Parents not vaccinating their children has become a bigger problem over the last few years, to the point where previously "dead" diseases are returning. The reason these diseases were considered dead is that vaccines have been preventing them from occurring and spreading.

The newest fad is believing that vaccinations cause autism, which is an excuse some parents use to not vaccinate their children. What's most irritating about this idea isn't the fact that it couldn't be further from the truth, it's that parents would rather risk their child's LIFE by making them susceptible to diseases than risk their child being on the autism spectrum.

To help prove the point that vaccines do not cause autism, I strenuously tried to find a credible article of any kind that supported vaccinations causing autism.

I couldn't find a single one.

All of the medical journals and research abstracts say that vaccines do not cause autism. The "mom blog" type websites are the only ones that I found that said otherwise, obviously not credible.

The MMR (mumps-measles-rubella) vaccine is the main one that is under this new watch. Most people probably think, wow, I haven't heard of anyone having those diseases before. That's because everyone has been vaccinated against it, causing the diseases to almost die out.

All it takes is the one child who is not vaccinated to infect another and it spreads. The vaccination, like any other, is not 100% guaranteed protection. But, if every child is vaccinated, the likeliness of contamination is limited.

Many daycares have a range of ages of their students, so if an older child has not been vaccinated and manages to contract the disease, an infant would be extremely susceptible to it as they are not immediately vaccinated for all diseases. The vaccines are given over a period of the first few years of life, which is when the child will be extremely vulnerable to the diseases.

With every unvaccinated child, at least another twenty children are put in danger because of a parent's reckless and selfish decision made based on false information. The diseases that vaccines protect against are extremely contagious in close quarters, making it easy for one child to infect a whole class.

Many parents who are against vaccinating will state that it is their right, as it is their child and their opinion. But how is it OK to allow their "opinion" to put other children in grave danger?

What I was confused about, is how parents were able to enroll their children in school, since schools have very strict rules on the vaccinations children must have to attend. There are 19 states that allow children to be enrolled unvaccinated if parents claim it is against their personal beliefs, which covers religious and moral beliefs. The rest of the states, excluding California, West Virginia, Mississippi and the District of Columbia, allow only religious exemptions.

In some places, the percent of families "opting" to not vaccinate their children is climbing as high as 23%. That's nearly a fourth of all children who are not protected and are able to spread diseases rapidly.

So, if you're the parent of a healthy child, who has all of their vaccinations, but gets infected by a disease from another child that could have been prevented by a vaccine the parent refused, what would you do? Do the parents of the now sick child have a right to sue the other parent for endangering their child?