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Arguments Against Vaccination

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Modern day science has made leaps and bounds beyond what was ever thought possible. According to the US Census Bureau, the average life expectancy was 47.3 years at the beginning of the 20th century. Just a mere century later (a century does indeed seem like a really short time in the grand scheme of things), this number had increased to 77.8 years, due in a large part to the advent of vaccines and the leaps and bounds made by medical technology. Medical science has come up with ingenious fixes for diseases people once thought were a death sentence. Malaria, Measles, Small pox, Diptheria and Polio are just a few at the top of this list. While these disease still exist in the poorer countries (attributed in a large part to the unavailability …show more content…

The debate around vaccination has been raging on for many years now and it’s a strongly polarizing one at that. With many parents (and even some quack doctors) taking a stance against vaccinations, it has once again become a heated topic in light of the recent outbreaks (the major one being that at Disneyland, California). Herd immunity is becoming a lesser option as fewer and fewer children are being vaccinated. While there have been laws proposed to counter this problem, it is not the solution. Proponents of the anti-vaccine movements over the years have come up with various concerns about vaccinations. The biggest one being autism. Sensationalist and rumour-driven journalism has created a false-positive correlation in the minds of parents between the increased amounts of required childhood vaccinations and recent increase in cases of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Andrew Wakefield was the first to draw a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism in 1998. But it soon became evident that he had falsified his evidence, and his “research” was retracted. Wakefield was subsequently banned from practicing medicine in the United Kingdom (his home country), for “serious professional misconduct”, but the damage had already been done. The vaccine-autism hypothesis became the forerunner in the anti-vaccine argument and has been for years now. To add fuel to the fire, it gained main stream attention when celebrity Jenny McCarthy publically blamed vaccination for the cause of her son’s

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