1. Morgan Boyer 1
Morgan Boyer
American Government
Dr. Schweers
March 15th, 2015
Vaccines: why they should be mandatory
In 1963, the brilliant Dr. Enders along with his team in Boston, Massachusetts,
developed a vaccine for a disease that had been known to plague mankind for over a thousand
years and claimed countless human casualties: measles. By the year 2000, measles were
declared to be eradicated in the United States. It seemed that measles would no longer pose
any threat to Western societies such as the US. That is, until a stream of misinformation about
Autism being caused by the vaccine prompted many parents to panic. Many parents did and
sadly, still to this very day, refrained from having their children vaccinated. This resulted in
epidemics from Britain to San Francisco, all because of one man’s flawed 1998 study. Vaccines
should be mandatory because if one does not vaccinate their children, they are risking the lives
of others and hence denying their fellow young Americans the right to life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness.
First, a little background on who is to blame for these recent epidemics. The first is Dr.
Andrew Wakefield. He has been called “the father of the anti-vaccine movement” even though
his paper in which he claimed that autism was linked to the measles vaccine was fraudulent at
best. It even cost him his own medical license.

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The second culprit is Jenny McCarthy, an ex-Playboy model and TV host. It is a rather
sickening commentary when so many people honestly think that woman who kisses random
strangers on New Year’s Eve to show off on national television knows what’s right when it
comes to the health of America’s youth. She based much of her campaigns to end vaccination
on Dr. Wakefield’s so-called “scientific findings”. She struck fear into the masses over a period
of just about fifteen years.
Now onto what real science has to say about the relationship between measles vaccines
and autism. The answer: there is none.
In 2012, a case-controlled study was done in Japan that found no relationship between
the MMR vaccine and autism and debunked Dr. Wakefield’s absurd claims (Uno, Y., Uchiyama,
T., Kurosawa, M., Aleksic, B., & Ozaki, N.).
Across the globe in Poland, a team of doctors published a study where even though the
chemical ex-vaccine activists are concerned about--thimerosal--was used in their vaccinations,
there still no causal relationships found between the two of them (Mrozek-Budzyn, D.,
Majewska, R., Kiełtyka, A., & Augustyniak, M.).
The Center of Disease Control also has an article on their website of a published study
done by distinguished doctors in which they monitored the amount of antigens--the ingredient
that helps the immune system which is in vaccines--and found no correlation between the two
(Weintraub, E., Price, C., DeStefano, F., pg 1). That study was published in the Journal of
Pediatrics. How could the opinion of a playboy bunny outweigh that of Center for Disease
Control, the Journal of Pediatrics along with several other acclaimed team of doctors who did
not get their licenses taken away in the eyes of so many Americans?

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The great irony is that many states actually grant parents the right to not vaccinate their
children for “philosophical” reasons. Philosophy literally means the study of knowledge. If they
did have knowledge, they would have researched and figured out that vaccines do not cause
autism and are safe for their children.
Although one could make the case that parents have the right not to vaccinate their
children, think of the other kids who are then put in grave danger. The other kids have a right to
life, be able to breath air, and walk. The other kids have the right of liberty, to go to their local
public school and get an education to prepare them for public life. They have a right to be
happy, to not be sickly and ill because of some other parents’ poorly-advised decision.
Also, the parents who do vaccinate their children have their rights invaded because their
right to pursue happiness, in this case being able to have their child be healthy and in school
without being worried about contracting some horrible, but preventable disease, is violate when
someone else does not get vaccinated.
As Americans, one of our most prized cultural values is science and technology. We
pride ourselves in being the first to send a man to the moon. We honor industrious icons like
Ford, Edison and the Wright Brothers for inventing revolutionary technologies like the light-bulb,
phonograph, airplane, automobile assembly line and motion-picture camera. Moments in history
and inventions that would change the world forever and effect how we live our lives everyday. If
that is the case, and as studies have shown, that autism is not linked to vaccines, why are there
so many people who are hesitant still to protect their own children from horrible diseases that
could very easily kill them? They live in a society where they can get the vaccine. Why wait?

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Not only that, but Americans also value equality (despite the ironic fact that women are
paid seventy-seven percent to what a man makes and African Americans are sent to prison far
more often than white people). Just last week, thousands of people, both white, black, bi-racial
and hispanic gathered from miles around to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Selma
march to Montgomery along with the tragedy that was “Bloody Sunday” where police beat the
peaceful protestors. The tragedy in Ferguson, Missouri has sparked protests across the nation.
Millions of people have taken to the streets to demand justice.
If so many of our fellow countrymen feel that men are equal no matter what race we are,
why should whether or not someone has an Autism Spectrum diagnoses be any different then?
It’s something that someone is born with. Yet a sadly decent portion of our fellow American
citizens are prejudice against those who have the Autism diagnosis that they would risk to let
their child die from a preventable disease. It’s as if they view those with Autism as Old
Testament lepers. How could a kid who loves things like animals, movies, Disney, music,
drawing, trains, art, math, bugs, space or Japanese animation be of any threat to your child’s
well-being?
Vaccines should be mandatory because if one does not vaccinate their child, they are
violating other people’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The global scientific
community has debunked and discredited the claim that autism is caused by vaccines, even
going as far as relieving Dr. Wakefield of his medical license. The refusal of equality and new
developments in science and technology goes against some of our core American values.
Whether or not vaccines should be mandatory is not the actual question--it’s why are we still
asking this question in 2015?
Morgan Boyer
Mr. Schweers

5. Morgan Boyer 5
American Government
3/8/15
Work Cited
Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (2014). “History of Measles”. Web.
Weintraub, E., Price, C., DeStefano, F., (2013). “Increasing Exposure to Antibody-Stimulating
Proteins and Polysaccharides in Vaccines Is Not Associated with Risk of Autism”.
Journal of Pediatrics. Vol 163, No 2. Print.
Mrozek-Budzyn, D., Majewska, R., Kiełtyka, A., & Augustyniak, M. (2011). “Lack of association
between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism”. Przegla̧ d Epidemiologiczny, 65(3),
491-495. Print.
Salzburg, S. (2015). “Anti-Vaccine Movement Causes Worst Measles Epidemic in 20 Years”.
Forbes.com. Web.
Uno, Y., Uchiyama, T., Kurosawa, M., Aleksic, B., & Ozaki, N. (2012). “The combined measles,
mumps, and rubella vaccines and the total number of vaccines are not
associated with development of autism spectrum disorder: The first case–control
study in Asia.” Vaccine, 30. Print.