The Dilemma of Vaccination: Expository Essay

Introduction

Every newborn child is entitled to vaccination between the ages of 1 and 5. Various vaccines are administered unto the child to protect them from common diseases. As diseases grow more potent, so does the vaccine. Doctors constantly research how to immunize children against diseases such as malaria, smallpox, and the common influenza virus (Fadda, Miriam and Peter 836). There are also trials for terminal illness vaccines such as cancer and HIV/AIDS. Vaccination is recognized as a human right by the World Health Organization (WHO). In many cases, vaccines are offered free of charge by the government of the day, or through United Nations' special programs. The number of newborn children and vaccines do not match up. Some countries in the developing world still face significant vaccine shortages (Jit, Anthony and Philippe 835). Even as the developed world generally ensures a higher vaccination rate, many parents continue to doubt the effectiveness of vaccinations.

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Pros and Cons of Vaccination

Benefits of Vaccination

Vaccination is one of the most common strategies in disease prevention around the world. A vaccine is administered to ensure that the individual does not get adverse symptoms from a virus or bacterial infection. Common infections that affect children are immunized against in order to reduce the risk of contraction of the disease as well. Essentially, immunization campaigns involve inoculation of the same virus in a controlled environment, to aid the body in the production of antibodies against the viral infection (Fadda, Miriam and Peter 836). The body thus constantly maintains a low viral load that ensures no new vital infection of such a nature can affect the individual if they are infected. Vaccination is also known to be a cheaper alternative to treating the disease upon infection. Indeed, vaccination is better as it deals with diseases whose potential for lethargy is high (El Amin et al. 16). Ensuring that more people are immunized reduces the risk of spread of infections and epidemics.

Treating conditions such as poliomyelitis and measles has often been a difficult endeavor for medical professionals. Disease such as tuberculosis and pneumonia also have a high potential for causing death among infected parties and commonly spread easily as they are airborne. Vaccines aid in ensuring that persons with the same infection do not also get re-infected hence succumb to a higher viral load (Malik, Fahim and Haseeb 199). Traditional forms of treatment often involved using antibodies to fight antigens in the body. Vaccination programs help the body generate enough antibodies to manage the disease if and when it strikes. Many immune systems often wear out from fighting diseases. Vaccinations ensure that individuals do not get a lower antibody count due to constant exposure to illnesses and diseases that can otherwise be vaccinated against (El Amin et al. 21). Weak immune systems expose the individual to possible death from total organ failure when the disease strikes again.

Issues facing Vaccination

Vaccination is a contentious topic among many groups. Some of the opponents of vaccinations include; some religious faiths, scientific skeptics and pessimists. Religious believes in some communities do not believe in protection from diseases and even reliance on medical assistance for treatment of disease. Herbalists, for instance, believe that vaccinations are potential approaches to increasing the viral load in the body and do not always guarantee that the immune system of the individual will be strong enough. Instead, they argue that proper dieting and use of natural methods of disease control are better than the vaccine injections and drugs consumed by the children (Jit, Anthony and Philippe 839). There are also concerns about the nature of the vaccinations done on the children, the approach taken in vaccination as well as the concern of efficiency in the vaccines offered. While vaccines should be administered by trained health professionals, there are cases where the vaccination is wrongly done.

Scientific skeptics argue that vaccination exposes the children to the disease as opposed to preventing it. The mechanism of vaccination is often to introduce a controlled quantity of the virus in the individual. It is thus arguably that vaccination methods are similarly new ways to contract infections. Many parents who have denied their children vaccinations also claim to be able to control the child's environment thus not requiring protection from diseases that often affect children and not adults (El Amin et al. 13). It is common to have pessimistic views on vaccinations as well. For instance, persons who have seen the atrocious effects of conditions such as tuberculosis and measles may feel that there is no possible prevention for it. Indeed, a good number of vaccination trials do not work as efficiently as expected and the same individuals eventually contract the infections (Fadda, Miriam and Peter 836). It is thus not unusual for parents and guardians with such experiences to be unwilling to get their children vaccinated.

