Blog 10: Pros and Cons About My Research Topic

The question I’m researching is whether or not any vaccines should be required for children. Some of the pro arguments for this issue state that any personal, moral, philosophical, or religious views are not grounds enough to give parents the right to risk the public health. Supporters of required vaccination also claim that vaccines are extremely effective at eradicating disease and preventing serious illness and death. Researchers at the Pediatric Academic Society have found that childhood vaccinations in the United States alone prevent approximately 10.5 million cases of infectious illness and 33,000 deaths a year. Vaccinations against hepatitis B and HPV (human papilloma virus) are considered extremely important because they help children avoid serious outcomes such as cirrhosis of the liver, cancer, and death. Those individuals for childhood vaccinations also feel that the FDA-approved vaccine against the swine flu should be required, as infants and children are more susceptible to the disease. They also claim that many studies refute the notion that vaccines cause autism, that many people who are vaccinated can still get sick when exposed to others who are infected, and that vaccines produce significant economic benefits for our society.

Those against requiring childhood vaccines argue that doing so would violate their 1^st Amendment rights to exercise religion freely. The opposed also claim that vaccines are unnecessary because the threat of death from the disease is so small, attributing the significant decrease in cases of whooping cough, measles, and scarlet fever in the early 19^th century to improved personal and food hygiene, effective sewage disposal, better nutrition, and water purification. They maintain that vaccines can cause serious reactions, trigger auto-immune disorders, brain inflammation, and clogging or disruption of the lymphatic system. To them, these risks are not worth taking, especially since many of the diseases they are meant to prevent are not always life threatening. Some opponents of requiring children to be given vaccines also believe that these vaccines are promoted first and foremost to generate profits and donations for manufacturers and organizations that endorse the vaccines.