Vaccines – Are they beneficial?

Shreya Vundela

Ms. Asuncion

English 9 Honors, Block 2

January 4 2016

Vaccines – Are they beneficial?

            Vaccines are essential tools in fighting various types of diseases and they have helped change health care around the world. Diseases like polio, smallpox, and whooping cough were very common within the last century, but now they are virtually or totally removed. The development of vaccines has contributed to that large change, and vaccines help our bodies fight off bad viruses and bacteria more effectively than our body can by itself. The benefits of vaccines clearly outweigh the costs that may be present, for vaccines protect the “herd,” provide economic profits for the family and society, and protect future generations.

            Vaccines play a big role in saving lives because they can prevent outbreaks of disease. “Herd immunity,” or other wise known as community immunity, is hen a critical portion is immunized against a disease due to the limited chance of an outbreak. The plus of this is that people who cannot take the vaccines, such as infants or pregnant women, still get some protection because the spread of the disease is contained. As Steven Weinreb said, “The truth is, we should not get vaccinated for ourselves alone: we should do it for one another. After all, we’re all in the same heard” (Par. 8).

            Furthermore, vaccines also provide economic benefits for families and also for the society as a whole. If a child catches an infectious disease, the time off work and the potential long-term disability care with medical costs is much more expensive than getting a vaccine. Also, under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, many vaccines are available to all without copay. On a larger scale, according to the CDC, children vaccinated between 1994 and 2014 have yielded net savings of 1.38 trillion dollars in societal costs (Gholipour, par. 3). According to the International Vaccines Access Center at John Hopkins Bloomberg of Public Health, just three vaccines – HIB, Pneumococcal and Rotavirus – given to the 73 poorest countries in the world could save us 63 billion dollars over the next decade and also safe thousands of lives (Wilson, par. 2).

            Finally, vaccines have the ability to protect future generations. Not only do they protect our future selves and children, but it also protects many others by stopping the spread of disease. Diseases that are very deadly have been reduced, or even eliminated, because of vaccines that were taken by a lot of people a couple generations ago. By vaccinating completely against diseases, parents can be able to be assured that some diseases today may not longer be around to harm their children in the future (Vaccines.gov, par. 6).

            Vaccines are very beneficial, short and long term. In the past, there have been many times where much of the population was not vaccine, which lead to an uncontrollable spread of disease. The benefits of vaccination go beyond prevention of specific diseases in individuals. If people let it be, vaccines may help save the whole world of many immense losses that can cause us great damage. As George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Therefore, we should all get vaccinated and help ourselves while also gaining many other benefits that vaccines can provide us with.

           

           

           

Works Cited

Gholipour, Bahar. "Vaccination Has Saved 732,000 Children's Lives Since 1994, Says Report,"

            huffingtonpost.com. 25 April 2014. Web. 4 Jan. 2016.

ProCon.org. “Vaccines ProCon.org.” ProCon.org. 9 Oct. 2015. Web. 4 Jan. 2016.

Vaccines.gov. “Five Important Reasons to Vaccinate Your Child.” Vaccines.gov. 21 Aug. 2015.

            Web. 4 Jan. 2016.

Weinreb, Steven. “For the Herd’s Sake, Vaccinate.” The New York Times. 27 Dec. 2011. Web. 4

            Jan. 2016.

Wilson, Mark. “How Just 3 Vaccines Can Save Us $63 Billion.” Factcodesign.com. 14 June

            2012. Web. 4 Jan. 2016.