A recent outbreak of measles in the United States has been linked back to Disneyland Park in Anaheim, Calif. Between Dec. 28, 2014 and Feb. 20, 2015 there were 104 people infected with measles in California alone, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Relative to the population of California, that is not a particularly large number, but measles have long been considered preventable in the Western World. The current U.S. policy on vaccines determines that all children entering public schools must be vaccinated. However, this provides grounds for people to avoid vaccinations if they are not enrolled in public school or have religious restrictions. So the Foghorn asks, should vaccines be mandated by the government?

Alejandro Santos
Freshman International Business major

“Yes, I think vaccinations should be mandated because it will only protect everyone in our school and our world. It should be mandatory because if you’re next to someone in class and learning, you shouldn’t have to worry about being sick. If you’re just out in public, you shouldn’t have to worry about contracting deadly diseases that you could actually avoid.”

 

Bayli Tucker
Junior Sociology major

“Yes, I do think that vaccines should be mandated by the government because the cost of vaccinating your child outweighs the cost of not vaccinating your child. Because if you don’t vaccinate your child, then they’re at risk for diseases like measles. If not measles, then other  once-eradicated diseases that could kill. Not getting vaccinated could bring up other health issues that could also compromise your immune system for the rest of your life. I don’t think any of these risks are worth dealing with, just because of the baseless assumption that getting vaccinated will cause your child to get autism.”

 

Emma Luna
Sophomore Media Studies major

“I believe that vaccinations should be mandatory because it is a public health issue. I feel that a lot of parents may say that there are vaccines that have been known to cause autism. They’re all very worried that if their child gets protection from preventable deadly diseases, they will get autism. But that has not been proven. Also, even if one child became autistic through vaccination (if that were true, which i don’t believe it is), I think it would be ethically better than hundreds of kids dying, just because you didn’t vaccinate your child. It’s not fair to put everyone else in danger for selfish reasons.”