With schools across the country starting back up soon, the inevitable vaccination conversation will come back all over social media and in person. Kids starting school at certain levels are required to have certain vaccinations to protect against certain diseases, including the polio vaccine, diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTaP) vaccine, the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR) and varicella, or chickenpox, vaccine.
I've heard all the anti-vax arguments, all the way from "vaccines cause autism" to "the MMR vaccine has mercury in it." People complain about vaccines and take pride in the fact that their kids aren't vaccinated. And, to some, that's their own business; however, when "your business" and your decisions about your children begin to affect the lives of other people and other people's children, then it's a problem.
When your child, who is old enough to have gotten the MMR vaccine and never did, infects a two-week old baby who then dies, it becomes a problem. When your decision not to vaccinate leads to the return of previously eradicated diseases, it's a problem. When you are too concerned with the fact that "vaccines may cause autism", even though that was a point brought up in a single study that has been disproven by ten times that amount, it becomes a problem.
Some people may not be happy to hear this, but if you choose not to vaccinate your children then you are selfish.
Let me pull it back in for a second. I am not a parent, I am just a random girl on the internet who is bringing other people's decisions into question. This will not sit well with many of the people who read this, and that's fine.
My lowly article here will not change any minds about vaccinating. Statistics can, and has, changed minds about vaccinations. Vaccines prevent between 2-3 million deaths per year. In 2016, about 86% of children under the age of one were administered the DTaP vaccine. Meningitis A, an epidemic, is nearly eradicated in Africa... thanks to vaccines. The global measles mortality rate has decreased 79% since the introduction of the MMR vaccine.
And these are just some of the stats that I was able to get from a quick Google search. Imagine what type of intensive research is available out there (Spoiler alert: I wrote a paper about vaccinations, there is a plethora of information out there).
With the beginning of the anti-vax movement has come to return of several diseases that were once close to eradicated in the United States. Measles remains the leading cause of vaccine-preventable infant mortality, meaning that thousands of infant lives are lost every year to a disease that could be prevented.
From 2000-2013, 15.6 million deaths were prevented by vaccines, based on prior figures. But this article isn't about throwing numbers at people or about belittling anti-vaxxers. This article is just a singe piece of media, a cry from an anonymous girl on the internet. Vaccinate your damn kids. They deserve that much. They deserve to live.
