Why Not Vaccinating Your Children Will Affect All of Us

In a U.S News report, Back in 2011 a couple of parents made headlines by doing what they thought was a more "natural" route to immunizing their children, they gave their children used lollipops from strangers, saliva, and puss to deliberately infect them.

But where does the fear of vaccinating children come from and why are parents so skeptical of vaccines? Most of the fear surrounding vaccines, comes from the link to autism, which was a theory suggested by Andrew Wakefield after his paper called “Immunization Review” was retracted, it was later found that he distorted the data and acted unethically, he has now lost his medical license. However, he still gives talks about the "dangers" of vaccines, he gave one of his talks in Minnesota, back in 2017. In the same year, there were reports of a measles outbreak that sickened more than 40 children.

Another reason why people believe that there is a link between autism and the MMR vaccine is that at the age when children are supposed to get the MMR vaccine is the same age when diagnosable signs of autism can begin to appear.

Our current obsession with finding a link between autism and the MMR vaccine, even when it has been proved that there is no link, only wastes resources that could be used to study actual causes or treatments for autism.

The President of the Autism Science Foundation, Alison Singer has also stated that there are no studies that show there is a link.

However, parents are still reluctant to fully vaccinate their children, as an article from The New York Times shows that 93% of doctors reported that in any given month, they had been asked at least once to delay vaccines.

The idea of delaying vaccines originated from a guy named Dr. Robert Sears who wrote a book named “The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child" in which he came up with an "Alternative Vaccine Schedule" that can allow a child to vaccinate as late as 11 years old.

This theory is only that a theory, even Sears has stated that there is no science to back up his so-called vaccine schedule but that having this choice makes parents feel more comfortable with vaccinating their children.

However, his job is not supposed to be making parents comfortable but instead making sure kids don't die from not getting a vaccine. According to the CDC infants and young children who spread out shots are at risk of developing diseases during the time that shots are delayed. The World Health Organization stated that Measles alone was responsible for 134,200 deaths globally.

A decrease in herd immunity can have devastating consequences.

You can put in risk people who are not immune yet, for example, a kid who has had cancer and can’t get vaccinated because his immune system is too weak.

However by vaccinating your children you are protecting those who are more vulnerable like newborns and those who suffer from autoimmune diseases.

One of the most popular reasons why parents worry about vaccinating their children is due to the fear of an allergic reaction, but according to the journal of allergy, and clinical immunology the risk of anaphylaxis after vaccination in children and adults is 1.31 per million vaccine doses, meaning you are more likely to be killed by an asteroid (1 in 200,000 chances) or a bear (1 in 2.1 million chances) than you are to die from an allergic reaction to any vaccine.

Sofia, H-C.