The following statistic should startle both parents and aspiring parents to the core: without immunization, polio, a highly infectious disease that mostly affects children under age three, can induce paralysis within a few hours. The frightening thing is that, while polio isn’t as catastrophic as it once was, it hasn’t been completely eradicated. But here’s something else: prior to when mass immunization efforts really began in 1988, polio paralyzed more than 1,000 children per day, which totaled a whopping 350,000 children each year. For most people, that’s mind-boggling. And here’s a final statistic, courtesy of www.rotary.org: “Vaccinations have prevented an estimated 500,000 children per year from contracting polio. A child can be protected against polio for as little as 60 cents worth of vaccine.”

This fact illustrates the importance of inoculating children against debilitating and life-threatening diseases. It’s hard to believe that in today’s age, someone could die from the mumps. But without proper vaccination, many young children whose developing immune systems would be far too insufficient to repel virulent diseases, would easily succumb to treatable diseases. Immunization or vaccinations protect children against things like measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B, polio, diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough).

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This fact illustrates the importance of inoculating children against debilitating and life-threatening diseases. It’s hard to believe that in today’s age, someone could die from the mumps. But without proper vaccination, many young children whose developing immune systems would be far too insufficient to repel virulent diseases, would easily succumb to treatable diseases. Immunization or vaccinations protect children against things like measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B, polio, diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough). According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, immunizations are also important for adults. Sources explain that “Your immune system helps your body fight germs by producing substances to combat them. Once it does, the immune system ‘remembers’ the germ and can fight it again. Vaccines contain germs that have been killed or weakened. When given to a healthy person, the vaccine triggers the immune system to respond and thus build immunity.”

They go on to say that, prior to mass vaccinations, the only way that people could defeat a terminal disease was to get a disease and then try to survive. Knowing how painful, how incapacitating and how dangerous many diseases are, it would instead be prudent for citizens to endure a slightly painful pinch of a needle than to chance their imperfect bodies’ ability to withstand disease. Inoculation is by far an easier, quicker and less risky enterprise. - terry shropshire

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