It’s vaccination season again! All school students and parents know it is time to re-up on this year’s influenza shot and boosters of your vaccines. Now we all know how hard it is to get an appointment because of these vaccines, but the real problem lies in how many people are ACTUALLY vaccinating their children. Articles after articles, experiments after experiments, people have found many excuses to not vaccinate their children. Yes, I mean excuses. Ten minutes of research on google can easily debunk all of these myths people use for not getting their children this year’s flu shot or their Hepatitis B vaccine.

    Now, let’s not be mistaken, there are many valid reasons for why some children are not vaccinated. Some diseases prevent children from getting vaccinated and some children are actually allergic to vaccines. Yet, many parents do not vaccinate their children because they believe that some vaccines give their children autism. This belief came from a false study that was done by a doctor (who actually is not a doctor anymore) who made this claim based on an experiment he did at a child’s birthday party. He stated the MMR vaccine (measles, mumps, and rubella) caused a spike in children born with autism. Even after he admitted that his information was false and his medical license was revoked, people continued to correlate vaccinations with childhood diseases.

    After doing hours of research in Science Symposium and presenting this research in front of doctors, a clear pattern was found in the reduction of vaccinations and the rise of measles in the US. This is the second highest case of measles since the outbreak in Philadelphia from the Tabernacle church case. What some parents do not take into consideration is when you do not vaccinate your children, you are actually putting other kids at risk as well. Many schools require students to be vaccinated or they cannot attend and one unvaccinated child puts a whole classroom at risk even if the other kids are vaccinated or not.

Parents do have the right to do whatever they please with their children and if you strongly feel that vaccinations are not safe, then so be it. Through many cases and studies, it is still expressed that one should vaccinate their children. If you are the lucky (or unlucky) child who has to get ready for those shots, swallow and cough before the needle goes in and cough once again right when it’s put in. Thank me later.

Author: Nickey Sawbo