# data[].attributes.body
SYAMIERA BINTI SHAH JOHAN

Vaccinations: Helpful or Harmful? Nelson Mandela said that, life or death for a young child often depends on whether he or she is born in a country where vaccines are available or not. Some believe that vaccinations in children should be mandatory as they have potential to prevent life threatening diseases but many are against vaccinations and say they can cause mental illness or brain damage. All vaccinations are necessary for our children, without them, they are at risk of contracting harmful and potentially deadly diseases. It seems absurd that people think vaccinations are precaution used against viruses and it also could cause harm. As vaccines are one of the most unknown for people, controversy of vaccinations make me interested to find out the reasons behind not getting vaccinations for children, even it could be willingly risking their health.

Although child vaccination rates remain high, some parental concern persists that vaccines might cause autism. Is there a connection between vaccines and autism? Autism is a condition that affects brain and makes communicating and interacting with other people more difficult. Some parents still decide not to have their children vaccinated as much of the blame lies with a study published in 1998 claiming that they found evidence of measles virus in the digestive systems of children who had exhibited autism symptoms after MMR vaccination (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Autism Spectrum Disorder: Data & Statistics. Accessed 25/1/2018). But, the study is critically flawed and have been extensively investigated found to be false. This kind of theory causing parents will think twice to vaccinate their children, as a result, endemic diseases that should be prevented by immunization such as measles had spread out in Wales during 2008. Most scientific and medical experts are satisfied that no connection exists between vaccines and autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders. Most autism researchers also hold that the causes of autism are including genetic and environmental factors, but do not involve vaccines.

Another common misconception is that these negative side effects and even death. Undeniable, there are some terrible cases that happen after get vaccinated but rarely occurs. Vaccine is a medical product, though they are designed to prevent disease, they can cause side effects too just as any medication can. Most vaccine adverse events are minor and temporary such as soreness, swelling or redness at the injection site. Some vaccines are associated with fever and achiness. Serious side effects are rare but may include seizure or life threatening allergic reaction. It may be worse off by vaccine-preventable disease than the vaccine itself. For example, in Polio, this disease can cause paralysis measles that can lead to encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) and blindness. Some vaccine-preventable diseases can also cause death.

Third contributor to the fear of vaccines is the notion that they contain unsafe toxins. People have concerns over the use of formaldehyde, mercury or aluminium in vaccines. Ingredients in vaccines are mostly from water and antigens. However, it requires additional ingredients to increase the effectiveness of the vaccine itself. Parents concern for mercury is because some vaccines have ever been containing thimerosal preservatives with ethylmercury. But thimerosal is no longer used in vaccines since 2001 as a precaution steps. There is also a use of formaldehyde which functions as to expose potential of pollution. It is hundred times lower than amount of formaldehyde contains in other sources such as fruits and insulating materials. In addition, our body also produce formaldehyde which is same in vaccines ingredients. But “it’s the dose that makes the poison” and it is distressing that people’s fears are being stroked by a lack of basic understanding of chemistry and toxicology.

In conclusion, there are many misconceptions about refusal of vaccinations have persisted because of a poor understanding of how vaccines works. Issue of vaccination of children has never stopped being debated among parents and it is also involves medical specialists to drift variety of speculations about the functions or danger of its uses towards human health. Probably some of them will stand to their choices being anti-vaccines based on their own experiences. If they choose not to vaccinate their child, they should understand the risks. Is not the vaccine intake as well as an effort to protect the environment of children from harmful illness? The ball is in your court.

# data[].attributes.body
SYAFIA AFIFI BINTI GHAZALI

‘Parents who make the decision not to vaccinate their children do not consider the health of other children’(Bergen, 2018), and that is what the society decided to do today for their children. The outbreaks of measles and chickenpox in the United States of America have been increasing since 2001.  The victim of this outbreak are likely young children who have never received vaccinations. The reasons on not to be vaccinated are mostly because of the fear of the effect of the vaccines. This led to the recent controversial issue that vaccine is one of the causes of autism. Measles is a highly contagious infectious disease caused by the measles virus. Even it is a contagious disease, it is curable with the help of vaccines. However, most of the community nowadays decide to unvaccinated their children. A rise number of unvaccinated community can lead to a higher risk to children especially to newborns who have a weak immune body system that can get easily infected with the diseases.

Why parents decide to say ‘no’ to the vaccine for their child even though the parents itself are vaccinated persons. It is because of the personal issue, religion, get influence by other people or they might think that it unnecessary for their children. We will discuss about the latter reason. ‘Most of the people do not have any firsthand knowledge of what it is like having the diseases’(Krans, 2018). For example, minority in the community do not have any experience dealing with measles as measles are recorded to be consider eradicated from the United States of America in 2000 as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said. This leads the parents question about the importance of vaccine for their child as the disease never happen to them before. However, each human has different immune body system. Thus, it better to take a precaution as the first step before we regret it later.

