The debate over whether to get vaccinated or not, especially when making the decision for children, has been a sensitive and aggressive one many years. Lots of different aspects tie into both sides of the argument, with medical research, religion, and other facets all mixing together to make a conclusive ‘decision’ very hard.

What is a vaccination?

A vaccination is the process of receiving a vaccine. A vaccine is a substance composed of small amounts of weakened or terminated germs such as viruses, toxins, and bacteria that all normally cause disease. The substance is usually injected intramuscularly, orally, or through a nasal spray. Because the dose is so small, the body does not get overtaken by it, rather it locates the germ and destroys it. This ‘practice’ for the immune system then allows the body to be able to locate and destroy the same type of germs in case they come back in the future. This act of strengthening the body’s immune system against these diseases is also known as immunization, which is commonly used synonymously with vaccination. Vaccines have been known to help prevent the onset of terrible diseases and further so, prevent the spread of them from one person to another. A few examples of diseases that have been prevented and some almost completely removed by the use of vaccines are mumps, measles, whooping cough, polio, smallpox, rubella, and tetanus. To read more about the basics of vaccines, please visit here.

Brief history of vaccine discovery:

Painting of Doctor Jenner preforming the first-ever vaccination in 1796.

The first vaccination occurred in 1796, England, by a doctor named Edward Jenner. He was a naturalist and generalist, who had lots of experience studying animals, and in tandem, taking care of people as a physician. As the Enlightenment period swept over the nation, Jenner had believed in observational and experimental practices. He followed the scientific method and ultimately held one of the first clinical trials. This trial consisted of taking the pus from a lesion caused by cowpox from a milkmaid’s hand. Then, Jenner vaccinated a young boy, James Phipps, with it. After about half a month, Jenner variolated (which basically means re-infect via contact with an open scratch) the boy with smallpox, but he ended up unaffected. After that moment and many trials afterward, he published a volume titled Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccine, which set the platform for all the other vaccinations to come afterward. To learn about the development of more vaccines, visit this site.

Anti-vaccine?

Image of Andrew Wakefield on television after being stripped of his medical license.

While vaccination may seem like a completely valid, safe, and successful medical practice, some people do not feel the same way. One big reason many refuse to be vaccinated is due to their religious beliefs. If you would like to look at some of the arguments anti-vaxxers make when defending their Christian values, visit this page. In summary, though, quite a few followers of the bible state the holy book does not approve of the act. Some of it has to do with ‘your body being a temple’, some has to do with the animal contents that is part of many of the vaccines. Regardless, religious belief holds a large part in the reasoning against vaccination. Aside from this, in 1998 a doctor named Andrew Wakefield held a study with only 12 participants, and came to the conclusion MMR vaccine (fights measles, mumps, and rubella) links to development of autism in children. He published this in The Lancet medical journal, but shortly after doubts were made and reevaluations took place, the study was retracted. Not only that, but Wakefield was held guilty of falsifying data, unethical practice, and got his medical license taken away from him. For more detail on what is considered to be one of the greatest medical frauds in history, visit this article website. This case caused a huge problem because parents were not vaccinating their children, leading to outbreaks of the horrible diseases that were supposed to be prevented. Even though the vaccine to autism correlation has been debunked, many uneducated citizens, and more importantly parents, are still adamant about avoiding immunization. A good point Dr. Daniel A. Salmon from John Hopkins explains in this interview with Scholastic.com that while serious diseases such as measles and smallpox are now nearly eradicated due to vaccination, this ironically leads parents left only to fear the vaccines themselves. Now putting all this into legal play, many states make it very easy for children to be enrolled in public school without the required vaccination forms being filled out.

Where the issue lies:

Helpful pictogram explaining herd immunity.

This is where the debate becomes a lot more personal and intense. Many religious and skeptical anti-vaxxers argue that it is nobody’s business whether their child is vaccinated or not. But, that isn’t completely the case. According to this PBS.com site, herd immunity is an important factor when protecting people from obtaining terrible diseases. The concept is that by immunizing a certain number of people in a population, those who are unable to be vaccinated are more prone to safety. Children who are organ transplant recipients, have immunodeficiency problems (like cancer and HIV), and who are too young to receive a certain type of vaccine are not able to get vaccinated and are at risk for contracting illness. By immunizing the majority who are able to receive the vaccine, the chance of a non-vaccinated child getting infected from someone who is sick becomes lower, because the chance of the majority being sick is ultimately lower. There is a great mathematical component to herd immunity which has to do with thresholds pertaining to the number of people that need to vaccinated in a population for the sector to be considered safe. But, those can be read about in the site mentioned above. Overall, parents with at risk children who live in a certain community want that community to reach the threshold so that their child is safe. So, when that threshold is compromised by even just a few anti-vaxxers, the entire safety of their child is compromised as well. Circumstances where diseases such as measles have had outbreaks in states across the country due to just one unvaccinated child occur more often than you may think. The issue is very apparent and affects people all over. To learn more about this issue, read this story written by a nurse who tells the frightening story of how her own family was exposed to illness.

Overall, the debate over vaccination has been an ongoing one for many years now. This difficulty lies in the fact that religion is involved, but so is the safety of a humongous priority in our world — children. Hopefully a conclusion that benefits the most people is made sooner than later, but in the time being, stay safe and get educated.