Famine Essay, Research Paper

Vaccine Essay

Children are one of God s best gifts to people, as watching their children grow is one of the best pleasures people enjoy during their life course. For this reason, parents must take good care of their children during their early years, as they are vulnerable to many diseases due to their weak immunity. There are many diseases, infecting children, that may lead to death such as the polio disease. Scientists found a solution to this problem, by injecting a tiny sample of the virus into the child s blood, in order to stimulate the immune system to fight the disease if the child catches it, which is known as vaccination. However, McTaggart contradicts this by pointing out that vaccination problems far outweigh those of going unvaccinated (1). Therefore, there are many questions concerning the safety and effectiveness of vaccines as opposed to those of going unvaccinated.

Vaccines can cause complications that are more harmful than those of going unvaccinated or even the disease itself. Professor of epidemiology at the university of Washington, Dr Russell Alexander, points out that the panel set up to determine the risks of vaccination did not compare it to those of being unvaccinated (qtd in Miller 9). This means that the research done by the panel, which proved vaccination risks to be too small to count , contains many weaknesses. McTaggart links the appearance of learning disabilities, autism, and hyperactivity to the beginning of the mass vaccination programs (1). Thus, vaccination is directly related to many diseases, in which some are still unknown. McTaggart adds that the mumps vaccine has proved to be a direct cause of seizures, meningitis, deafness, and encephalitis. (6). These are extremely dangerous and unrecoverable diseases. Dr J Anthony Morris, an immunization specialist formerly of America s National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration says that “In several of the studies, the measles vaccine strain has been recovered from the spines of the victims, showing conclusively that the vaccine caused the encephalitis” (qtd in McTaggart. 5). Thus, this doctor as a medical authority relates the measles vaccine to a deadly disease such as the encephalitis. On the other hand, the risks of catching the disease for unvaccinated children are similar, if not less, to the risks of developing harmful complications due to the vaccine. Therefore, vaccination is more risky to your child than going unvaccinated.

In addition to the safety problems, vaccines have also proven to be ineffective among many children. McTaggart reasons the current debate about vaccination to the fact that measles portion of the triple shot is not working (2). This means that children who receive the triple shot, called MMR, which is a short hand for measles, mumps, and rubella, are not completely immune against these diseases. McTaggart adds that the cases of measles are increasing exponentially during the last decade (2). Similar to measles, McTaggart states that rubella s portion of the vaccine showed failure in preventing this fatal disease (3). Therefore, the fact that vaccination is not effective is common in many diseases. According to the Centers for Disease Control Morbidity and Mortality in 1985, about 80 percent of measles cases occurring to children in America were in vaccinated ones who were vaccinated in an appropriate age (McTaggart 3). Therefore, generally vaccination is ineffective against most diseases.

Vaccine supporters defend vaccines claiming that it caused a reduction in the number of disease cases among children upon its invention. However, this claim is wrong, as it lacks an important side, which is was the number of disease among children increasing or decreasing before the vaccine invention. By reviewing the child disease history before vaccine’s invention, we see that the number of child-disease cases was already decreasing before the invention of vaccines. Nowadays, the number of child-disease cases are beginning to grow again due to the increasing use of vaccines. Vaccines are not the reason for the decreasing number of child-disease cases, as it is steadily increasing nowadays.

Therefore, vaccinated children face more problems than the unvaccinated ones. Vaccination is hazardous to the child s health and could cause even greater complications than those of the disease itself. In addition to safety problems, vaccination has proved to be ineffective against many diseases such as measles and rubella to name some of them. Besides, Castro infers in “House and Home” magazine, that childhood illness gives the child s immunity a chance to develop stronger and more resistant to diseases (24). Thus, it is a kind of training for the immune system of the child against diseases. Therefore, vaccination should be abolished, for it is not safe nor it is effective against many diseases.

Bibliography

Castro, Miranda. “Measles, Mumps, Chickenpox, The natural way to nurse them.”. House and Home Apr. 1994:

24-25.

McTaggart, Lynne. The WDDTY vaccination handbook.

Miller, Susan Katz. “Vaccination risks are too small to count . “. New Scientist 25 Sept. 1993: 9.