Vaccination Good Or Bad

Disease is a disordered or incorrectly functioning organ, part, structure, or system of the body resulting from the effect of genetic or developmental errors, infection, poisons, nutritional deficiency or imbalance, toxicity, or unfavorable environmental factors; illness; sickness; ailment (“The Definition of Disease”). Disease has been around for as long as humans can go back, and because of the many viruses and bacteria present in almost all things (animals, plants, and people) it is quite impossible to completely avoid. Although viruses and bacteria can not completely be avoided, they can, however, be somewhat slowed down or prevented in most human beings -- this is where vaccinations come into action. Vaccinations have saved many children, teens, and adults from obtaining deathly diseases throughout history. Now, although vaccinations have reduced the amount of viruses spread throughout the world, studies have shown that these vaccines can be the cause of many diseases that might outweigh the advantages of getting vaccinations. It is true that the first written account of a vaccination in history was in the year 1000 where a Chinese boy was vaccinated for smallpox by using a method of having multiple scabs of the smallpox crushed up into a powder and put down through his nose (“All Timelines Overview”). This was only the beginning of discovery in the field of vaccinations; as the world began to progress, so did discoveries of the many bacterias and viruses found in the world. As viruses and bacterias began to spread farther and wider, such as in the Smallpox Epidemic in India in 1545, the Early Smallpox in North America in the year 1625, and the “German Measles” (Rubella) in the year 1740, which are just a few of the earlier stages of epidemics, the people began begging and searching far and wide for anything that could help cure their frail, sick, and dying loved ones (“All Timelines Overview”). Inoculation, which is the method used on the Chinese boy in the year 1000 and is also known as variolation, started to become known to the world and was beginning to be used more frequently. In fact, in the year 1661, Chinese Emperor K-ang who lost his own father to the deadly disease of smallpox and also suffered a severe case of it himself, wrote about his support of inoculation: The method of inoculation having been brought to light during my reign, I had it used upon you, my sons and daughters, and my descendants, and you all passed through the smallpox in the happiest possible manner…. In the beginning, when I had it tested on one or two people, some old women taxed me with extravagance, and spoke very strongly against inoculation. The courage which I summoned up to insist on its practice has saved the lives and health of millions of men. This is an extremely important thing, of which I …show more content…
The official definition of the immune system according to dictionary.com is a diffuse, complex network of interacting cells, cell products, and cell-forming tissues that protects the body from pathogens and other foreign substances, destroys infected and malignant cells, and removes cellular debris: the system includes the thymus, spleen, lymph nodes and lymph tissue, stem cells, white blood cells, antibodies, and lymphokines (The Definition of Immune System). When viruses or bacteria gets into the body, the first thing that happens to them in the immune system is they hit a wall of macrophages (white blood cells), which are referred to as “big eaters” -- this is because these macrophages literally engulf and eat as many of these unusual viruses as they can (Alan Cantwell Jr., M.D.). But how do the macrophages know which cells are good, and which cells carry viruses within them? According to Understanding Vaccinations -What They Are and How They Work, each cell and microbe in the body is covered in molecules, and each individual person’s molecules exhibits a distinctive pattern, therefore if a peculiar molecule comes into the body and it’s pattern does not match up, the macrophages immediately remove it. Because the immune system works in such a way, scientists had to come up with a way that vaccinations would somehow work together alongside the immune system, in hopes of trying to put a stop to the deadly diseases occurring in the