Final Project Unit 9 Essay

Submitted By Caitlyn-Chaney
Words: 1274
Pages: 6

Vaccinating Children Is Safe
Caitlyn Michelle Chaney
Kaplan University April 2015

Today it seems to be more common that parents are not vaccinating their children. Vaccinations are essential in our world today in helping children to be safe against diseases like the measles which if untreated can be deadly for our young. It remains imperative to discourage the fear in parents that vaccines are not safe. Some parents choose not to vaccinate their children. In other cases where parents believe that parents who choose not to vaccinate their children should be subject to prosecution. Everyone has the right to decide what is best for their children and families I just hope the information I provide will prove that no matter what vaccines are safe. You will get the pros and cons of vaccinating your children and then at the end you decide. Children should be vaccinated because, it is safer for the child, helps prevent diseases, and the risk of getting sick is higher than the risk of getting serious side effects.
Parents fear that their un-vaccinated children could infect other children who are too young to receive vaccines. There are no mandatory laws that forcefully say one must vaccinate their children, but if you choose them to attend public schooling they must be vaccinated. In public schools when you enroll your children they must be up to date on their shots, and during the year they send out reminders so they can stay up to date on their shots. In preventing diseases vaccines are 90-99% effective. They save on average 2.5 million children every year. Due to vaccinations 732,000 American children were saved from death, and 322 million childhood illnesses were prevented during 1994-2014.(ProCon.org(2015). Many parents feel as if the medical decisions pertaining to their children should be left up to the parents or caregivers. The government should not have a say so in what goes on when it comes to their health but, I also believe that parents should vaccinate their children and it should be enforced.
When you make the decision to not immunize your children you put your children and others at risk of getting a disease that can potentially be dangerous or deadly. Some people should not get vaccinated or should wait due to age or poor health. Some children with weak immune systems, a person that has had an allergic reaction to a vaccine should not get vaccinated or should wait. Each person is unique in their own way. So their body may react to a vaccine differently. Sometimes the vaccine you get you may still get the disease for the very vaccine that you got that was meant to protect you from. Most commonly vaccines will cause no side effect or a mild reaction like soreness where the shot was injected, of a fever. Rarely do people experience an allergic reaction. And in very rare cases do severe reactions happen. Just because, you hear everything about vaccines and the side effects, please don’t be discouraged about getting your children vaccinated. I believe it is the best thing to do. I sometimes myself do not agree with some of the vaccine shots, but if it can save my child from possibly death or illness I will do it.
The Center for disease Control, The American Academy of Family Physicians, and American Academy of Pediatrics will review the vaccine schedule for children each year based on changes in scientific data for the year. Based on their findings they will decide whether or not to change the vaccine schedule. The vaccine doses are scheduled based on two factors, it will be scheduled for when a child’s immune system will work the best, and when and balanced with the need to protect children at the earliest possible age. There are so many doses because, children need three to four doses to fully protect them, and need to be spaced out a certain amount to work to their full potential. The schedule is made for healthy children but, there are some factors to consider when getting your child vaccinated. If a