Austin Theurer
Biology1610
January 21, 2017
I was having trouble finding an article that I was both interested in and could understand until I stumbled upon this article about vaccinations. I am planning on going into pharmaceuticals and am interested in how drugs and vaccinations can help our immune systems. I also like to look at the different risks and side effects that are associated with drugs and vaccines because I find it interesting.
The article "Fact or Fiction?: Vaccines Are Dangerous" started off by explaining why vaccines are important to us and why there are so many different vaccinations that are recommended for children. Vaccines are ultimately just a weakened/killed diseased-causing germ and it is injected into the body, so that the immune system may become familiar with the germ. The reason it is important for our bodies to become familiar with the specific type of germ is because it will help our bodies recognize the same germ/s in later encounters and become much more readily prepared to fight the germ/s. The reason why it is more important for infants and children to get vaccinated is because they have a weaker immune system than adults.
The side effects for vaccinations and for all drugs is dependent on the user. Our bodies are all different and therefore are going to react differently to the same substances. The article went onto explain that environmental exposure, genes, and immune deficiencies are all reasons why a person's body reacts to the vaccine in the way that it does.
Children are being recommended many vaccinations at a time—the article mentions 16— and because they have a weaker immune system, I was curious to know if there was any danger for the children that were getting the vaccinations and if they could get more than one at a time. The article explained that the vaccines have to be heavily tested before being allowed to be distributed to the public and this includes the testing with the other vaccinations that are currently available to make sure that the vaccinations won't interfere with one another. I also learned that children's immune system are more than prepared to handle all the vaccinations than the average person might think... in the article it states:"Children’s immune systems respond to several hundred foreign substances that trigger an immune response every day. In contrast, the complete schedule of recommended childhood vaccinations includes under 200 antigens."
In conclusion, I learned that vaccines are just weakened diseased-causing germs and our bodies are more than prepared to take on more than one vaccine at a time. Our bodies are amazing at fighting diseases, but the risks of not getting vaccinations are too great to just rely on our bodies immune system alone. Disease travels fast and it is important for us—children and infants especially—to be injected with the recommended vaccinations.
Sources: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-vaccines-are-dangerous/
I was very interested in this article as it is a constant discussion and debate with many people in my life from my family, coworkers and with myself. I did like the original article itself and the summary was good, however, it seemed more of a basic cover of what a vaccine is. There is also a big hole to the multiple vaccines at one time. There was no real data here on the number, I happen to know that there are thorough studies done and it is well known which can and cannot be given at the same time it mainly falls back to wether the virus is live or not such as rabies versus anthrax. What I did like about the article is that it does educate people on the basics of it so they can be more educated when they debate this topic as it has been very popular the last several years.
ReplyDelete-KK- for the above response comment starting with "I was very interested..."
DeleteThanks for the feedback Kyle. You pointed out that the article does not give any specific number of vaccines recommended at one time and you are correct. The article mentions that children are recommended to get vaccinated against 16 diseases and did not say they were recommended to be given at the same time. Thanks for pointing that out.
ReplyDeleteYour article also addressed the concern that vaccines cause autism, which I believe is a very important theory to disprove. This myth was based on one small study that has been discredited dozens of times. However, there are still many people who refuse to accept that vaccinations are not only safe for their children, but also necessary to ensure the safety of others. Diseases that have become extremely uncommon can return and spread quickly if children stop getting vaccinated, which is why it is so important that people stop believing vaccines cause autism. -EN
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