There are plenty of ridiculous opinions out there in the world. Some people believe that the royal family are secretly lizard people. Some people believe the moon landing was faked. Some people even believe that the earth is flat regardless of scientific evidence. But not many opinions are more ridiculous than the notion that vaccinations cause autism, or that this belief is an excuse not to vaccinate your kids anyway.
What I am about to say is less of an opinion, and more of a medical fact: vaccinate your kids for the love of all things holy. School is starting; vaccines are good for them.
In 2012, 19-month-old Ezekiel Stephen passed away due to a severe case of meningitis. His parents’ ignorance of the importance of vaccines resulted in his death, which could have easily been preventable.
You may have encountered some of these people in your daily life, or you may be one of them yourself. They’re known as “anti-vaxxers,” people who choose to forego vaccinating their children. These people can best be described as people who think that their unfounded opinions on the effectiveness and side-effects of vaccines are valid, and that they know better than medical doctors despite having little to no experience in the medical field. This has led to a resurgence in easily preventable infectious diseases that were once believed by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) to be eradicated.
According to the CDC, before routine vaccinations, diseases like whooping cough, measles, polio and rubella infected hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. Through routine vaccinations, rates of these diseases declined until there were very few cases. However, in 2014, the United States experienced a record number of measles cases, with 667 cases from 27 states reported to the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD). This is the greatest number of cases to be reported since measles elimination was documented in the United States in 2000. So far in 2018, there have been a total of nine outbreaks (defined as three or more linked cases) of the measles in the United States.
Of course, there are cases in which it is unsafe to vaccinate someone against a disease, whether they are too young or old to get the vaccination safely, or if their immune system is compromised. These people rely on what is called ‘herd immunity’ to keep them safe.
Herd immunity is a form of indirect protection from the spread of contagious diseases, and it occurs when a large percentage of a population has become immune (usually through vaccinations), which then provides a small measure of protection for those who may not be immune.
Many people who are against vaccinations for their children use this idea as support for their arguments, but herd immunity cannot help communities (or rather, sub-communities) that refuse to vaccinate. Even if you lived in a bubble where everyone else has received a vaccination for a particular disease does not necessarily mean you will be protected from contracting said disease.
While vaccines are helpful, they don’t always work perfectly, so a small fraction of people vaccinated may still be able to contact and transmit a disease. The risk of illness is then multiplied when there are more unvaccinated people within a community.
The CDC attributes the increase in measles cases to three things: the prevalence of the disease in countries outside the United States, travelers with the measles bringing it into the United States, and the disease’s ability to spread within unvaccinated communities. The majority of people who get measles are unvaccinated.
There is no legitimate, non-medical, non-religious reason to not vaccinate your children. It doesn’t matter what you believe or what lies you’ve read on Facebook, and I don’t care if you think you are special enough to be exempt from a vital medical practice, vaccinate your kids. For their sake, and for the rest of ours.