8,219 people each day. 342 every hour. 6 every minute. Every year approximately 3 million people in the United States die due to vaccine preventable diseases according to The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's’ “Global Immunization”. Most of this which could have been prevented if there was a law put in place that every child is required to be vaccinated, with basic vaccines, from birth until age eighteen.
According to Webster's Dictionary, vaccines are “a substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies and provide immunity against one or several diseases.” Many of the vaccines that people get are received in their first eighteen years of life which protects their developing immune systems against damaging, and potentially deadly, diseases. Parents sign waivers at the doctor's office that their children can receive the vaccine, but some parents refuse to get their children vaccinated for many reasons including religious beliefs, health concerns or mistrust in the production of the vaccine. These unvaccinated students then are allowed to attend public schools, putting all of the other students at risk for disease.
A law should be put in place so that all students who attend a public school must be immunized, with no exceptions or exemptions.
50 million students attend public schools everyday in grades kindergarten through twelfth grade across the United States. Of these 50 million, “14% have not received vaccinations such as Measles, Mumps, Polio and Chickenpox,” according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “Vaccine Preventable Diseases.”. This totals 7 million students who are putting others at risk to contract these diseases.
Hannah Gorman, an Amherst College graduate who conducted her senior thesis on vaccines, recognizes the risk that these children are putting on others by not receiving vaccinations. “Some children are unable to be vaccinated due to immunodeficiency disorders and other medical conditions. Infants are not vaccinated for several months after birth. These children are put at risk by another parent’s choice not to vaccinate their child,” says Gorman.
Many parents argue that they will not get their children vaccinated because they believe that there are many risks to the medications.
These risks are very small compared though to those that could occur if children do not get vaccinated. Vaccinations are meant to protect those who cannot protect themselves.
There are about 30 vaccines that students in New Hampshire must receive before they attend a public school according to the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services “School Immunization Requirements 2015/16”, and although they are “required”, there are still many families that are able to receive exemptions.
Some schools in New York have realized the danger of having unvaccinated students attend school and has taken it to the extent that they will not allow students into the school if they have not received all required immunizations. Parents and parent organizations did not like this decision and took it to federal court. The Supreme Court Judge Kuntz stated in his ruling that “it is strongly suggested that religious objectors are not constitutionally exempt from vaccinations,” as explained by The New York Times’ article “Judge Upholds Policy Barring Unvaccinated Students During Illness.”
In my opinion, the court made the correct decision because vaccinations are a very important role in maintain public health.
A vaccine policy in the United States would also create a society that has “herd immunization,” which is when so many people in a community are vaccinated, that the possibility of an outbreak is virtually impossible. This even protects those who are physically unable to get vaccinated such as newborns.
“Near Elimination of Varicella Deaths in the US After Implementation of Vaccine Program,” a 2011 study found on AAP Gateway showed that after the vaccine program for Varicella (chicken pox) was put in place, the number of newborns dying from the disease decreased substantially. Twenty years after the Varicella vaccine became mandatory, there were no newborns who died from the disease that year. This shows that with more of the older children getting vaccinated, it was actually reducing the number of deaths of the disease in general and that widespread vaccination prevents outbreaks.
Parents who refuse to get their child vaccinated are not only putting their child at risk for contracting harmful diseases, but also putting those around them in danger. If the government put a law in place that all children from newborns to age eighteen must be vaccinated, it is possible that we could live in a world where these diseases were totally eradicated.
