In recent years, it has become a trend to not vaccinate children for many groups of parents. On social media, the memes of unvaccinated kids has made its rounds on Twitter and Instagram. As well, there’s many videos like middle ground where both anti-vaccinators and vaccinators get to put out their argument. Why are vaccines now being heavily questioned?
For the past few years there seems to be more question raised about the safety of vaccines and if it’s linked to developmental disorders such as autism. The argument of vaccines being linked to autism has been disproven many times, but still seems to be the center of anti-vaxxers’ argument. It’s offensive and sad to hear that the prospect of having an autistic, healthy child is far worse to anti-vaxxers than their toddler getting polio or measles, which could result in their death.
Recently, there has been an outbreak of diseases such as measles and polio, which are preventable diseases that were officially eliminated in the United States in 2000. But now we are seeing so many cases for a disease that we thought we would never have to see again. In a first world country, where we are lucky enough to have the health care to prevent us from these deadly disease, we are seeing an influx of measles and doctors are astonished.
In New York, measles have been on the rise with 285 confirmed cases since Fall 2018. The state declared a public health emergency, requiring Brooklyn residents to get the measles vaccines or face up to $1,000 in fines.
In the country, there has been 465 cases of measles with 78 new cases last week alone. In the Chico-Sacramento area there has been 6 confirmed measle cases. This is one too many cases for a disease that was supposedly eliminated.
Measles is a deadly disease that can easily be passed on as well as being airborne. Many who cannot be vaccinated due to other health reasons or age, rely on everyone else to be vaccinated, known as herd-immunization. When groups of people decide not to get vaccinated because of personal reasons, they put not only themselves in danger, but others as well.
Yes, vaccines are not for everyone—many people do get infections or allergies due to vaccines, but that is no reason for the rest of America to be unvaccinated. Those who do have bad reactions rely on herd immunization to be healthy. It’s unfair to put the health of others at risk as well as our own selves and our children.
Vaccinations are proven to work and given for a reason. It’s also unfair to discredit the studies and work of doctors who have attended medical school for close to a decade after reading one article that has many times been disproven. Though essential oils are great, they will not protect you from measles, or polio, or hepatitis.