ject to vaccines do so on moral and personal grounds, claiming that it is indeed a personal choice to not get vaccinated. The rhetoric for this is very common:
“I’m not hurting anyone by not getting vaccinated, it’s my choice, my risk and I’m not worried about those diseases.”
To really get to the bottom of this objection, Dr. Cody gave me a deeper explanation of why a healthy college student should bother to get vaccinated at all if most of these diseases are harmless. The answer was shocking.
“Because of the success of our vaccination programs, we see much less infectious disease in the U.S., but for some people that has made us complacent, saying ‘these things don’t exist’ and ‘these things aren’t a concern’ when absolutely, these are life-threatening illnesses,” Cody said.
Even if you don’t care if you die from an easily preventable disease, like the 2 million to 3 million who do every year according to the WHO, you should still get vaccinated, because, in the US, vaccines aren’t really given to protect you.
They’re for everyone else.
Dr. Cody said, “you have a responsibility to society to get vaccinated,” because of something called herd immunity.
Herd immunity is the principle that, if a large percentage of the population is immunized, then it is far harder for a disease to spread if one person, by chance, becomes infected. It is paramount to not spread diseases to those who are immunocompromised, people who could be killed by these ‘non-lethal’ illnesses, such as “the pregnant, the unborn, the children too young to get vaccinated,” Cody said.
“Because vaccine levels need to be above 90 to 95 % to provide herd immunity, it’s your obligation to get vaccinated, if you truly believe in protecting the immune vulnerable in our UD community,” said Cody.
Vaccination is not just a personal choice. It is a grave responsibility, and those who choose not to get vaccinated are not only putting their own lives at risk, but also the people around them. “If you can protect someone from a life-threatening illness, you should,” Cody said.
So there you have it. Go get those shots and that flu vaccine, if only for someone else’s sake!