The Controversy Surrounding Vaccines: Argumentative Essay Based on Polio Vaccine

The year is 1955 and Polio is one of the most feared diseases in the United States. Outbreaks have caused more than “15,000 cases of paralysis each year since the early 1900s” (Yash 4538). Parents are terrified of the fact that they are unable to protect their children from the “Polio season” during summertime, which should be a time for children to enjoy and be worry-free. Fortunately, Jonas Salk introduces the first vaccine for Polio in March, which finally brings the disease under control (Yash 4540).

There is no hesitation from parents to vaccinate their children immediately. So when did vaccinating children become such a controversial topic? To understand the controversialness of this topic, it is necessary to pinpoint the exact moment that vaccination became questionable and also understand the origin of the diseases which require these vaccinations.

In the past, infants were exposed to polio at a very young age through the use of contaminated water supplies. Infants’ “immune systems, along with maternal protection, could quickly defeat poliovirus and then develop lasting immunity to it” (Aaby 3).

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However, better sanitary conditions meant that exposure to Polio was delayed until later in life when a child had lost maternal protection and was also more vulnerable to the most severe form of the disease. The newly introduced vaccine worked by introducing an active immunizing agent that causes the body to produce its own antibodies to protect against the poliovirus. This form of vaccine was very effective in eradicating the poliovirus. The reason it is not completely wiped out is that either certain countries cannot afford to vaccinate all of their inhabitants or people believe it is unnecessary to vaccinate their children because it goes against their beliefs.

“Trivalent oral polio vaccine was stopped globally in April 2016 and live bivalent or monovalent OPV will be stopped in 2024” (Aaby 1). With this occurring, polio has a chance of returning to the United States because the virus is still present in developing countries. If an infected individual from one of these countries travels to the United States there is a high probability that it may cause another polio epidemic.

Polio is not the only disease that many people are overlooking due to the fact that it is almost completely eradicated. The measles virus is also beginning to return to the United States because people are choosing not to vaccinate their children against it. The idea that vaccines cause autism is an ongoing topic that has caused the anti-vax movement to have grown stronger over the last 15 years (Bower 1645). The anti-vax movement has caused six measles outbreaks that are currently ongoing in the United States, with 206 cases reported in January and February, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That two-month total is higher than the entire year’s tally for 2017 (Bower 1643). There has been research conducted that proves that MMR in no way is linked with the development of autism in children, and yet individuals still stick behind this argument as reasoning to not vaccinate their children. Going back to the idea that people assume that because diseases have disappeared from the United States, it is no longer necessary to vaccinate children against them. This is a false misconception because U.S. outbreaks of the disease have occurred when Americans travel to countries where measles remain widespread and brought the disease back with them. With adequate vaccination rates, most of these types of outbreaks can be prevented. But if vaccination rates drop, imported cases of preventable diseases can begin to spread again. When there’s an outbreak of a disease that’s “rare for a given area, such as measles in the United States, unvaccinated people aren’t the only ones at risk” (Bower 1644). Because no vaccination is 100% effective, some vaccinated individuals will get the disease as well. During an outbreak, the number of vaccinated individuals who get sick will often outnumber the unvaccinated people who get sick. This, however, is not because vaccines are ineffective, but because there are so few people who avoid vaccination in the first place.

Many misconceptions about vaccines have persisted for decades because of a poor understanding of how vaccination works. Many parents believe that a child’s immune system can be “overloaded” if they receive multiple vaccines at once. This concern first began to appear as the “recommended childhood immunizations expanded to include more vaccines, and some vaccines were combined into a single shot” (Postema 5262). However, studies have repeatedly demonstrated that the recommended vaccines are no more likely to cause adverse effects when given in combination than when they are administered separately. Some parents decide to “spread out” the time period during which their children receive vaccinations “just in case” this misconception is accurate (Postema 5264). There is no scientific evidence to support this approach, and delaying vaccinations puts children at risk of contracting preventable diseases.