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Vaccines - Pros & Cons - ProCon.org Skip to content More Issues About Us FAQs Teachers’ Corner $0.99 /Month Join Vaccines Should Any Vaccines Be Required for Children? Last updated on: 5/24/2019 | Author: ProCon.org The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends getting 29 doses of 9 vaccines (plus a yearly flu shot after six months old) for kids aged 0 to six. No US federal laws mandate vaccination, but all 50 states require certain vaccinations for children entering public schools. Most states offer medical and religious exemptions; and some states allow philosophical exemptions. Proponents say that vaccination is safe and one of the greatest health developments of the 20th century. They point out that illnesses, including rubella, diphtheria, smallpox, polio, and whooping cough, are now prevented by vaccination and millions of children’s lives are saved. They contend adverse reactions to vaccines are extremely rare. Opponents say that children’s immune systems can deal with most infections naturally, and that injecting questionable vaccine ingredients into a child may cause side effects, including seizures, paralysis, and death. They contend that numerous studies prove that vaccines may trigger problems like ADHD and diabetes. Read more background… Pro & Con Arguments Pro 1 Vaccines can save children’s lives. The American Academy of Pediatrics states that "most childhood vaccines are 90%-99% effective in preventing disease." [ 43 ] According to Shot@Life, a United Nations Foundation partner organization, vaccines save 2.5 million children from preventable diseases every year [ 44 ] , which equates to roughly 285 children saved every hour. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimated that childhood immunization prevented about 419 million illnesses, 26.8 million hospitalizations, and 936,000 early deaths of children born between 1994 and 2018. [ 128 ] The measles vaccine has decreased childhood deaths from measles by 74%. [ 44 ] Read More Pro 2 The ingredients in vaccines are safe in the amounts used. Ingredients, such as thimerosal, formaldehyde, and aluminum, can be harmful in large doses but they are not used in harmful quantities in vaccines. Children are exposed to more aluminum in breast milk and infant formula than they are exposed to in vaccines. [ 46 ] Paul Offit, MD, notes that children are exposed to more bacteria, viruses, toxins, and other harmful substances in one day of normal activity than are in vaccines. [ 46 ] With the exception of inactivated flu vaccines, thimerosal (a mercury compound) has been removed or reduced to trace amounts in vaccines for children under 6 years old. [ 47 ] The FDA requires up to 10 or more years of testing for all vaccines before they are licensed, and then they are monitored by the CDC and the FDA to make sure the vaccines and the ingredients used in the vaccines are safe. [ 48 ] Read More Pro 3 Major medical organizations state that vaccines are safe. These organizations include: CDC, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Institute of Medicine (IOM), American Medical Association (AMA), American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), UNICEF, US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), World Health Organization (WHO), Public Health Agency of Canada, Canadian Paediatric Society, National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID), and American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). [ 49 ] [ 50 ] [ 43 ] [ 51 ] [ 52 ] [ 54 ] [ 55 ] [ 56 ] [ 57 ] [ 58 ] The WHO states, "Vaccines are very safe." [ 59 ] The US Department of Health and Human Services states, "Vaccines are some of the safest medical products available." [ 51 ] Read More Pro 4 Adverse reactions to vaccines are extremely rare. The most common side effect of vaccines, anaphylaxis (a severe allergic reaction), occurs in one per several hundred thousand to one per million vaccinations. [ 60 ] According to Sanjay Gupta, MD, Chief Medical Correspondent for CNN and practicing neurosurgeon, "you are 100 times more likely to be struck by lightning than to have a serious allergic reaction to the vaccine that protects you against measles." [ 113 ] Ellen Clayton, MD, JD, Professor of Pediatrics and Law at Vanderbilt Law School, stated: "The MMR vaccine does not cause autism… The MMR and DTaP do not cause Type 1 diabetes. And the killed flu vaccine does not cause Bell’s palsy, and it does not trigger episodes of asthma." [ 50 ] Combination vaccines, like MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella), have been used without adverse effects since the mid-1940s. [ 60 ] Read More Pro 5 Vaccines protect the “herd.” Herd immunity (or community immunity) means that when a "critical portion" (the percent of people who need to be vaccinated to provide herd immunity) of a population is vaccinated against a contagious disease it is unlikely that an outbreak of the disease will occur so most members of the community will be protected. [ 61 ] Children and adults who cannot be vaccinated due to age, poor health (who are immune-compromised or undergoing chemotherapy, for example), or other reasons rely on herd immunity to prevent contraction of vaccine-preventable diseases. [ 62 ] An Apr. 2019 measles outbreak resulted in the quarantine of over 200 people who had been exposed to the measles on the campuses of the University of California at Los Angeles and California State University. Because they could not verify their vaccinations, quarantining them raised the campus' herd immunity and blocked the spread of the disease. [ 123 ] In 2011, 49 US states did not meet the 92-94% herd immunity threshold for pertussis (whooping cough), resulting in a 2012 outbreak that sickened 48,277 people and was the biggest outbreak since 1955. [ 64 ] [ 124 ] In 2005, an 18-month-old Amish girl contracted polio and spread the disease to four other unvaccinated children, but, because the community met the herd immunity threshold for the disease, there was no polio outbreak. [ 65 ] [ 66 ] Read More Pro 6 Vaccines save children and their parents time and money. Vaccines cost less in time and money to obtain than infectious diseases cost in time off of work to care for a sick child, potential long-term disability care, and medical costs. [ 67 ] For example, children under five with the flu are contagious for about eight days, and, according to a 2012 CDC study, cost their parents an average of 11 to 73 hours of wages (about $222 to $1,456) and $300 to $4,000 in medical expenses. [ 68 ] [ 69 ] Children with rotavirus are contagious for up to 30 days. [ 70 ] A 2018 study found that each case of measles in Arkansas cost the health department $47,962. [125] As of May 20, there were 880 cases of measles in 24 states in 2019, costing taxpayers an estimated $42.2 million. [ 125 ] [ 126 ] Furthermore, under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, or Obamacare) many vaccines are available to children and adults without copay. [ 71 ] Read More Pro 7 Vaccines protect future generations. Vaccinated mothers protect their unborn children from viruses that could potentially cause birth defects, and vaccinated communities can help eradicate diseases for future generations. Before the rubella vaccine was licensed in 1969, a global rubella (German measles) outbreak caused the deaths of 11,000 babies, and birth defects in 20,000 babies between 1963 and 1965 in the United States. [ 72 ] Women who were vaccinated as children against rubella have greatly decreased the chance of passing the virus to their unborn or newborn children, eliminating the birth defects, such as heart problems, hearing and vision loss, congenital cataracts, liver and spleen damage, and mental disabilities, associated with the disease. [ 51 ] [ 72 ] [ 73 ] Read More Pro 8 Vaccines eradicated smallpox and have nearly eradicated other diseases such as polio. Children are no longer vaccinated against smallpox because the disease no longer exists due to vaccination. [ 74 ] The last case of smallpox in the United States was in 1948; the la...