"Parents don't want to hurt their children or their future, yet some parents don't vaccinate their children."
In 1974, 80% of children were vaccinated for whooping cough. Due to the fact that there were not many cases of the disease, parents started to believe the vaccine was unnecessary. By 1976, only 10% of Japanese children had the vaccination for the disease. Just three years later, in 1979, a whooping cough epidemic occurred and thirteen thousand people had the disease in Japan. Parents don't want to hurt their children or their future, yet some parents don't vaccinate their children. The United States should require parents to vaccinate their children for the sake of everybody.
Vaccines protect children. There can be no argument against the fact that vaccines hinder and prevent viruses from infecting humans. Vaccines have nearly eradicated polio on this earth according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and suppressed diseases such as measles, mumps, diphtheria, and meningitis. If parents want to protect their children, their only strategy is to vaccinate.
Skeptics say childhood vaccines can cause anaphylaxis, infant sudden death syndrome, and autism. They claim the risk of actually getting the disease is far less than the risk of being affected by side effects. They say government should not have the right to make health decisions for their children.
Now, there are certain risks associated with immunization, but they are far outweighed by the benefits. Perhaps it's not likely that a child will get tetanus today, but say we just stop vaccinating for tetanus and an epidemic occurs. Then the choice the parents made for their child when he was a baby threatens his life. In 2005 a NY Times article entitled "Eradicated, but Polio Returns to the U.S." reported that polio had returned to a small Amish community which refused vaccinations. A small eight year old girl was infected and will have polio for the rest of her life because her parents decided not to vaccinate her. On top of that, concerns about vaccine- associated sudden death and autism are unfounded. Studies about sudden death syndrome have found that, although the disease is most prevalent around the time babies are first being vaccinated, it is not clearly associated with the vaccines.