Recently, a new surge of parents opting their children out of vaccines has arisen in many states across the country, largely in the Pacific Northwest and Southwest — and Pennsylvania. Only 18 states allow for citizens to be exempt from vaccines for non-medical reasons, but the percentage of unvaccinated children has quadrupled in the past 18 years, according to The Washington Post.

These “anti-vaxxers” cite a variety of arguments for why they opt out, most of them stating that vaccines can cause more harm than good. The movement began with the belief that vaccines cause autism because of trace amounts of mercury suspected to be in the vaccines. Although numerous studies have consistently disproven this claim for the past 30 years, public opinion on vaccines has been damaged. 

By 2000, cases of measles transmitted between patients in the United States were virtually nonexistent. However, after a decade of a newly emerged anti-vaxxer movement based on the old “vaccines cause autism” claim and celebrity endorsements, a few large cases of measles returned to the US in 2013, and the majority of those contracting the disease were unvaccinated.

Some anti-vaxxers are worried about the cost of vaccines. The average vaccine costs around $100 (which is usually covered by insurance) and some people believe that the companies are simply out to profit off of vaccines are not actually helpful.

Of course, if one were to contract a disease that could have been prevented, treatment could cost up to $10,000, so the price of vaccines is undeniably worth it. Additionally, every dollar spent on a vaccine is about seven dollars that a person gets back in saved healthcare costs by helping to stop people from falling seriously ill.

One of the more frequently avoided vaccines by anti-vaxxers is the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine, which, according to the American Council on Science and Health, has saved over 20 million lives since 2000. Anti-vaxxers continue to underestimate the deadliness of these diseases, often referring to them by lighthearted nicknames, such as the “mickey mouse disease” (for measles).

An important factor related to vaccinations is a phenomenon known as “herd immunity.” This means that we rely on others to be vaccinated to reduce the likelihood of outbreaks, due to the ease of contracting a vaccine-preventable disease. Thus, when anti-vaxxer parents express concerns over the health of their child and their child only, they overlook the fact that their unvaccinated child could jeopardize the health of other kids, not just their own. The recent measles outbreaks were most likely the result of unvaccinated kids interacting with other kids in public places, unknowingly transmitting diseases.

It is also important for people to think about all of the children in the world living in developing countries that do not have access to vaccines. According to the World Health Organization, 19.9 million infants born in 2017 were not able to get vaccines for some of the most common deadly diseases due to lack of access in their community. The parents of these children, who would do nearly anything to get their children vaccinated, have to worry constantly about their kids being exposed to terrible diseases like polio, rubella, measles, yellow fever, etc., while some privileged American parents are intentionally not protecting their children from diseases for fear of extremely unlikely effects.

Some older children of anti-vaxxer parents have expressed their discontentment with their parents’ decision to avoid vaccines and have started to seek help in getting their immunizations free of parental obstacle. Ethan Lindenberger, an 18-year-old from Ohio, asked the Internet for advice on where to get vaccinated and what vaccines he would need at his age. The subject line of his post on Reddit even included the statement “My parents are kind of stupid and don’t believe in vaccines.” Several other teens like Lindenberger have resorted to forums such as Reddit to learn how they can receive treatment without their parents’ consent. 

History has continuously proven that vaccines work. The MMR vaccine is ninety-five percent effective, and outbreaks have occurred primarily where the concentrations of unvaccinated people are the highest. When laws are passed to make vaccines mandatory, the disease can be eradicated. One of the earliest examples of this was the eradication of smallpox in the 1850s. The disease went from claiming 300 million deaths (and affecting nearly 1 billion) in the early 20th century to finally zero infections in 1980.

The truth is plain: if people would be sensible and listen to the scientific community’s proof regarding how life-saving vaccines really are, many children around the country would be saved from their parents’ ignorance.