There is a growing trend of many people that have taken the role of being an anti-vaxxer, or someone who is against vaccinations, or more particularly against vaccinating their children. This is extremely concerning to me because vaccinations are what have protected humans from deadly epidemics since the 18th century. Because of this, I believe that every child should be vaccinated. Although anti-vaxxers have many reasons why they choose to not vaccinate their children, the main reasons are: personal beliefs, safety concerns, religious reasons, and the desire for more information about vaccinations from their health care provider (Chephra McKee, paragraph 1). Many parents question the safety of vaccines on infants, especially giving a child multiple vaccinations at one time. Many people also believe that there could be short term to long term effects from vaccinating their infants such as autism, brain damage, and behavioral problems. Parents have the right to be concerned. Although vaccinations do far more good than bad.
Vaccines have saved millions of lives since they were invented in the 18th century. I am seeing more and more news outlets covering the topic of whether children should be vaccinated or not. Personally, I have been vaccinated, as have most kids of my generation. A major problem is that if the number of children that are not vaccinated continues to rise, we could be on the verge of another epidemic. Using smallpox as an example, before vaccinations were invented, the virus killed around 300 million people in the 20th century alone (Colette Flight, paragraph 1). To put that into perspective, 327.2 million people live in the United States today, so that would be around 91% of our population that would have died from smallpox (if the smallpox epidemic only occurred in the U.S.) in the 20th century. Americans under 50 today have never seen a viral outbreak. They haven’t lived through what it is like to be alive during these horrific epidemics. They weren’t alive during the raids in the middle of the night where they force vaccinated the healthy and removed the people infected with a disease to quarantine locations. Even babies and small children (Alexandra Marvar, paragraph 1). An example of this is the North Brother Island in New York, where police officers and doctors would send people infected with smallpox to the hospital on the island. People on this island were isolated from everyone else. They were forced away from their families onto a remote island because they had a disease that they couldn’t control if they got it or not. But now, people are choosing to not vaccinate their kids, with no fear of another epidemic happening. Approximately 25% of those infected with smallpox on North Brother Island would end up dying. The people that are claiming that vaccines are “dangerous” need to think about if the side effects are more threatening than the diseases the vaccinations are preventing.
In today’s society, where we do not see virus outbreaks of epidemic proportions. It can be easy to say that we should not vaccinate our children because of the four reasons stated earlier. The major problem is if we stop vaccinating, diseases that are currently considered eradicated can make a comeback. With the larger population that we have now, and the greater number of cities where diseases are more quickly spread, the higher the number of fatalities that would be seen. The deaths could be far above what was seen in the past. 
Schools are another area where illnesses and diseases are easily spread. Recently in New York, schools were forcing children who were not vaccinated to get vaccinated in order to attend school(Sharon Otterman, paragraph 2). It made sense for New York schools to do this because if you think about how easily the common cold is spread within a school, what would happen if a highly contagious disease, like smallpox, was being passed around schools? It is vital that schools all around the United States follow in New York’s footsteps. When you compare the common cold that is constantly spread throughout schools to the possibility of the spread of a highly contagious disease, like smallpox, in all schools all around America. What would be there to prevent the disease from spreading if the students are not vaccinated? We want to keep our world healthy and keep the past epidemics in the past. The only way to do that is by vaccinating children.
Vaccinations have saved millions of lives, and people are starting to doubt them because of their fears that vaccines are harming their children. Most people alive today have never seen a polio or smallpox epidemic. Otherwise, they would be able to put into perspective the very small number of children that are harmed by vaccines versus the number that have been saved. In the conclusion of her study Elaine Miller said, “The evidence for the safety and the effectiveness of vaccines routinely given to children and adults in the United States is overwhelmingly favorable.” (Elaine Miller, conclusion). The anti-vaxxers are right to question things like; What ingredients are put in vaccines? What age should children be vaccinated at? Should we combine vaccines or spread them out? These problems should be researched and if possible, answers found. But until we have more answers, there is no doubt that vaccinations have saved millions of more lives than they have harmed, and young children should continue to be vaccinated.
Works cited
“BBC – History – British History In Depth: Smallpox: Eradicating The Scourge.” Bbc.co.uk. N. p., 2019.
Web. 16 Oct. 2019.
Miller, Elaine R. et al. “Deaths Following Vaccination: What Does The Evidence Show?.” Vaccine 33.29 (2015): 3288-3292. Web. 17 Oct. 2019.
McKee, Chephra, and Kristin Bohannon. “Exploring The Reasons Behind Parental Refusal Of Vaccines.” The Journal of Pediatric Pharmacology and Therapeutics 21.2 (2016): 104-109. Web. 16 Oct. 2019.
“Get Vaccinated Or Leave School: 26,000 N.Y. Children Face A Choice.” Nytimes.com. N. p., 2019. Web. 16 Oct. 2019.