Disease can be spread in many ways such as through the air, direct contact, contact with contaminated surfaces or objects and contaminated food or water. In this discussion, we will focus on the measles. As you can see, measles is one of the most contagious infection diseases. The transmission for the measles are mostly coughing and sneezing of the infectious person. However, it is likely to be curable with the help of vaccine. ‘An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure’, said Benjamin Franklin. When the people get vaccinated, they likely to reduce the risks of getting the infection or their condition getting worsen compare to the unvaccinated people as they do not have any extra immunity defense against the pathogen. Thus, it is worthwhile to get vaccinated as prevention is better than cure.

The meaning of herd immunity is basically about a large number in population are immunized. This shown that having a herd immunity is one of the best defenses humanity against diseases like measles and chicken pox which are easily spread through coughing and sneezing. ‘A person carrying the virus rode mass transit for several days in 2014, but there were no reported secondary infections because of the area’s high vaccination rate’(Krans, 2018). This means that the unvaccinated persons still be protected by a large number of vaccinated persons (herd immunity) in his area. Thus, we should be grateful for the vaccinated people for giving the protection for those who are not healthy enough to be vaccinated.

In conclusion, if we have any doubt regard to the vaccine, we should consult with the healthcare provider. It the best solution to seek the answers for the vaccine to the health professional instead of the influencer who do not have any deep knowledge about vaccine. We should be take a precaution and early medical check-up treatment if we have any signs and symptoms for the diseases as to prevent the diseases spread actively among our community. People should take an account about the herd immunity as they are not only protecting their family and also other people. Lastly, ‘No vaccine is 100 percent effective, so protection depends on the uptake of vaccine in the community, plus how effective the vaccine is, plus how infectious the illness is.’ (Nachman, 2018).

# data[].attributes.body
NUR NAJIHAH BINTI HAMZAINI

The World Health Organisation has declared that the top 10 global health threat for 2019 is the action of the anti-vaccine in the community. The anti-vaccine activists saying that by vaccinating their children, it will trigger autism, seizures and other serious side effects (Donald, 2007). Meanwhile, there is a study about connection between autism and vaccination and once again, no links are found between them. The term for vaccination is suspension of weakened, killed, or fragmented microorganisms or toxins or of antibodies or lymphocytes that is administered primarily to prevent disease (Emily, 2019). They help prevent sickness from an infectious disease. The effectiveness of vaccination has been widely studied and verified. Every parent should vaccinate their kids so that their kids would be safe from any kind of infectious disease. Parents who do not vaccinate their kids, their child would be at risk for developing a vaccine-preventable disease. Unvaccinated kids can transmit infectious disease at schools and also in the community. This essay will discuss that if you are avoiding vaccine, you are just being absurd because the development of vaccine could protect humanity from deadly disease.

Firstly, it is absurd to not taking vaccine because the content of vaccine are completely safe for children and the effectiveness of vaccine increasing generation by generation. However, some parents would not vaccinate their children due to the news media or information on the internet saying that some of the substances contained in vaccines might harm their children. Vaccines are only given to children after a careful review by doctors, scientists. If the vaccines are not safe to the children, the doctors, scientists or the healthcare professionals would not verify the safety of this vaccines. Vaccines contain main ingredients called antigens which the function is to tell the immune system to create antibodies. Long time ago, the recommended vaccines contained more than 15000 antigens to protect 7 diseases but today’s vaccines contain only 173 antigens to protect 16 diseases. These shows that the vaccine technology has improved and the vaccines are more efficient in today’s generation.

After, there are a rumors saying that there is a link between vaccination and autism; and this is one of the reasons why parents decided not to vaccinate their children. This issue started when a studies published that Measles-Mump-Rubella(MMR) vaccines might cause autism due to the shockingly news of the increase in autism cases in the last three decades. At that time, the statistics of the rate of autism is 1 in every 8000 children but today, it had risen to 1 in every 36 children. The relationship between vaccination and autism has been widely discussed since 1990 but until now there are no link can be found between them. There are several studies confirming the lack of association between MMR and autism. Autism is a condition that affects the brain and makes communicating and interacting with other people more difficult (Elana, 2019) and vaccines is products that protect people against serious deadly disease. Vaccines and autism are two different things that cannot link to each other.

