I think that vaccines should be mandatory in all of the United States. Vaccines are one of the most important tools that we have in public health and have saved millions of lives. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “4 million deaths worldwide are prevented by childhood vaccination every year.”
We should enact a strict vaccination policy with the only exceptions being medical. Vaccine rates have dropped critically low. For example, “An estimated 25 million children under the age of 1 year did not receive basic vaccines, which is the highest number since 2009” (World Health Organization, 2022).
Lower vaccination rates are causing a rise in preventable diseases and are killing people. An example of this is measles. According to UNICEF, worldwide measles cases increased by 79 percent in the first two months of 2022 compared to the last year.
I would like to address the other side. Anti-vaxxers are a group of people who believe that there should be no vaccines. This group is dangerous, spreading misinformation. A recent example is when activists used the on-field collapse of football player Damar Hamlin to spread anti-vaccination messages.
Mandatory vaccines are vital to keeping our country safe and healthy. Go vaccines!
