The Measles Vaccination Debate - Coursework Example

With airborne viruses increasingly becoming commonplace in today's world, the risk of transferrable infections among children and adults has begun to hit an all-time high. The concentration of this high ratio seems to be concentrated in one area for children. Their risk of Measles infection has increased a thousandfold due to the misplaced fears of certain parents regarding the dangers of vaccinating against Measles. Their belief is that Measles can cause more health complications for their child later on while serving as a first line of defense against the primary virus. While the U.S. battles with the ranks of fearful parents, the anti-vaccine movement has grown exponentially in Europe and Russia, much to the detriment of the children involved. That is the claim made by Maggie Fox (2015) in her NBC article “Vaccinate Against Measles, WHO Tells Europe and Russia”.

Basically, the importance of vaccination is not something to be toyed with as it can help to prevent the future spread of diseases as in the case of Polio in the United States. By vaccinating a child early against Measles, he is given a chance to prevent the spread of the illness to other children he comes into contact with and in the process “kills” a carrier line of the virus (“Five Important Reasons to Vaccinate Your Child”). This is a reason that I totally agree with as I have seen firsthand the effects of Polio in non-vaccinated children in poor countries where vaccination is not possible. However, in other areas of the world such as the Philippines in Asia, where the same vaccine is mandatorily given, there are no active cases of polio.

Vaccinating a child against a life-debilitating illness such as Measles is not something that a loving parent should be willing to not consider. After all, if a doctor told them that there was a vaccine for the common cold, they would be the first ones to sign up their child for the vaccine. So, it is important to make sure that children, who cannot protect themselves, are properly protected by their parents against existing viruses (“Reasons to Have Your Child Vaccinated”).

As a future responsible parent, I fully support the idea of prevention rather than having to find a cure. If you prevent the spread of an illness or prevent your child from contracting it, then you have already paid it forward to the next child, whose immune system may not be as strong as his parents might think.