Next, we must protect our future generation from any deadly disease so that they would not suffer from any of these deadly diseases. In order to do that, every parents should start to believe that vaccines are safe for their children and they should start vaccinate their child for the future of the generation. Actually, vaccines have reduces and eliminated many deadly disease that could killed or severely disable people a low time ago. For example, smallpox disease. Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by one of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The last occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977. This shows that the smallpox vaccination eliminate that disease worldwide. Today’s generation do not have to get smallpox disease anymore because the disease no longer exists. If we continue vaccinating our children now, parents in the future may be able to trust that some disease today will no longer exists to harm their children in the future.

In conclusion, today’s generation must not say no to vaccine because it contents safe ingredients and the vaccine’s effectiveness increasing dramatically day by day. People avoiding vaccines due to the rumors saying that vaccines have relation with autism. This rumors make people worry to vaccinate their child because their child may suffer autism after vaccination but there are lots of studies saying there are no relation between vaccines and autism. So people should not worry about this rumors anymore. Then, parents should vaccinate their children in order to save our future generation from any deadly disease. Lastly, vaccination is really important to both our individual and societal health.

# data[].attributes.body
AINA SUHADA BINTI OTHMAN

Did you know, immunization prevents about 2 to 3 million deaths every year recently? Did you realize that when we improvised global vaccination, we can avert additional 1.5 million death? So, what are we waiting for? Let’s vaccinate our little one and help people around us towards a herd immunity community. Herd immunity community is defined as a resistance to the spread of a contagious disease within a community that results if a sufficiently high proportion of individuals are immune to the disease, especially through vaccination. Vaccination save lives. It teaches our immune system to fight against infections by producing antibodies. Have faith to our doctors when they tell us that there is no strong link between vaccines and autism. It is just a hearsay from the anti-vaccers to stop us from vaccinate our child.

Vaccines cause autism is just a fails hypothesis that ever exist in this era. A subgroup of parents with autistic child somehow claimed that mercury in thimerosal (ethyl mercury) preservative used in common childhood vaccines causes autism. But, till now there’s no scientific data that supports a link between mercury and autism. Mainly, autism is causes by genetic factor and not related to immunization at all. Hence, where is the evidence shows that vaccine do causes our child to be autistic? A trial of vaccines with and without thimerosal has been done and there is no significant decrease in number of autism cases. Thus, we can say that the biggest mythologies about vaccine is a total wrong. Vaccine does not cause autism.

Hepatitis B vaccine always been rejected by parents as they said that Hepatitis B is "not a killer for most” and not highly contagious. It is a fallacy owing to the fact that Hepatitis B infection kills 5000 Americans every year. Therefore, it is crucial to give Hepatitis B vaccine to our babies and do remember that prevention is better than cure. Basically, this Hepatitis B vaccine is to prevent our child from being infected by hepatitis B virus. To put in simple words this infection might be a chronic one but still it is preventable. A lot of parents keep questioning their doctors on why their newborn should be injected with vaccine at a very young age and they also claim that their child is safe at home with a low risk of exposure. All of that are just their excuses to not vaccinate their little one. To moms and dads out there, please don’t steal your child’s rights by vaccinate them and let them grow healthily.

Parents with antivaccine background states that vaccine causes SIDS (Sudden Infant Deaths Syndrome) and then parents with no background in science trust about it but they failed to provide proofs. It is like a norm in our society where people tend to trust myths over facts. Back in 2002 there is a case on an infant died with SIDS and her parents assert that it is because of a few vaccinations that the baby had received before she died. Again, where is the proof if they want to put the blame on vaccine? Clearly seen that it is just a propaganda by the anti vaxxers to put the vaccine programme to its knees. Even if that particular baby died because of vaccination but we need to realise that a million lives out there have been saved by vaccine. Plus, vaccine does not cause SIDS.

“Life or death for a young child too often depends on whether he or she is born in a country where vaccines are available or not.” Nelson Mandela. He do supports vaccine, why don’t we? Getting vaccinated is like applying sunscreen before going to beach. Getting vaccinated is like applying insect repellent before going in the woods. Getting vaccinated is like installing anti-virus software on our computer. Why do we want to protect our gadgets from virus but not our child? There’s no such thing about vaccine is harmful and can causes cancer and even death. It is our genetic makeup who reacts to vaccine differently. That’s why in rare cases there might be a vaccine accident. Vaccine do save lives; trust me and do trusts our doctors.

# data[].attributes.body
NUR AIN FADZILLAH BINTI RUSLI

Parents in this era know the importance of baby gates and car seats which are designed to protect children from harm, but not all parents know the importance of vaccine towards their children. In this case, baby gates, car seats and vaccines are same. They guard the children, keep the children safe. Parents want to do the best way to avoid their children from getting any harm so much until they are willing to reject vaccine as a way to protect their children. Why does this scenario occur? It is true that vaccines are the most successful medical sciences advances in modern times but somehow, modern parents are not well-educated about the vaccines; the pros and cons. Due to this issue, parents are constantly questioning about the necessity of immunizing their children because they all know that every vaccine has the adverse effects that may harm the children. But, they also know about the success rate of using vaccine but at one point, they are in torn between giving the vaccine towards their children. They have the difficulty in balancing the potential harms and benefits of vaccines (Am Fam Physician, 2017). To permit or not, parents should know more about the benefits of getting children vaccinated.

