{"id":104,"date":"2015-02-06T21:02:41","date_gmt":"2015-02-06T21:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/inside.gcschool.org\/gremlinsvoice\/?p=104"},"modified":"2015-02-06T21:02:41","modified_gmt":"2015-02-06T21:02:41","slug":"health-us-public-case-general-use-vaccines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/health-us-public-case-general-use-vaccines\/","title":{"rendered":"To the Health of Us All: A Public Case for the General Use of Vaccines"},"content":{"rendered":"

This paper was originally written as the first project for math class at The School of Ethics and Global Leadership. The following is an excerpt of a larger paper, which can be found here<\/a>.<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

I hate needles. I admit it. I hate needles. I used to throw temper tantrums so that I wouldn\u2019t get one, and to this day, I will wince at the thought of a second needle. But there is a reason the doctor prolongs what must be a torturous process for both her and me. Turns out that second needle contains vaccines for dangerous diseases. The American public isn\u2019t familiar with the diseases they protect against, like diphtheria, or mumps, or whooping cough, because vaccines for the past century have done their job. But since these diseases have been vaccinated against, Americans don\u2019t see that side of the vaccine, and instead see the needle. There have been a litany of arguments not to take a vaccine, including religious and medical exemptions which existed before and while smallpox made its rounds. However, many non-medical excuses have also developed against the use of vaccines, which not only are patently untrue, but are actually harmful to society, which is why it is ethical to mandate the use of vaccines with medical and religious exemptions.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a bold statement. Isn\u2019t there some fancy document that would cry foul to this in the most powerful country in the world? Yes, that document is the Constitution, and many would argue that the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights protects anyone\u2019s right to just say no to vaccines. And normally, I would agree\u2014 if it weren\u2019t for drunk driving. Now Americans, as much as they hate rubbing alcohol, love to drink. Do we have a right to drink? Yes, thanks to the 21st Amendment. Do we have a right to drink too much? Yes, thanks to the Ninth Amendment. And when we are done with our drinks some drive their automobile home. And there\u2019s the problem. Remember, drunk driving is illegal. Anyone could argue, especially if they\u2019re fighting fines and penalties, that the First and 21st Amendment protects their right to drive while drunk. After all, both are legal when not done in concurrence. However, Congress realized that drunk driving, when you tally the medical bill, the funeral bill, and the insurance bill along with the lost labor and taxes that comes with death, costs America 51 billion dollars. Presumably around the same time, Congress also realized that the Commerce clause gave it the power to collect taxes with any means constitutional, and that includes preventing 51 billion dollars from being run over by buzzed hooligans. In short, if you are by your actions hurting the nation\u2019s tax income, the government is sending in The Man.<\/p>\n

Now, you must be wondering, \u201cWhat in the world does that have to do with vaccines?\u201d Actually, that precedence has everything to do with vaccines. Now, don\u2019t get me wrong, vaccines are great, but one vaccine isn\u2019t that effective. If you\u2019re the only one with a vaccine, you are still going to get sick, though if that happens, the sickness will be less harsh than if you were unvaccinated. If your friends get vaccines too, that still doesn\u2019t help. Not even grabbing everyone in a community center and forcing them to get a vaccine will save you from an unpleasant experience in quarantine. Everyone has to get vaccinated, and when I say everyone, I mean \u00be of the population at the least, and often times up to 90%. This is the idea of community immunity, or herd immunity, displayed in Figure 1.<\/p>\n

Figure 1: An infographic explaining community or herd immunity. While nobody, or close to nobody, is vaccinated, disease has a Medieval Age field day. Everybody gets sick, including people who may have the vaccine, though they don\u2019t suffer as much. When a few people get vaccinated, almost nothing changes. But when almost everybody is vaccinated, the diseases suddenly have a problem. Not only is it harder to infect people, even when it does happen, the disease is much weaker than if it were to come off a defenseless person, reducing the reproduction number of the disease. Even those who aren\u2019t in the 75% are protected, because since the diseases don\u2019t have a playfield of bodies to roll in, they have to take meager steps to make it to an unvaccinated person without being beaten up by a much more prepared immune system of another host. In other words, everyone lives. For skeptics, I introduce Exhibit A, smallpox. Smallpox was a deadly disease that often left your body in an unspeakable rash. 30% of people smallpox infected died. And just a note, the bloody horror spread through social contact. If there was anyone you didn\u2019t want to touch with your bare hands, it would probably be someone with smallpox. However, luckily for humanity, we banded together and found a vaccine, and together we didn\u2019t reject the vaccine as voodoo magic, but as a cure. Today, smallpox is one of two diseases eradicated from the earth. However, there are still vaccine-preventable diseases that plague our land, and keep our workers from work, paying ridiculous hospital fees and occasionally signing their own will. All of that is bad for the national economy, including death, which is bad for taxes. Thus, I argue, it should be imperative that the government enforce vaccine use as a matter of law. Read the full paper here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Figure<\/a>
Figure 1: An infographic explaining community, or herd, immunity<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This paper was originally written as the first project for math class at The School of Ethics and Global Leadership. The following is an excerpt of a larger paper, which… Continue reading “To the Health of Us All: A Public Case for the General Use of Vaccines”<\/span> <\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"appful":[],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9uEnr-1G","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"appful","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/appful?post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}