In the article titled "Measles Put Congress on Spot," Jeremy Diamond discusses the controversy that many politicians are talking about, should children be required to be vaccinated? Vaccinations are currently a state law, and all 50 states have varying vaccine requirements. People are arguing that the federal government should mandate certain vaccines that children should be required to receive. Others argue that vaccines can lead to down syndrome and should be a decision made by parents. However, four medical experts explained that there is no medical evidence linking vaccines to down syndrome. This controversy has come about following the spread of measles from Disney Land to 14 states, including South Dakota, even though measles was thought to be eradicated in the US.
This issue may lead to federal control over some vaccines for children if measles continues to spread. It may also lead to more parents vaccinating their children.
Diseases cannot be kept within state boundaries, so I think that all states or the federal government should require children to receive certain vaccines. I thought this issue was best summed up by Sen. Michael Rubio: "If enough people are not vaccinated you put at risk infants that are three months of age or younger that have not been vaccinated, and you put at risk immune-suppressed children that are not able to get those vaccinations," Rubio said. "So absolutely, all children in America [should be vaccinated]." Vaccinations are not just about the health of those who do or don't receive the vaccination, it is about all of the other people around the person who become exposed to the disease.
This subject is another issue which I can really rant about. First off, vaccinations DO NOT cause down syndrome and/or autism. The scientific paper that began this ludicrous trend did not use correct scientific methods and was rejected by the scientific community, yet this myth lingers. Some supporters of the anti-vaccine movement state that some children only showed signs of autism/downs until after vaccinations were given to the child. This is an abuse of one scientific principle that most people in society tend to forget, the fact that correlation DOES NOT necessarily mean causation. Say a man falls off a short flight of stairs and hits his head. The emergency response people arrive and find him dead. They see nothing else wrong with him, so they conclude that he died of blunt force trauma. No one notices the cyanide capsule in his stomach.
ReplyDeleteSome people claim that they don't want all those "chemicals" going into children. NEWSFLASH, everything is a chemical! Water is a chemical, air is made of chemicals, food is composed of chemicals. We probably shouldn't give children those chemicals either, just to keep them safe. They also cite individual ingredients in vaccinations as harmful which they are alone, but together they serve a beneficial purpose.
Another aspect about this issue is that some people's religious beliefs do not allow vaccinations. This is the one case where national mandates should trump religious beliefs. If a child is not home-schooled, they should most definitely, without a doubt, 100 percent be vaccinated. When religious beliefs (such as anti-vaccination beliefs) put the common welfare in danger, the government has the obligation to protect its citizens from said danger.
Vaccinations should be mandatory to protect all citizens from contagious diseases and pandemics. It is just common sense.
Tell em like it is, Andrew. Like Andrew, this is an issue I get really worked up about. I already did my journal on this issue, but I have another comment about this that I didn't include there. I absolutely agree with everything Andrew just said, but I'm also mad about the fact that some parents would rather their child contract horrible and preventable diseases than get autism (it is autism they're worried about, BTW. Down's is a genetic disorder caused by an extra chromosome, so it's impossible for someone to get it after they're born.) Think about that. Parents would rather their kids get SICK and maybe even DIE than take care of a child who has a disability. What does this say about those parents and our society when a disability that can be treated with therapy or medicine and often does not prevent a person from leading a fulfilling life (see Susan Boyle, Courtney Love, and dozens of other people you haven't heard of who all have been diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder but are successful musicians, actors, etc., and this doesn't even count the people historians SUSPECT had some form of autism such as Einstein and Mozart) is scarier than an epidemic of previously eradicated diseases? I've met people with ASD who you couldn't distinguish from regular people until they tell you they have it, and they're some of the sweetest, coolest people. Much better than people with full mental capabilities who commit hate crimes or murders or DON'T VACCINATE THEIR KIDS. Just everything about this makes me so mad because it doesn't matter how you look at it, refusing to vaccinate your kids is wrong, and parents who think they're "helping their kids" by doing it seriously need to be stopped.
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