In a world full of disease, the one thing people rely on for immunity is vaccinations. Vaccines are substances that are used to stimulate the production of antibodies and provide immunity against one or even several diseases. They typically contain an agent that resembles that of a disease causing microorganism and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe, its toxins, or one of its surface proteins.

So, I will admit that does sound a little scary. I mean it sounds like you are literally putting a disease causing organism in our body. Wouldn’t that make you sick? Fortunately before a vaccine is recommended for use in the United States, the FDA (Food and Drug Association) has to make sure that it is safe and that it works. Even though we know this, there are still people who think that these vaccinations don’t work.

President Donald Trump, has caused a major boost in the anti-vaccine movement. President Trump believes that vaccines and autism are linked, he mentioned this during a Republican primary debate where it was immediately dismissed as false by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. While there are other people like Trump who are against vaccines, many of them don’t speak out as much as the people who are for vaccines.

Jewelia Taylor, a junior, mentions “Vaccines have been proven to be the most effective disease prevention. Yes, it is true that vaccines can cause adverse effects in some cases, but that is because no medicine, no matter how cherry-picked and perfected, can have a 100% success rate. The success rate of vaccines compared to the number of adverse effect occurrences shows that the risk is low enough to be insignificant towards the argument of whether we should use vaccines. The adverse reactions will be addressed as vaccines are refined and technology progresses, but their current rate does not present an argument to completely halt the use of vaccines today.” She believes that vaccines are helpful and that everyone should get vaccinated.

As time goes on, maybe vaccines will get better and more advanced, but for now vaccines are the next best thing to fight diseases. Although people still have their opinions on whether they are actually helpful, it has been proven that vaccines are the best shot against serious, preventable illness.