Vaccination is something many people don't really understand, and yet the media demonises it. If you are a parent or are worried about getting sick, it's important that you understand the reasons why you should get vaccinated.
Read on to find out everything you need to know!
How Vaccines Work
The word "vaccination" means "giving a vaccine in order to prevent a disease". A vaccine is a weak or killed strain of a disease usually a bacteria or virus injected into your body in order to help you form a resistance to the illness.
How does it work? When you are given the vaccination, you are injected with a weakened or dead strain of the disease. Your immune system is under attack, and it responds by forming antibodies to fight off that specific disease. You may possibly feel slightly unwell as a reaction, but your body recovers quickly.
When the same disease threatens in the future, your body recognises the virus or bacteria instantly and is able to form the proper antibodies thanks to your injection. You are now vastly better able to fight off the disease thanks to the vaccine, and your body is ready to counter the threat of infection.
(Note: Antibodies are basically immune cells developed for specific threats. They target very specific infectious agents, and only work on those diseases. They identify threats to the body so that your immune system can destroy them, and they help your body prevent disease.)
Why to Vaccinate
Did you know that some diseases have been completely eradicated thanks to vaccination? Smallpox hasn't been seen since 1977, and there are fewer than 2,000 cases of polio globally – far lower than the 350,000 cases in 1988.
There are many reasons that you should consider getting vaccinated:
- Fight myriad diseases – If you don't want to come down with potentially fatal diseases like chicken pox, bacterial meningitis, ear infections, measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, or shingles, getting vaccinated as a child usually prevents all of these problems.
- Reduce the spread of disease – When you live in a big city or in a close community, contact with others could cause a disease to spread and mutate to become much more serious and – has been seen – deadly. Thanks to immunisations, the risk of a serious outbreak is very low.
- Eliminate certain diseases – As mentioned above, a number of serious diseases have been all but eradicated, and many more have been prevented. Without vaccinations, there is a risk that old, highly dangerous illnesses can return.
Why Not to Vaccinate
There are people who are very AGAINST vaccinations, stating that they constitute a health risk to children and adults.
It is important to state that there is a risk of serious or fatal illness from vaccination itself but that this risk is incredibly low.
Take, for example, the vaccine against pertussis (whooping cough). The CDC states that the risk of death is very low, but some people who receive the combined vaccination to counter diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus experience a very strong reaction. It's literally a one-in-a-million occurrence, but it does happen.
The MMR vaccination against mumps, measles, and rubella has undergone a vast amount of scrutiny over many years, as many argue that combining multiple vaccinations can increase the risk of harm. A link between vaccinations and autism was suggested, but has been found to be a myth, based on poor research. A series of subsequent, massive studies has disproved any link.
On balance, for the absolutely overwhelming majority of people, the benefit of vaccination outweighs the very small risk it poses. Vaccination has utterly altered the course of population health over the past century – with fatal childhood illnesses being consigned, in the most part, to the history books.