Steps to Improve Vaccinations

There is a lot that needs to be done to improve the success of vaccinations. Vaccination is not fully effective against disease prevention. Indeed, scientific studies have proven that vaccinations account for up to 50% prevention of new infections and re-infection (El Amin et al. 19). There is a large margin of error that the medical world cannot fully deal with. Vaccination is also done as a result of trials on animals and not human beings. It is thus not always the case that the same trials will have similar results. Factors such as blood groups, environmental conditions and genetic make-up of the individual also come into play where vaccinations are considered (Fadda, Miriam and Peter 836). It is important for medical researchers to continue developing more potent vaccinations and also conducting more research to prove the effectiveness of vaccines and dispel critics in a major way. It is through published results that more skeptics can be silenced.

The administration methods used in vaccination need to change, as should the target of the vaccinations. Inoculation is the most common approach to vaccination. Regardless, not every person can give injections (El Amin et al. 20). Using methods such as oral administration as opposed to inoculation can improve the efficiency of vaccine administration. Vaccination should also be done on certain concepts of medication such as addiction treatment and exposure to chemical waste. In this age of pollution, it may be better to work on immunology with the view to help human beings survive potential threats to human life and evolution. Vaccination potential is immense and indeed needs to be fully considered (Malik, Fahim and Haseeb 196). Similarly, it may help to legalize vaccine trials on consenting adults. Unless the full extent of the vaccines is understood, it may be difficult to ensure optimal drug efficiency at the end of the day.

Discussion

The right to be vaccinated or not is recognized in many countries around the world when the individual is beyond a certain age. Medical decisions concerning the vaccination of children are however debated in many jurisdictions around the world. It is critical to note that while vaccines have been effective in handling significant conditions such as the elimination of poliomyelitis in most continents of the world, they have been seen to fail in some instances as well (Jit, Anthony and Philippe 837). Vaccination may be an important concept but when it is ineffective, the potential harm it has on the individual is quite immense. It is thus necessary to ensure that vaccination is done within certain contexts and only where desirable (Malik, Fahim and Haseeb 195). Vaccination should take the form of a series of drug administrations and not a single mode of medication. Controlling the response of the body is vital to have the immunity system in the individual developed over time, as is the natural way to gain immunity in the individual.

Conclusion

This essay does not propose or discourage the concept of vaccination. The real question each parent should ask themselves before getting their children vaccinated is whether or not it is necessary. Taking chances with medication and vaccines just because they are free or cost-effective is not a good treatment approach (Jit, Anthony and Philippe 836). Similarly, parents who choose not to vaccinate their children need to understand that the possibility of infection will always linger and that these children may be the only individuals among multitudes that would probably get a higher viral load. Vaccination is a dilemma every parent would want to critically analyze and only engage in it if they feel fully motivated to do so.

Works Cited

El Amin, Alvin Nelson, et al. "Ethical issues concerning vaccination requirements." Public Health Reviews 34.1 (2012): 1-20. https://publichealthreviews.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1007/BF03391666. Accessed April 6, 2019.

Fadda, Marta, Miriam K. Depping, and Peter J. Schulz. "Addressing issues of vaccination literacy and psychological empowerment in the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination decision-making: a qualitative study." BMC Public Health 15.1 (2015): 836. https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-015-2200-9. Accessed April 6, 2019.

Jit, Mark, Anthony T. Newall, and Philippe Beutels. "Key issues for estimating the impact and cost-effectiveness of seasonal influenza vaccination strategies." Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics 9.4 (2013): 834-840. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.4161/hv.23637. Accessed April 6, 2019.

Malik, Heena, Fahim H. Khan, and Haseeb Ahsan. "Human papillomavirus: current status and issues of vaccination." Archives of Virology 159.2 (2014): 199-205. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Fahim_Khan3/publication/15666648_A_crosslinked_tetrameric_alpha_2M_that_binds_but_incompletely_entraps_trypsin/links/0deec5264ad849fff1000000.pdf. Accessed April 6, 2019