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Hailey Chen

Mrs. Valdez

Language Arts Period. 4

December 17, 2018

Vaccination Speech

Vaccines. They are the reason that, “… smallpox was eradicated worldwide by 1980, and

polio cases declined by 99 percent,” (Britannica Library). It’s understandable that some people

might think vaccines are dangerous. How can something so revolutionary have no drawback?

However, people must be educated on the fact that vaccines aren’t dangerous, so they can go and

get vaccinated. People also need to be vaccinated because as Professor David Salisbury, head of

immunization at the Department of Health, warned, a disease left unchecked “spreads like

wildfire,” (Darzi 1). Vaccines aren’t dangerous. Dangerous is a previously eradicated disease

that can kill hundreds. Dangerous is people spreading fake news that make others less willing to

get vaccinated. Dangerous is someone rejecting what is the most common safeguard against

diseases in today’s society. Herd immunity, which prevents outbreaks of disease because so few

people are vulnerable, begins to break down. Vaccines are a necessity as they defend against

lethal diseases. People need to be vaccinated because vaccines aren’t dangerous and herd

immunity may disappear otherwise.

Firstly, people need to get vaccinated because vaccines aren’t dangerous. The more

people that think vaccines are dangerous, the more people there are that won't get vaccinated,

which would be disastrous for everyone worldwide. While the ingredients in vaccines might

seem scary, the University of Oxford says that, "If you look up some vaccine ingredients on the
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internet you may read that they could be harmful, but most of them are present in vaccines in

amounts that are completely normal for our bodies," (Oxford 1). Even without vaccines, these

elements are already found in peoples' bodies. Vaccines just utilize these elements differently to

help people to fight off diseases. Vaccines also go through a rigorous course of testing to ensure

that they are safe. Before vaccines are distributed to hospitals around the world for use, they are

subjected to trials that, “…can take years, giving companies ample time to provide the FDA with

proof of long-term safety and effectiveness,” (Merino 1). The trials take so long because they go

through each specific detail under meticulous scrutiny. In fact, the varicella vaccine, commonly

known as the chicken pox vaccine, took, “11 years to be licensed by the FDA,” (Merino 1).

Vaccines are only released to the public after the FDA has verified that they are safe for people

to use. Vaccines are completely safe, because their ingredients aren’t dangerous and they

undergo extreme testing, so people should get vaccinated.

Additionally, people need to be vaccinated because herd immunity may disappear

otherwise. Many dangerous diseases eradicated due to vaccines may come back, because

vaccines are the floodgates to the river that is epidemics. When the MMR (Measles, Mumps, and

Rubella) vaccine was introduced, the amount of people getting sick from those diseases dropped

drastically. However, when false news about vaccines began to spread, and more and more

people believed it, "Herd immunity, which prevents outbreaks of disease because so few people

are vulnerable, began to break down," (Darzi 1). When people don't get vaccinated, they break

down their community's herd immunity. Many people that don't get vaccinated think that it's

their choice to make, since it only affects them but that is not true at all, as their choice affects

everybody in their community. Due to many people not getting vaccinated, there have been

breakouts over the US of vaccine-preventable diseases, such as measles. Did you know that,
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“…for every 1,000 children who get the measles, one or two will die,” (Sifferlin 1)? That means

if someone doesn’t get vaccinated, they could potentially be causing the death of someone.

Imagine losing a loved one or a friend to a disease that is completely preventable by vaccines.

Wouldn’t you do anything to save them? That is why people need to get vaccinated or else

dangerous diseases that were eradicated may come back.

As such, everybody should get vaccinated because vaccines are completely safe and so

herd immunity won’t disappear. Some people may still be hesitant to be vaccinated because they

think that vaccines cause autism, which is reasonable because the rumor was first spread by a

doctor. However, the doctor was a man named Andrew Wakefield and he was stripped of his

medical license and disgraced from the medical community when, "…Wakefield published his

infamous 1998 research paper in The Lancet, which started the MMR and autism scare

[but] …over the ensuing two decades, scores of subsequent studies have failed to confirm its

findings, 10 of his co-authors publicly dissociated themselves from it and The Lancet itself

withdrew the paper following the GMC [General Medical Council] verdict," (Darzi 1). The

statements he made are nothing more than lies, as multiple studies have shown no findings, yet

many people still believe it. Even his own colleagues denied the credibility behind their findings.

The ingredient commonly linked to autism in vaccines is thimerosal which is one out of the,

“Two types of mercury to which people may be exposed — methylmercury and ethylmercury…

Methylmercury is the type of mercury found in certain kinds of fish… Thimerosal contains

ethylmercury, which is cleared from the human body more quickly than methylmercury, and is

therefore less likely to cause any harm,” (CDC 1). Methylmercury, the type of mercury found in

food, is the deathly mercury but thimerosal is ethylmercury, which is the safe kind that the

human body can get rid of. Even then, thimerosal doesn’t cause autism because, “Even after
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thimerosal was removed from almost all childhood vaccines, autism rates continued to increase,

which is the opposite of what would be expected if thimerosal caused autism,” (CDC 1). If

thimerosal was the cause of autism, then autism rates would have decreased drastically, but they

didn’t. Therefore, vaccines do not cause autism. Please check out the map of vaccine-preventable

diseases I sent to your e-mail, inform your family and community members about the importance

of vaccines, and ask your doctor the next chance you get about your own vaccination status.

Thank you for listening about the very important issue that is vaccination!