Castro Valley High School’s award-winning student newspaper. We are born to seek the truth!

Opinion

Anti-vaccinators are an active threat to society

Anti-vaccinators are becoming more and more common these days and this is causing a crisis.

The movement gained steam when former doctor Andrew Wakefield released a proven-false study linking several vaccines to autism, but it was and is the general fear about the contents of vaccines that power the movement.

The leadership of anti-vaxxers consists mainly of such disgraced medical professionals, and its base is mostly concerned parents. Some of you all, dear readers, may be these parents’ daughters and sons.

Some of you may choose not to think about vaccines because they hurt, or you may avoid them actively wondering if those people just might be onto something.

Don’t be like that.

Just go to the doctor’s office, or a seasonal clinic held at a local elementary school, or wherever to get your shots.

Talk to your parents and make sure your younger siblings are vaccinated to help prevent a crisis such as the Minnesota 2017 measles outbreak (which affected Somali immigrants influenced by anti-vax rhetoric) from happening in our Castro Valley.

The principle of herd immunity states that the more immunized people there are in a population, the more resistant the population itself is to viruses. This means that your shiver-inducing flu can ripple out to literally kill a baby.

Young children are more vulnerable to viruses, and the herd immunity is what protects them from death by disease. Meaning that every person in this school, this community, this world relies on others to keep them safe.

So, if you don’t feel like you’re doing anything positive for yourself, then treat it like charity or civic duty, because one vulnerable person can make the difference between the life and death of a child (and not anything to do with autism.)