The Importance of Immunization

The article, Immunize to Protect Your Baby against Disease, written by the CDC highlighted the importance of immunization and epidemic diseases. This article can be found at http://www.cdc.gov/Features/InfantImmunization/. The author of this article wrote. “Immunization is one of the best ways parents can protect their infants and young children from potentially serious diseases” to best summarize the article. This article highlights the importance of having babies, who are old enough to be immunized, and anyone close to a baby, who is not old enough, to be immunized so that young baby would not contract a deadly disease. This article, which is written by the CDC, is clearly in favor of vaccination and immunization. The article also highlights an important week for the CDC, known as National Infant Immunization Week (NIIW). “This is an annual celebration of the significant role of immunizations play in keeping our children and our communities healthy. NIIW is April 24 – May 1.” While I do agree that vaccine keep our children and communities healthy, I believe it should be a person’s individual choice on whether they want the vaccine. The CDC is promoting vaccination and immunization, but I do not think any vaccine should be mandatory, because it is a person’s right to make their decision, and forcing someone to do something, would be unconstitutional. This article reminded me of the vaccine movement for polio we learned about in class. Many people, such as Indians, do not want the vaccine because of religious beliefs, and I think they have a right to refuse the vaccine. This article was very interesting, because I did not know there was a designated week called, NIIW, to promote vaccination and immunization.