Vaccines, of course, are beneficial on the individual level, since they reduce the risk of contracting illness and make it such that even if a person does, the experience isn't as severe.
However, not everyone can get vaccinated even if the injections are available. These include but are not limited to: very young babies, people allergic to components of vaccines, and people with certain disorders that impair the immune system. These people must rely upon herd immunity in order to avoid contracting various viral illnesses. But, herd immunity only works if enough people are vaccinated. Now, if every person that could be vaccinated was, herd immunity would be maintained quite well, and outbreaks of diseases such as measles and chicken pox would become exceedingly rare. Heck, when was the last time the US had an outbreak of polio?
Unfortunately, scare tactics and misinformation has resulted in many people choosing not only to not vaccinate themselves, but their children as well. As a result, outbreaks of diseases such as whooping cough have become more common, and it is the weakest and most vulnerable of us that end up paying the price.
I'd have no issue with people opting out of vaccines if that decision only impacted them individually. The fact of the matter is, anyone that chooses to not get vaccinated increases the risk of people that can't get vaccines (even if they want to) getting sick and dying.
"But Sarah, vaccines are full of toxins and cause autism and-"
They don't, and I am going to go through every single anti-vax claim I can think of.
1. Vaccines contain mercury: Vaccines used to contain a harmless mercury compound (just think about chemistry for two seconds; chlorine gas is extremely toxic, and elemental sodium reacts violently with water, but the table salt that is made of both elements combined is actually essential for people and only bad if they consume it in excess), but thanks to the outrage people showed at it being there, vaccines that used to contain it now come in variants that don't. Plus, tons of vaccines never had that compound to begin with, such as the chickenpox vaccine. In case anyone cares about some of the details, the compound is thimerosal, and it was there to help prevent the growth of any harmful microbes in the vaccine. In any case, you'd actually get more mercury from eating tuna regularly than from keeping up with vaccines, and that mercury actually is in a harmful form.
2. Vaccines cause autism: One guy lied in a study in the 1990s. That's it. Dozens of experiments have been performed and have found no link between autism and vaccines. However, many of the diseases people are vaccinated against can have the rare effect of causing lasting brain damage, and polio typically damages the nervous system severely. So, if a person doesn't want "damaged" children, the vaccines are the safer bet.
3. Vaccines contain formaldehyde, and that's a carcinogen: They actually do... as does human blood normally... and pears. The amount of formaldehyde in vaccines is trivial compared to the amount normally in human blood to begin with. That is, there isn't enough in vaccines for even a lifetime of vaccinations to make a difference.
4. This image
Oh dear, where to begin. I guess I'll address them in order of that list, minus autism because I've already addressed it. Shaken baby syndrome is the result of physical damage to a baby's brain due to the brain hitting the sides of the skull. There's no way a vaccine could do that, that's like saying a vaccine could cause your leg to break. Chronic ear infections are usually caused by bacteria, and are common in babies and young children due to the shape of a young person's ear canal and the fact that their immune systems are not done developing. Again, no means by which a vaccine could cause this. Far more kids would die from the diseases that vaccines prevent than die from the rare complications. SIDS is a term for when babies under a year old die with no detectable cause, and thus cannot be attributed to vaccines. It is notable that people that are poor tend to experience SIDS more, meaning that the people that experience it the most are people that get less vaccines, not more of them. Seizures are interesting when it comes to vaccines. There are only a few that actually have this as a potential side effect at all, and notably, the flu vaccine is not one of them. However, it is worth noting that kids that have a history of seizures in their family are more prone to this side effect, and it is more common if you get all of the ones that have this side effect at the same time, or get them along with the flu shot. So, this is a decent reason not to get your child vaccinated for, say, the mumps, if you have a family history of seizures, and you should avoid having your kid get multiple vaccines with this side effect at the same time. Here's this for anyone that want's to avoid doubling or up on seizure risks
Vaccines: Vac-Gen/Side Effects
ADD, Asthma, Diabetes, and Meningitis are the same as Autism, there isn't any evidence that vaccines cause these or make them worse. As for allergies, allergic reactions to vaccines are rare, and it wouldn't make any sense for vaccines to cause allergies to chemicals they don't contain. Polio is not caused by vaccines, and the disease predates them. In fact, a severe polio outbreak in the US was only stopped thanks to a vaccine for it being produced. The only reason this isn't still a common disease in that country is due to vaccines, and I challenge any anti-vax person to actually find a reasonable explanation for the reduction in the frequency of diseases for which there are vaccines that doesn't attribute it to the vaccines.
5. Aluminum in vaccines: again, you'll eat way more of the stuff than a vaccine will give you, and the compound of aluminum in vaccines is mostly excreted by the body within just a day.
6. Too many vaccines is just as bad as too many antibiotics: Not at all. Antibiotics themselves kill bacteria, and when they are used too much or improperly, this gives rise to strains which are resistant to the antibiotic, making said antibiotic become useless. The same doesn't apply to vaccines, which actually stimulate the immune system to be able to handle the disease better on its own rather than the vaccine directly killing the virus itself. This is also why vaccines are useless to people that have already contracted the disease the vaccine helps with; it takes 2 weeks for a vaccine to get your body effectively prepared to fight of a disease, so if you contract it before then, the vaccine is of no use. So, feel free not to get the vaccine if you already have a fever and aching joints, and don't feel like you are absolutely safe to just hang out with sick people right after you get a vaccine. Furthermore, vaccines don't outright prevent disease. They make it so that when you catch it, your body fights it off very efficiently, resulting in severely reduced symptoms. "But Sarah, what about the rabies vaccine, then? You only get that after you have been exposed to the virus". Rabies is an interesting disease. It actually progresses so slowly that, if you, say, get a bite on your finger, the virus isn't going to reach the central nervous system and really wreak havoc for weeks. This actually gives the vaccine enough time to be effective even after initial exposure. This is also why people are encouraged to get the vaccine as quickly as possible, and why it is so many shots at once.
Unfortunately, vaccines for bacterial diseases are generally ineffective, and they make future diagnosis of any additional infections result in false positives for that disease, which is why there are very few vaccines for bacterial diseases.
That's all I can think of at the moment.
