think. By not vaccinating your child, not only do you risk your child becoming infected with a lethal disease, but you put those who cannot get vaccinated at risk. People who cannot get their vaccines, like young children, the elderly, or the immunocompromised, rely on others to help them keep safe from diseases. This concept is called “herd immunity,” an indirect form of protection from a disease. Herd immunity happens when most of the population is already immune to the disease. This means that vulnerable people, those who haven't been exposed to or can’t be vaccinated against the disease, are safer because the virus can't spread easily.
The last, and probably most common argument against vaccines is autism. Many people say that vaccines cause autism, along with other reactions, such as allergies. However there is no correlation between autism and vaccines. Children may have an allergic reaction to a vaccine, usually in the case of an egg allergy, hence why allergies are observed and precautions are taken before the vaccine is administered. There was an anti-vaccine paper published in the 1950s, which claimed that vaccines did in fact cause autism. However this study was later debunked by 25 international research papers that involved large population studies. Furthermore, 10 out of the 13 authors on the original paper have retreated their claims.
In short, every parent wants to protect their child and the best way to do just that is to vaccinate them. So, will you have your child vaccinated?
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