Yeah, you’re the parent, and you call the shots. We know. But your beliefs shouldn’t put your child or anyone else’s child in jeopardy.
The discussion of child vaccinations was rekindled after President Barack Obama recently said in an interview he believes parents should have to vaccinate their children.
Religious reasons are always valid excuses, just like with anything else, to opt out of getting your child vaccinated.
Outside of religious and medical reasons, every state requires that, before a child enters elementary school, he or she receive his or her vaccinations to avoid outbreaks of measles, mumps and rubella.
But in 2003, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry passed a law making it easier for parents to opt out of getting their children vaccinated.
The law allows parents to skip vaccinations for “reasons of conscience, including a religious belief.” Texas is unfortunately one of the 20 states that allows these exemptions.
That means for some, everything from believing getting vaccinated will make your child extremely sick to believing the doctors are trying to take your money is a good enough reason to opt out of vaccinations.
These states need to reconsider their laws regarding vaccinations for children. According to Anne Schuchat, the director of the National Center for Immunization, 79 percent of the people that caught measles in 2013 were unvaccinated because of personal belief exemptions.
In a story published by The Huffington Post, president and CEO of the Immunization Partnership Anna Dragsbaek explained the problem is not the number of people opting out. The problem is the parents that are usually opting out are all in specific areas, clumped together.
The same story said, according to the Immunization Partnership, there are some areas in the country that have a non-vaccination rate of more than 50 percent. If an outbreak were to occur, the schools in these populated areas would have a huge problem on their hands.
Parents have beliefs on why they’d prefer not to vaccinate. Regardless of what your beliefs are, all children need to be vaccinated.
Those people that wear the extremely clean white coats don’t have “M.D.” behind their names for nothing. They’re pressuring you to vaccinate your children for a reason, and it’s not to take money from you. Scientists have carefully reviewed vaccinations for years and found them to be extremely safe.
Diseases that kill and injure thousands, such as polio, are no longer found in the U.S., but these diseases still exist in underprivileged countries where vaccines aren’t as easy to receive.
Parents who are anti-vaccine are not only putting their own kids at risk, but they are also putting other people’s children at risk. Some mothers believe if your child is vaccinated, then you shouldn’t worry about what she does with her kids, because it’s impossible for your child to catch anything.
This mother is forgetting about infants under the age of one who can’t receive all of their vaccinations yet, people with cancer or children or adults with weak immune systems.
No, vaccines are not 100 percent effective. But it’s safer to get a vaccine that is 99 percent effective than to not get one at all.
Clarke Perkins is a 19-year-old political science freshman from New Orleans. You can reach her on Twitter @ClarkePerkins.