Download Research Paper Example 2 - Flushing Community Schools

Student 1
Suzie Student
Ms. Armstrong
English 10
1 May 2015
Anti-Vaccination and Its Negative Effects on Society
In a first world country, vaccines are often taken for granted. Some have even started
their own personal crusade against vaccines, saying that they will harm their children rather than
protect them from disease. However, vaccines are an important and useful resource for society
because they protect those vaccinated from disease, they very rarely cause serious negative
effects on their recipients, and vaccination promotes herd immunity which can protect those
unable to be vaccinated for other reasons.
Firstly, vaccines are made to protect people from disease. Due to the emergence of the
anti-vaccination movement, once rare diseases have returned to haunt children (Kollipara).
Polio was, in the past, a dangerous childhood disease. It has now been eliminated in the United
States, and is in the process of being completely eradicated across the globe. This has been
unsuccessful so far, though, due to concerns about vaccines (Gritz). Polio could soon follow the
path to worldwide eradication in the same way as smallpox did years ago if people could just
accept the vaccines. People would rather submit their children to the horrors of diseases that
should have been eliminated long ago than to the safety and relative certainty of the vaccinations.
Second, vaccines promote wellbeing, which would not be obtainable if they often had
serious side effects. Any side effects from vaccines are minimal and temporary. Before vaccines
Student 2
and other medicines can be used by the American public, they must be approved by the FDA
which subjects the vaccine in question to tests to determine whether it is safe to be used by the
public (Product Approval). Some vaccines can produce mild, temporary side effects including
redness, swelling, or tenderness at injection site, tiredness, headache, and mild fever (Side
Effects/Risks). These risks, though, are definitely favorable to catching a serious infectious
disease. Contrary to certain beliefs, the MMR vaccine does not cause autism or any other brain
defects. Ingredients that may have caused this fear have been removed from vaccines as a
precaution (Kollipara).
In addition, vaccination helps those people unable to be vaccinated to keep from catching
diseases. Herd immunity works when 95 percent of a population has been vaccinated so that the
disease becomes rare enough that there is no one spreading the disease (Ioffe). This helps to
protect those who cannot be vaccinated due to other conditions such as pregnancy, infancy, or
allergies to the contents of these vaccines (Vaccines & Immunizations). When people who are
able to receive vaccines remain unvaccinated, it jeopardizes more lives than just their own; it
presents a danger to the whole community.
In the end, people fear that vaccines are dangerous, but all of them are verifiably safe as
determined by the FDA. Side effects are rare and favorable to contracting the disease. Some
people would argue that the body’s natural defenses will protect from disease (Perkins), but
vaccines are typically made as protection for diseases that do kill or cause very serious damage.
People of the modern day are unaware of the damage that these diseases did cause when they
were unrestrained by vaccines. In 1952, there were 60,000 cases of polio in the United States,
35% of which paralyzed the victim and 5% caused death (Gritz). The human body obviously
cannot handle this virus effectively on its own.
Student 3
In conclusion, vaccines solve many of the challenges presented in the lives of modern
day people because they help to prevent those receiving vaccines from disease, they rarely cause
problems more serious than those of the disease they protect against, and when more people are
vaccinated, it protects those who cannot be vaccinated. Humans will be much better off when
constantly using and developing vaccines, than when avoiding their promise of health.
Student 4
Works Cited
Gritz, Jennie Rothenberg. "The Anti-Vaccine Movement Is Forgetting the Polio Epidemic." The
Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 28 Oct. 2014. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.
Ioffe, Julia. "I've Got Whooping Cough. Thanks a Lot, Jenny McCarthy." New Republic. Web.
27 Apr. 2015.
Kollipara, Puneet. "How the Anti-vaccine Movement Is Endangering Lives." Washington Post.
The Washington Post, 5 May 2014. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.
Perkins, Kurt. "Dr. Kurt: Why I Will Never Choose to Vaccinate My Own Son and Any Future
Kids My Wife and I Have." Health Impact News. 12 June 2013. Web. 30 Apr. 2015.
"Vaccine Product Approval Process." Vaccine Product Approval Process. 18 June 2009. Web.
28 Apr. 2015.
"Vaccine Side Effects/Risks." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, 08 Mar. 2012. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.
"Vaccines & Immunizations." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, 16 Apr. 2015. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.