In the past few years, a number of people have come out against vaccinations. Despite having no medical research backing their claims up, some celebrities have taken to the media to complain that vaccines cause a host of really bad problems in children. The opposite is true. There are many reasons to go to your local health clinic and make sure you and your family are up to date on your vaccinations.
Consider these facts:
- Without vaccinations, 2.5 million would die from diseases they caught without the shots every year.
- Nearly four million people could be saved by new and underused vaccines.
- Vaccines are responsible for the eradication of polio and small pox. These two horrible diseases were considered major health problems just 60 years ago.
Reasons to get vaccinated:
- Infectious disease such as the flu, shingles and pertussis can be prevented with the use of a vaccine. These can be serious diseases. Many people tend to downplay the impact of the flu but it can be a serious and deadly illness. In 1918, somewhere between 20 and 50 million people were killed by the “Spanish Flu.” This is no sickness to sneeze at for sure.
- Many illnesses that can be prevented with a vaccine have serious complications. If you suffer from a chronic health problem, such as a compromised immune system, you can really have problems with some of the illnesses that can be prevented with a vaccine. These complications may send you to the hospital or worse. It takes far less time to go to a health clinic and get a flu vaccine than spend time in the ICU.
- You will not pass anything on to the people you love. When you choose to not get a vaccination, say a flu shot from the local family clinic, you can then get the flu. When you have the flu, you can pass it on to all of the people you come in contact with. For the most part, diseases for which we have vaccines are very contagious. These include the aforementioned influenza virus but also whopping cough and meningitis. These are very unpleasant diseases.
- Your vaccination helps other people. Not everyone is able to go to a medical center and get their vaccinations. This is because people who have some medical problems, are pregnant or undergoing treatments for cancer cannot be given vaccines. They are protected from contagious diseases by people who have received the vaccinations. Newborn babies are also safer when they are around adults and children who have had their vaccinations. For whooping cough, it has been reported that four out of every five reported cases were of babies who got the illness from someone in their home.
- No one likes to be sick, stay healthy by getting a vaccination. The flu, even if it does not kill you, will make you miserable. You have to take time off of work, which may cost you money and you just will be really unhappy for at least a few days. Who has time for all of that? It takes much less time to go to the health clinic and get a simple shot.
- Getting sick is expensive. You have to lose wages, maybe, as was already mentioned and then you may have to pay for medicine and/or to go to the doctor. You have better and more fun and useful things to do with your money than spend it on treatment for preventable illnesses, right? It is cheaper to go to the medical clinic and get that vaccine.
- You want to go overseas. There are vaccines that are important to get if you plan to go to exotic places. You may want to bring back something cool from that trip to India or Tanzania but Yellow Fever or Hepatitis is probably not the souvenir you want. You can avoid these illnesses by getting a vaccination from the local health clinic.
Vaccines have saved millions of lives around the world. It is easy to forget how bad polio was or how serious meningitis or the measles can be because so few of us have witnesses their destruction. There is a good reason we do not have these now; vaccines. There are too many reasons to get them and too few not to.
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