Vaccines are recommended by healthcare systems as a means of eradicating chicken pox, measles, and other diseases.
Children as young as 6 weeks receive vaccines to protect them against deadly diseases. The vaccines enable the body to develop immunity by mimicking an infection although doesn’t expose you to the symptoms of the infection.
Pros:
1. Prevent dangerous diseases: Vaccination is recommended to prevent illness from contagious diseases which can permanently disable or even kill children.
2. Protection for a lifetime: All vaccines lasts for a lifetime. Once you get vaccinated for certain diseases, you will never contract that disease in your life.
3. Cost effective: It is cheaper to prevent infection than treating it. It will cost you less money and time to receive the vaccines. Government vaccines are free.
4. Protect against diseases: When traveling to some countries, you have to receive immunization against certain diseases like yellow fever, polio, tetanus, among others.
5. Protects the herd: Vaccinations helps prevent the massive outbreak and spread of a certain illness among the population. It helps preserve the majority of population if the majority of people are vaccinated.
6. Safe: All vaccines undergo rigorous safety testing before being approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ensure they are safe for human consumption.
7. Rare adverse reactions: Adverse reaction to vaccines are rare. Anaphylaxis allergic reaction only occurs in one out of a thousand vaccinated children.
8. Protect future generation: If mothers get vaccinated, they can protect the unborn children against diseases which can cause birth defects. Women who were immunized against rubella (German measles) reduce the chance of passing the virus to the unborn child.
9. Recommended by a doctor: Doctors educate parents on the importance of vaccinations and recommend various vaccinations the parents should ensure their children get. The risk of infection outweighs the risk of immunization for every recommended vaccine.
10. Yield economic benefits: Children who receive immunization help save on societal costs and money set aside by preventing lost productivity due to disability and early deaths.
Cons:
1. Often mandatory: Children are always given vaccines as soon as weeks into birth. Majority of public school systems require children to receive vaccines before attending school. This forces the parents to take the children to hospitals to receive vaccines.
2. Chemicals in the vaccine: Some vaccines contain chemicals like aluminum, formaldehyde, and thimerosal. These chemicals may have long-term effects on those injected with them.
3. Risks involved: A child can have a bad reaction due to the ingredients in a certain vaccination. Some of the reactions are life-threatening and only one out of several thousand children may experience the reaction.
4. Shingles: You can be affected by shingles after receiving chickenpox vaccinations. The vaccines are not 100% effective.
5. Mild side effects: You may experience mild side effects like fever, redness, soreness or swelling of the shot area.
6. Febrile seizures: Some of the vaccines preventable diseases can cause febrile seizure sand non-febrile seizures.
7. Booster doses: Some vaccines need some booster doses since the immunity from some of these vaccines is not their problem
8. No longer necessary: Some of the diseases children are vaccinated against no longer occur in the US or they have become minor and no longer pose risk to children. This makes the vaccines unnecessary.
9. Infringe religious freedom: Mandatory vaccines offered by the government infringe constitutionally protected religious freedom and some religions oppose these vaccines.
10. Unnatural: Vaccines are unnatural and some pro-vaccine organizations believe that natural immunity is more effective in eradicating diseases than the vaccinations.
