Follow the Herd

Kids grow up learning to hate shots. Vaccines can be scary and painful for a young child, making it an experience most would dread. Even as we get older, many people still have a fear of needles. Shots can make a person anxious to see the doctor. However, vaccines provide protection from life threatening conditions. A simple Google search would be enough to see the devastating effects that diseases like Polio could potentially have. Before vaccinations, those who contracted Polio could experience muscle weakness, paralysis, and even death. Some patients would even have to use iron lungs because they were no longer able to breathe on their own. While there can be negatives to vaccinations as they can cause slight discomfort, a quick examination easily demonstrates the positives far outweigh the negatives.

Vaccines have a long history dating back to 1796. Edward Jenner developed the first successful vaccine against smallpox after realizing that milkmaids who had previously caught cowpox did not later catch smallpox. Since these days vaccines have saved millions of lives. The Center for Disease Control estimates that vaccinations have prevented more than 21 million hospitalization and 732,000 deaths among children born in the last 20 years alone.

However, despite the clear advantages of vaccines, recent movements have persuaded some members of the population to forgo getting their children vaccinated. This has led to disease outbreaks in the present day. In 2018 alone that has already been 34 reported cases of measles. And just several years ago in 2014, 667 cases of measles were reported, which is the greatest number of reported cases since measles elimination was documented in the United States in 2000. The vast majority of these individuals who contracted measles were unvaccinated. However, not only were these outbreaks affecting those that contracted the disease, they also affected herd immunity.

Herd immunity can be defined as the resistance to the spread of a disease within a population that happens if a sufficiently high percentage of individuals are immune to the disease, usually due to being vaccinated. Herd immunity is crucial in keeping a community healthy. Vaccines not only protect those that choose to get them, but also others around them. When enough people are vaccinated, the disease can’t spread, as easily from person to person, so the entire community is less likely to get the disease. This is especially useful for those who are not able to get vaccinated for certain diseases, such as individuals with certain serious allergies and those with weakened or failing immune systems (like those who have cancer, HIV/AIDS, type O diabetes or other health conditions). Herd immunity grants these individuals protection from diseases as well without having to get the vaccination themselves. And if a person does get sick, there is less of a chance that the disease will spread, which decreases the chance of an outbreak occurring.

Vaccines help to protect people throughout the population in many different ways. Some viruses and/or bacteria are able to easily mutate. If a person is not vaccinated and contracts a disease, it increases the chance that this disease-causing agent will mutate within the person’s body. So now not only is the person very sick, but they are also putting others around them at risk as well. Others in the community may have been vaccinated, but once the disease mutates, their vaccine may no longer be effective in preventing them from contracting the mutated form of the disease.  

As can be seen, vaccines were a critical development in human health. Eradication of dangerous and contagious diseases have prevented many deaths throughout the history of time and further development will only hope to increase eradication of more diseases around the world. Vaccines have saved millions of lives and will continue to create a lasting effect on the human population.