Are Childhood Vaccinations Good or Bad?

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Is Childhood Vaccination Good or Bad?
Introduction
Vaccination refers to administration of an antigenic compound (vaccine) into a person’s immune system for stimulation and development of adaptive immunity against pathogenic materials. The vaccine is essential in pre-build memory for the human body. Vaccines utilize natural defense mechanism of the body to develop immunity or resistance towards specific diseases and improves the health of both children and adults. It copies the body’s immune response against infections. It enables the immune system to destroy infections after detecting them; thereby, preventing reoccurrence of similar infection in the future before symptoms or complications occur. Vaccination protects individuals from dangerous infections. Immunization through vaccination is a safe, simple, and effective way of safeguarding children from being infected with certain diseases (Understanding Childhood Immunisation N.p.). A majority of these diseases can lead to fatal complications and sometimes even death of the host. The risk level of these infections is greater than the risk of immunizing children through the administration of vaccines either orally or through injections. Administering vaccines to create immunity is therefore still the most effective and safest way of preventing infections all over the world. It is approximated that vaccination saves an estimated three million lives every year.
Thesis
Childhood is the most critical stage of growth and development of human beings.

Parents are tasked with the obligation of doing whatever it takes to keep their children safe from dangerous infections. Proponents have noted that vaccination is a safe means of ensuring that children are protected from severe early childhood diseases. They consider vaccination as one of the greatest development of 20th century in the health sector. They’ve pointed out that diseases like diphtheria, smallpox, rubella, whooping cough and polio are now prevented through vaccination and as a result many lives of children have been saved. They argue that adverse response to vaccines are very rare. On the other hand, opponents of vaccination claim that immune system of children is strong enough to deal with most of these infections naturally and that injection of vaccines into the body of children can lead to adverse side effects, including paralysis, seizures, and even death. They have indicated that several research studies have proven that administering vaccines may trigger lifetime problems like attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), diabetes and autism leading to the question are vaccines good or bad?
In my opinion, I agree that vaccination has revolutionized healthcare. Despite the minimal undesirable consequences, vaccination has saved lives of many children across the world. The statistical comparison of positive and negative effects reveals even a greater magnitude of positive effects. The minimal instances of adverse reactions towards vaccines by children can be reduced over time. More research effort has been dedicated to creating a better healthcare all over the United States and other parts of the world. Natural infection risk outweighs immunization risk for each vaccine recommended during early childhood. Vaccination is good because of it, saves children’s life, it’s safe and effective, protects people we care about, saves time and money for families by later on in life, and protects future generations through eradication of diseases.
Body
Due to the improvement of medical science, children can now be protected against many diseases like never before. A majority of diseases that were once considered epidemic are almost extinct now due to the safety and effective nature of vaccines. One example of the greatest impact of vaccination is clearly evident in the eradication of polio in the United States. At some point in history, Polio was America’s most dreaded disease, leading to several infant deaths and paralysis all over the country, but currently, because of vaccination, reports on polio have been reduced close to zero (“Protect Your Children. Get All Their Vaccines On Time. The Vaccines Are Free. Call Your Local Public Health Unit Or Health Care Provider To Make An Appointment.” N.p.). The main advantage of vaccination is that it prevents infections. Statistics indicate that vaccination eliminates hospitalization of more than 8,500 children in Colorado, prevents 33, 000 deaths in the United States, and 2 to 3 million deaths all over the world.
The safety nature of administering vaccines has undoubtedly been proven. One of the main reasons why vaccines are good is because of the level of rigorous safety testing done before approval by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and are progressively monitored to ascertain safety. Institute of Medicine (IOM) has published the most comprehensive vaccination schedule that is timed to safeguard children from 14 pathogens by vaccinating them at a point in their life when they are most vulnerable to infections. Even though vaccination can at times lead to some discomfort such as tenderness or redness of the area of injection and pain, but the trauma of the infections vaccines prevent outweighs these minimal cases of discomfort. Severe side effects after vaccination like serious allergic reactions are very few. The benefits of preventing diseases through vaccination are greater than the side effects experienced by almost all vaccinated children (“Five Important Reasons To Vaccinate Your Child | Vaccines.Gov” N.p.).
‘Community immunity’ or ‘herd immunity’ is a concept used to explain how vaccine helps protect people who are not immunized in a community. When an individual is vaccinated, he or she helps protect those who have not been vaccinated by preventing the spread of diseases to other members of the community including the elderly, pregnant women, family members, people allergic to components of certain vaccines. A community with less than 90% of children vaccinated create an environment for the spread of diseases. Statistics indicate that approximately 3% of children have not been vaccinated though they are spread in specific areas. Clustering of unvaccinated people in certain communities reduces the effect of herd immunity for every person in that region (“Benefits Vs. Risks | Immunize For Good” N.p). Children living in America still contract diseases that can be evaded through immunization. Over the previous years, the country has witnessed a recurrence of whooping cough and measles. In 2010 America indicated 21,000 whooping cough cases and 26 deaths majorly in children below six months.
Prevention is better than cure; vaccination protects children from dreadful diseases that would be expensive to treat. The immunization schedule in one birth saves $13.6 billion in costs. Each dollar spent on immunization during childhood saves $ 18.40. In Colorado, Treatment costs of 538 children in hospitals for vaccine-preventable infections for a single year amounted to $ 29.2 million. Children who have illnesses that can be evaded through vaccination can be denied entrance into certain facilities like certain schools or day-care centers (“Benefits Vs. Risks | Immunize For Good” N.p.). Some of the diseases that can be prevented through vaccination may lead to prolonged disabilities and result into a financial toll due to medical bills and lost working time. On the other hand, getting vaccinated against these infections is a prudent investment and is covered by the insurance.
Immunization is another way of safeguarding future generations. Vaccines have eradicated several diseases that severely disabled people and even led to death a few years ago. Smallpox vaccination has resulted in the extinction of the disease all over the world. Children born a few generations in the future won’t have to be vaccinated against smallpox anymore because the disease won’t exist. Vaccination against rubella reduced the risk of transmission of the disease from pregnant women to unborn or new-born has been dramatically reduced, and congenital disabilities linked to the virus have decreased. If vaccination continues, future parents can rest assured that some of these deadly diseases will not last long enough to harm children in the future (“Five Important Reasons To Vaccinate Your Child | Vaccines.Gov” N.p). It is unfortunate that some babies are too young to receive complete vaccination due to allergies, weak immune systems from health conditions like leukemia among other reasons. Despite all these challenges, the ability to prevent traumatizing infections depicts how immunization is necessary for a healthy childhood.
Work Cited
“Benefits Vs. Risks | Immunize For Good”. Immunizeforgood.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 8 Oct. 2016.
“Five Important Reasons To Vaccinate Your Child | Vaccines.Gov”. Vaccines.gov. N.p., 2016. Web. 8 Oct. 2016.
“Protect Your Children. Get All Their Vaccines On Time. The Vaccines Are Free. Call Your Local Public Health Unit Or Health Care Provider To Make An Appointment.”. HealthLinkBC. N.p., 2016. Web. 8 Oct. 2016.
Understanding Childhood Immunisation. 1st ed. 2013. Web. 8 Oct. 2016.