The Measles Vaccine: Should governments force parents to vaccinate their children?
Introduction
Before anyone had the option to get vaccinated, measles caused approximately 2.6 million deaths a year. After the introduction of the vaccine in 1963, reported cases of measles fell from hundreds of thousands, to tens of thousands per year. The measles is a highly infectious and potentially fatal disease, and it’s also one of the leading causes of death among young children. There is a safe and affordable vaccine to prevent getting infected by this illness called the MMR vaccine. It’sa combined vaccine to prevent the spread of measles, mumps, and rubella. A big issue that has been brought up with this vaccine, is the belief that it can cause autism. This idea came from a 1998 study which has now been discredited after the author was accused of misconduct and accepting 675,000 from a lawyer who was suing vaccine makers. There has been numerous studies since that study was published, that have concluded that autism is not linked to the measles vaccine.
This article from Global News mainly talks about policies regarding the measles vaccine and why parents do, or do not, get their children vaccinated. The two main reasons for parents to not get their children vaccinated is usually because they believe the vaccine will cause their child harm, or because they may just forget. Ontario and New Brunswick are the only two provinces in Canada that require children to be vaccinated to attend school except for personal, medical or religious reasons. Canada is doing well compared to other countries in terms of vaccination rates, with 95.2% of children under 24 months being vaccinated. This article clearly shows why getting children immunized should be made mandatory by the government.
The Daily Mail wrote this article to distinguish the pros and cons of the MMR vaccine. This article is well written because it equally shows both sides of the story. A significant con of the MMR vaccine is that it is reportedly linked to bowel disease and autism, causing parents to stop vaccinating their children. Studies have been shown that there is no link between the disease and the vaccine. One main solution was to not get the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine, but to get them done separately instead. The problem with this is that this requires much more care and time to make sure it is done properly. Not receiving the vaccine puts you at a higher risk of contracting a serious disease than if you do not.
This article published in the Toronto Sun has a clear and strong opinion as to why all children should be vaccinated. It says that throughout Canada the measles vaccine should be necessary. The opposition to the vaccination is coming from parents who have been ill-informed and believe what they like to believe rather than learning about the process and why it has been proven to be safe. Many parents do not realize getting their children vaccinated protects everyone else around them because of herd immunity. It is parents like these that are large contributors to the rare, yet very dangerous outbreaks.
This article primarily starts off with many MMR vaccine related deaths of children that have happened recently. It shows that nearly 5,100 vaccine-related deaths have been reported in the U.S between 1990 and August 2012 and the vast majority of those deaths were children under the age of three. Less than 10 percent of side effects and deaths due to this vaccination have not been reported so the statistics are much higher than any that have already been reported. This article by Dr. Mercola states that most people don’t know that there’s always some side effects and risks with any vaccine you take. It all depends on the way a body can handle a vaccine or any pharmaceutical product. Therefore, vaccines are never 100% safe or effective since you’re just taking a chance to see how your body can handle it. No one seems to question what happens when the vaccination is injected in to the body. Everyone has different immune systems, and no one knows for sure if one antibody is enough to provide lifelong immunity from the measles. This article proves their opposing view to the MMR vaccine by showing how taking the vaccine could be dangerous to the body, and there is no evidence to prove the vaccine is guaranteed to work.
Dr Wakefield posted this famous article in 1988 stating that children’s development of autism and stomach disorders are linked to the MMR vaccination. This article explains how eight out of twelve children developed autism and/or stomach/bowel problems. 5 of the children had early symptoms like rashes, fevers and in some cases, convulsions. This article reports that after the children were vaccinated, the development of the child slowed down significantly. This article primarily lists the problems that occurred to children post MMR immunization treatment and how they’re thought to be linked to the measles, mumps and rubella vaccination. Judging from the information provided in this article, we can tell that the author is against the vaccination since its thought to cause this severe brain damage.
Conclusion
The MMR vaccine is recommended for all children for the protection against measles, mumps, and rubella, three very serious and potentially life threatening diseases. The vaccine has been proven to be safe, contrary to popular belief during the 1980s, and is in fact much safer to receive than to put yourself at risk of contracting those severe illnesses. The MMR vaccine should be mandatory for children to attend school, unless for medical reasons that state it would otherwise be unsafe for them. Many people believe the law to make it mandatory should be as severe as bike helmet and seatbelt laws. If all children, except for those with medical issues, received the vaccine, it would significantly decrease the possibility of an outbreak to almost 0%. This is because of herd immunity which is the idea that if enough people are immune to the disease, it will have no one, or very few, to actually infect. Canada, compared to other countries such as Australia, have a high percentage of children that get vaccinated, with 95%. The families that do not allow their children to get vaccinated are most likely ill-informed. Therefore as a country, to make the vaccination of all children mandatory, everyone must receive clear information on how the vaccine works, why it’s safe, and how to get it.
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