Since the first vaccine in 1796 for smallpox, made by Edward Jenner, modern science has managed to create vaccines to give us immunity to many deadly diseases. Vaccines have reduced many diseases and have even eradicated others. However, currently there is evidence that not all vaccines are beneficial and that some may actually be harmful. In this essay, I will discuss about what a vaccine is and how they work. I will also discuss the pros and cons of vaccinations, and show some of the advantages and disadvantages of a vaccine as well as the moral and ethical implications on our community. The word vaccine came from the word vaca which means cow in Latin. A vaccine is a means of producing immunity against pathogens, such as viruses and bacteria, by the introduction of weakened, killed, or altered antigens.
In other words, it prepares the bodies defences against a particular pathogen before it strikes. There are a multiple amount of steps that the human body goes through in order to fight off the disease. First the vaccine is given by a shot or sometimes even in a liquid form by ingesting it. The antigens in the vaccine stimulate the body to produce antibodies, which neutralizes the antigen by binding specifically to it. These antibodies can fight the real disease germs, which can be roaming all around if they invade a humans body. The antibodies will know how to destroy them and you will not become ill.
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This is called de-immunization. After exposure to a live, weakened, or dead germ, the antibodies or memory cells fight infectious diseases and usually stay in a person’s immune system for a lifetime. There are many types of vaccines that have been generated throughout history. From Edward Jenner, who came up with a vaccination for small pox in 1796, to Louise Pasteur who developed vaccines for rabies and anthrax in 1885, all the way to present date with the research on a HIV/AIDS vaccine. One of the most successful vaccines that have ever been conjured up is the vaccine for Poliomyelitis, commonly known as the poliovirus or polio. Polio is a highly contagious, and sometimes fatal viral infection that can produce permanent muscle weakness, paralysis, and other symptoms.
The polio vaccine is included among the routine childhood immunization. The vaccine can be taken orally (Sabin vaccine) or by an inactivated injection (Salk vaccine).
In the early 1950s, more that twenty thousand cases of Polio were reported annually across North America. After the introduction of the Polio vaccine in 1955, the number dropped to les than five thousand cases, and in 1961 when the oral vaccine for Polio was released, the number decreased to about sixty cases by 1965. Measles is a highly contagious viral infection producing carious symptoms and a characteristic rash. People become infected with measles mainly by breathing airborne droplets of moisture coughed out by an infected person.
Before vaccination became widely available, measles epidemics occurred every two or three years, particularly in school aged children. About five hundred thousand cases of Measles were reported every year in North America before the vaccination was released. After approved in 1963, the vaccine for measles decreased the amount of carriers about 98 %, and by 1999, the amount of measles cases reported in North America dropped to eighty-five per year. Another vaccine that has had a profound effect on medicine, as we know it is the vaccine for mumps. Mumps is a contagious viral infection, which causes painful enlargements in the salivary glands. Mumps is caused by a paramyxovirus, a relative of the measles virus.
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... generally vaccination is ineffective against most diseases. Vaccine supporters defend vaccines claiming that it caused a reduction in the number of disease cases among ... Administration's ays that 'In several of the studies, the measles vaccines train has been recovered from the spines of the ... that may lead to death such as the polio disease. Scientists found a solution to this problem, by injecting ...
Mumps had 212, 000 cases reported annually prior to the development of a vaccine. After the vaccine was carried out in 1967 the number of cases dropped to 3, 000 annually from 1983-1985. By 1999, the number of cases dropped to below 1 000 annually. The benefits of vaccines are shown by all of the statistics that are shown. Immunizations are one of the best ways to protect children against serious infectious diseases. Vaccines are mostly safe and there are small risks associated with vaccinations.
Infants and young children are very vulnerable to infectious diseases after the first year of life. The benefits of a vaccination far outweigh the risks. Vaccinations also have their downsides to them as well. Like any other medication, there are side effects. For vaccines, normal side effects may include fever, swelling, and/or tenderness at the injection site, and muscle soreness. Some vaccines have allergic reactions to some of the components in the vaccine, and even severe immune reaction to the active component, but these are less common side effects.
An average of 13,000 reports of neurological and autoimmune trauma following on the heels of vaccination, especially the hepatitis B inoculation, have been filed annually since 1990.In other cases, the vaccine doesnt work at all, and elderly patients do not respond well to vaccines. If there are risks involved in getting vaccinated, then why vaccinate? There are many reasons for that, one of them is that the risk of getting the disease after being vaccinated is a lot less then if you hadnt. It is much easier to get vaccinated, then to treat the disease. It is also a money saver, more money is spent on other medical resources. Many parents prefer to teach their children to live healthy life-styles rather than to expose them to the risks associated with vaccines designed to prevent diseases contracted from poor behaviour. But now parents are faced with a moral dilemma as they are told they have no choice, they must vaccinate.
The truth is, the potential dangers of some mandatory vaccines are virtually unknown and immunizations that are unnecessary for small children, such as the Hepatitis B vaccine, have caused serious deformities and even death. There are many debates about the ethical and moral values of the new vaccines being developed in the labs today. There is a new AIDS vaccine that is being developed in the United States that may cause some moral and ethical challenges facing the participants in the testing of the vaccine. If you’re participating in an HIV vaccine trial, in itself, you’ve got a privacy problem, people will assume you to be at risk,” says Dr. Gostin. “They might think you’re a homosexual or a user of drugs.” Some participants might also face discrimination.
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Even if the vaccine makes a person test positive for AIDS, but they dont have it, they could face discrimination from the jobs all the way to health insurance. Another ethical issue that is being debated presently is the use of stem cells obtained from aborted embryos to culture vaccines. Woman are now being fertilized for the sole purpose to abort their embryo, and give it to science labs for money, so scientists could culture vaccines with the embryos. With the way things are now at the beginning of the 21st century, vaccinations are a great form of preventing disease. I have a strong feeling though that the human race will slowly diminish back into the stone age with diseases beginning to create immunity towards certain medications, making them useless. With the misuse and over use of antibiotics, diseases are now obtaining resistance against the antibiotic, just like what is happening with antibiotics presently, the same is happening with vaccines, and scientists will have to come up with new vaccines. If I had kids right now, I think I would give them vaccinations that are necessary to prevent disease after there first year of life. The benefits definitely outweigh the risks.
As a matter of fact, as I was in the middle of writing this essay, I myself received an influenza booster shot. I didnt have any side effects, but my brother had pains in the area of injection. I think that vaccines are very vital, and that everyone should in fact receive them..
