Argumentative Research Essay: Should vaccinations be mandatory for children?

Should Vaccinations Children be Mandatory?
Laura Nwaigbo
Keiser University
Research Writing ENC4313G2
Should Vaccinations Children be Mandatory?
Vaccines work by preventing diseases. Vaccines reduce your child’s risk of infection by working with his/her body’s natural defenses to help safely develop immunity to disease. Making sure vaccines are safe is a priority for CDC. CDC and FDA take many steps to make sure vaccines are very safe both before and after the public starts using the vaccine. Vaccines can prevent infectious diseases that once killed or harmed many infants, children, and adults. Without vaccines, your child is at risk for getting seriously ill and suffering pain, disability, and even death from diseases like measles and whooping cough. Diseases that used to be common in this country and around the world, including polio, measles, diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), rubella (German measles), mumps, tetanus, rotavirus and Haemophilus influenzae Type B (HIB) are prevented by vaccination. Vaccines contain the same antigens (or parts of antigens) that cause diseases. A child can gets protection without having to get sick. Through vaccination, children can develop immunity without suffering from the actual diseases that vaccines prevent. Despite the various disadvantages that would arise, vaccinations should be made mandatory for children. Therefore, vaccinations in children should be mandatory because they prevent diseases, their safety is a priority for public health organizations, and are cost-effective.
Vaccinations in children should be mandatory because they prevent deadly diseases such as polio, measles, and smallpox. Through vaccinations, immunity can be induced in the bodies of children to prevent them from contracting diseases. According to Pickering and Orenstein (2015), for most diseases in children preventable by vaccination, their incidences have been reduced by more than 99% (p.1242). Vaccination in children has helped in the eradication of smallpox while polio is close to being fully eradicated. Besides, diseases like rubella and measles are no longer endemic. Were it not for vaccinations, millions of people could have died from these diseases. Vaccinations create herd immunity that protects vulnerable members of the population. For example, for measles, herd immunity requires between 92% and 94% vaccination coverage (Pierik, 2018, p.387). This means that vulnerable members of the society such as infants and those with other medical conditions are protected. Those in opposition to vaccinations underestimate the dangers of diseases and argue that outbreaks of the disease vaccinated against are limited. However, they forget that outbreaks have not occured because of high vaccination rates in the country (Pierik, 2018, p.386). Given the effectiveness of vaccines in preventing diseases and protecting the vulnerable members of society, they should be mandatory in children.
Beyond disease prevention, the safety of the vaccines has been prioritized by public health organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). These organizations serve the primary role of protecting the health of the public and their recomm...