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Should Parents Be Required to Vaccinate Their Children

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Submitted By 19rick82
Words 1128
Pages 5
Richard Chatham
Chris Bishop
Engl 1302
October 10, 2015
Should parents be required to vaccinate their children? Back in the 1990’s, people started becoming worried after many years about the mercury in the vaccines their kids were receiving. Then, in 1996, a former British surgeon and medical researcher, Dr. Andrew Wakefield put out a now disproved study linking the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine to autism and bowel disease (Ferric C. Fang). Before his study was disproved, it was a major argument for anti vaxers to cite. The investigation into his study began in 2004 and it wasn’t until 2010 that it was disproved and withdrawn. In that time, many people with autistic children began to believe that this study showed why their kids were disabled. Wakefield's study and his claim that the MMR vaccine might cause autism, led to a decline in vaccination rates in the United States, United Kingdom and Ireland, which caused a rise in measles and mumps. During this time, from 2004 to now, his continued warnings against the vaccine have contributed to a climate of distrust of all vaccines and the reemergence of other previously controlled diseases (Gregory A. Poland). So the question begs, should parents be required to vaccinate their children. One position on legally requiring vaccines is that it is a complete violation of our civil rights. This is usually the position of people who do not want to vaccinate their kids. The people at the National Vaccine Information Center are very upset about California enacting a law requiring all public school students to be vaccinated or they have to be home schooled at the parent’s expense (Fisher). There are also other groups along with many individuals who feel that these kind of laws are too intrusive. These parents believe their decision to not vaccinate merely affect the child in question, and not affect a family’s

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