The smallpox vaccine was introduced by Edward Jenner in 1798 and finally eradicated the disease in 1977. “Jenner’s work represented the first scientific attempt to control an infectious disease by the deliberate use of vaccination” Professor Stefan Riedel from Johns Hopkins’ stated. In the twentieth century alone smallpox was estimated to be responsible for 300 to 500 million deaths worldwide prior to the eradication. Today, vaccinations for the likes of measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR), help prevent spreading of these diseases, but these are only beneficial in a group of other vaccinated individuals. Vaccines work best when multiple individuals or herd immunity is present. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) “vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks can still occur where unvaccinated persons cluster in schools and communities (Seither 916).” Immunity is best when the virus dead or alive is injected into the bodies system and a natural antibody is …show more content…
With parents currently choosing not to immunize their children, they are opening them up for sickness, hospitalization, and even death. The reason that these children are more susceptible to these viruses is due to the preventable disease not being eradicated. In 1955 a polio vaccination was created and issued to United States children and citizens. By 1979 the United States had eradicated polio. Even though polio is still contagious in third world countries, the vaccinations have prevented it from reoccurring in the US once again. “For most diseases, vaccination rates must remain very high --- up to 95% in some cases (41),” as reporter Jeffery Kluger for Time magazine points out. With polio those vaccination rates helped lead to its U.S. eradication, however, measles currently is a cause for concern. California, with a heavy anti-vaccination population, has a 92.3% MMR vaccination rate of children entering kindergarten according to the CDC’s 2013-14 estimated vaccination coverage table (Seither 915). With those less than beneficial percentages 592 patients across twenty one states have been treated for measles. That outbreak has been traced back to an amusement park in