Vaccination saves lives. The primary benefit of vaccination is that its prevents disease. Vaccine provides better immunization towards disease such as chicken pox. In this vaccine, they used weakened microbes which is apparently not harmful for our body. Then, once our body recognize the microbes, antibody will be produced. As a result, the body will be able to fight against diseases. From here, we know that vaccine can help us to prevent disease. Technically, it provides better immunization. It is proven that many diseases have been eradicated by vaccine. Immunization is considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century (Colorado Children’s Immunization Coalition, 2019). It is true that vaccine has the side effects, but the effects are less harmful and painful to be compared with the disease. Common side effects are pain, swelling and rashes. These kind of side effects will not last long and it is not worse than the diseases.

Vaccines save money too. The government provides free vaccination towards the people, from infants to the eldest. For instant, the HPV vaccine has been distributed freely towards the women by the Ministry of Health in Malaysia. The real price of HPV vaccine is about hundreds. HPV vaccine is to provide immunization from cervical cancer. It is always cheaper to prevent a disease than to treat disease. The price of HPV vaccine is more less than the price of treating cervical cancer. Apparently, by receiving vaccine, we already kill two birds with one stone which are, save live and save money.

Before new vaccine is released, the vaccine undergoes rigorous safety testing. According to the website of vaccine, (www.vaccines.gov), every recommended vaccine goes through a long time of safety testing including testing and evaluation before it is licensed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and recommended for use by the Centre of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This procedure is to make sure that the vaccines are safe to use and safe to be receive by the human body.

In conclusion, parents who choose not to vaccinate are actually increasing the risk for their children to get a serious disease. The benefits of preventing disease with vaccine are better than the risk. Parents should be confident in vaccinating their children because there’s a quote that said it is better to prevent than to treat. As a parents, it is understandable that you may get upset to see your children getting shots or injections, but you must know that those shots or injections will protect your children for a long time.

# data[].attributes.body
NUR ATHIRAH BINTI ZURAIMI

If you decide not to visit your dentist, choose to eat badly or refuse to wear a helmet while cycling, you put yourself at risk. The direct impact on other people’s health is (pretty much) zero. With vaccines, the health of your community could be affected. You might catch – and spread – infectious diseases at school, in the workplace or in public places. If enough people in a community are vaccinated, ‘herd immunity’ can be achieved. This makes it very difficult for infectious diseases to spread because a significant majority of people are protected. Vaccines a substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies and provide immunity against one or several diseases, prepared from the causative agent of a disease, its products, or a synthetic substitute. Nowadays, many researches proves that vaccines are effective to several diseases. Not just that, public also had been exposed to this issues such as debate about the dilemma of vaccination and also the awareness campaign. To get a vaccination is a must if we really can understand why this is really important.

You can reduce the chance of spreading disease. Many vaccine-preventable diseases are contagious, like flu, pertussis (whooping cough), and meningitis. Getting your recommended vaccines can reduce the risk that you get sick and spread disease to others. Some people may not be able to get certain vaccines based on age, health conditions, or other factors even though they are vulnerable to illness. You help protect them by getting vaccinated.

Next, vaccination is very safe and effective. Vaccines are only given to children after a long and careful review by scientists, doctors, and healthcare professionals. Vaccines will involve some discomfort and may cause pain, redness, or tenderness at the site of injection but this is minimal compared to the pain, discomfort, and trauma of the diseases these vaccines prevent. Serious side effects following vaccination, such as severe allergic reaction, are very rare. The disease-prevention benefits of getting vaccines are much greater than the possible side effects for almost all children.

Immunizations can save your family time and money. A child with a vaccine-preventable disease can be denied attendance at schools or day care facilities. Some vaccine-preventable diseases can result in prolonged disabilities and can take a financial toll because of lost time at work, medical bills or long term disability care. In contrast, getting vaccinated against these diseases is a good investment and usually covered by insurance.

In this modern world, we have to be more aware about this issues as we live in a big community. So, it is important for us to build a healthy community and can live a normal life. It is also important not to be influenced by the anti-vaccine people as they might be lack of knowledge about vaccines. Ask the professional if not clear about vaccination to make sure we get the right info instead of asking from random people. Lastly, prevention is better than cure so, do the vaccination.