It is becoming more common for parents to refuse vaccinations for their children, to prevent rare but serious side effects. However, this refusal of inoculations has meant the rate of cases of whooping cough then becomes much higher – to the point where children who do not receive that particular vaccine are 23 times more likely to become ill with whopping cough.
One argument parents give in favor of skipping shots is that if all of a child’s peers get inoculated, then they won’t be able to transmit the virus to their child. This phenomenon is known as herd immunity. This argument does not hold true for whooping cough, and so vaccine refusal is putting these children at a real and serious risk. Read more…
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