Elderly People

3015

Dq1

Answer1

 Forced immunizations has become a highly debated topic in recent years with schools requiring parents to vaccinate their children and health care workers threatened with loss of their jobs if they refuse.  This discussion will focus on what I see as my roll in this debate as a future BSN prepared nurse, and how I would react to a parent who refused to vaccinate their child.

Role as a BSN Nurse in the vaccination debate

    As a BSN prepared nurse I believe my role in this debate is to remain educated about the pros and cons of vaccination.  I believe that the recipient of care or their guardian should always retain control of the health care decisions and their choice of care, but should have to face the consequences of those decisions.  One of the common reasons to not vaccinate children is the belief that vaccinations can cause autism.  Many parents feel the fillers in vaccinations are to account for this.  CDC even recognizes the use of aluminum, monosodium glutamate (MSG), and thimerosal a mercury containing preservative in some vaccinations ("Ingredients of Vaccines," 2011).  Of these it is important to remind parents the cooking industry is cracking down on aluminum based pots and pans, with a worry about leakage into food.  Worries are that aluminum can increase the risk for Alzeimer’s.  So as a nurse I could see why a parent that is unwilling to cook with aluminum would not want to freely inject it into their child.  MSG is a chemical that hits closer to home, in that many people have allergies to it.  My self and siblings have this allergy and develop severe migraine headaches from even small amounts of MSG in our food.  Realizing this is added to vaccines would be a good reason to weight the benefits versus the known risks.  The last additive mentioned was the thimersal, or a fancy way to say mercury is in the system.  “For fetuses, infants, and children, the primary health effect of methylmercury is impaired neurological...