Recently I have noticed an influx on my Facebook wall on the debate of whether or not to vaccinate children. This seems to be a hard-fought "struggle" on which decision is the best and, to be honest, I don't really see what the "struggle" is all about. It should not be a question of whether or not to vaccinate your child, it should be a question of when to vaccinate your child. Vaccines do not kill, diseases kill.
One of the biggest claims about vaccines that I see is that they cause autism. All these facts show that the rise in autism has been correlated to the increase of vaccinations occurring in our world today. Well, as my high school statistics teacher loved to tell us, correlation does not equal causation. So, while I will not argue that the rate of diagnosed autism in the United States and other countries has been rising, I will say that this has nothing to do with vaccinations. The rise in autism rates itself probably has not increased by all that much, but the rate of diagnosis is rising because doctors have a better understanding of autism as well as better technology to help diagnose it.
Another popular argument about vaccines is, "well it's my kid so it's my choice." Here's the thing though: your kid will not be allowed to go to school unless they have been vaccinated or you can prove that you withheld vaccinations for a religious purpose. There is a reason for this rule. Once you decide not to vaccinate your kid it is no longer just your kid who is at risk of disease. It is every single man, woman, and child that your kid comes into contact with whether they have been vaccinated or not. While vaccines will work to protect those who have been vaccinated, they are not fool-proof, but then what is fool-proof in this world, and if your child contracts the measles or the mumps anyone they come into contact with could also become ill. So really, it isn't "your kid your choice" when you are putting the rest of the world in harm's way.
I get that parent's just want to keep their kids safe; it is a natural instinct. But, not vaccinating your kids because you think it will cause autism or that your child will suffer from other kinds of side effects is not a legitimate excuse. Your child might suffer from slight bruising and pain where the vaccine was injected and maybe be a little lethargic, but those seem much more manageable than suffering from a disease like polio where the side effect is a bit more extreme: death.
I understand that there are all these websites out there that show all these graphs and statistics about why vaccines are bad, but believing those is like diagnosing yourself with WebMD instead of going to a real doctor and deciding that you must have cancer because what else could it possibly be. For real, factual, scientific information about vaccines and their effects please visit official websites (that end in GOV or EDU) because not just anyone can make these websites. They have to be backed up by real, scientific facts.
