Every year from the months of October to April, I come across at least ten people who openly voice their opinions about the flu shot. The most common among these opinions I hear are, “if you get the flu shot that means you get the flu” and “don’t vaccines cause autism?”

If you’re anything like me, you are rolling your eyes out of your head just reading this. Although many of us know the correct and true information about vaccinations, many others have been basically brain-washed by the media and false information.

A few years ago a movement began declaring that there was a link between vaccines and autism. This was incessantly fueled by celebrities and the media, which caused many people to automatically believe what was being said was true without checking any of the facts. Nowadays so many people believe everything that they hear just because someone famous said it, and that is becoming increasingly more dangerous.

If those anti-vaxxers did some research, they would have found that the doctor that first produced a research paper about the link between autism and vaccination actually made everything up. His research paper was fraudulent. Since then, the CDC has conducted nine studies looking at this issue, and have concluded that those studies “have found no link between thimerosal-containing vaccines and ASD, as well as no link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and ASD in children” (CDC).

But take a look at the headlines the media produced:

US Scientists back autism link to MMR (Daily Telegraph)

Scientists fear MMR link to autism (Daily Mail)

US study supports claims of MMR link to autism (Times)

Once more studies came out denying the link, there was a serious lack of news headlines alerting the population that in fact there was no traceable link.

Due to this anti-vaccination movement, we are now seeing the emergence of diseases we rarely came across over the for last few years. For instance, in 2015 the measles outbreak at Disneyland. 147 people became ill in the United States, and it was reported that most were not immunized against measles, citing personal refusal reasons. Still not convinced that this is an issue? Let’s put it into perspective:

In 2014, 644 cases of measles across the nation were reported (CNN). This is far higher than the average of 89 cases annually between 2001 and 2013 (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). There is no denying that by more and more people refusing to vaccinate their children, we are seeing more and more diseases emerge than ever.

While I am not discrediting religious reasons to not vaccinate, I think it is important to put religion aside for a moment and really think about the pros of vaccination, and how by not vaccinating there are very serious risks.

This is where it becomes more than just a personal opinion.

While no vaccine is 100-percent effective, the CDC states that the measles vaccination has a high efficacy of 95-percent, and 97-percent with two doses. This still leaves one in 20 children unprotected. Children cannot receive vaccinations at birth, and the World Health Organization recommends giving the measles vaccination at nine months. This leaves millions of babies unprotected.

Children who are immunocompromised are not protected by their prior vaccinations and may suffer even more severe effects. For measles, the death rate in immunocompromised children is 50-percent.

Again I say, 50-percent.

Please do your research, talk to a doctor, feel free to voice your concerns, but do so to a licensed professional and with an open mind. Your family members, coworkers, friends and future generations are counting on you.

And if you really need one more reason, back in September Donald Trump claimed that vaccines are connected to autism, and we all know that everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie.