It’s been almost 15 years since the Center of Disease Control announced that diseases such as measles and whooping cough were practically nonexistent in the United States. Yet just the other week, a measles outbreak occurred at Disneyland. Most recently and more locally, there have been two alleged cases of mumps in the Syracuse area, which have catalyzed more debate over the issue of vaccination.

The topic of vaccination should not become a political issue: once something does so, people stop searching for facts and start making partisan allegiances, in hopes that their leaders are omniscient in the subject. However there are, generally speaking, more liberal and conservative ways of handling this issue. While vaccinations are important, it is not the government’s responsibility to mandate what people do for their own health.

The administration of vaccinations has been a hot topic for quite some time — especially after former “Laguna Beach” star Kristin Cavallari publically announced that she was not going to vaccinate her children. Jenny McCarthy has also been a prominent figure in this debate since she publically announced on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in 2007 that she believed a vaccination led to her son’s autism.

On Monday Feb. 2, Fox News host Megyn Kelly went on “The O’Reilly Factor” to speak about this issue. The mother of three said that she has vaccinated her children and believes that “some things do require some involvement of Big Brother.” Proponents of big government have been discussing this controversial statement left and right since it was aired, which I simply cannot agree with.

Our good friends Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Robert Livingston wrote that we have three unalienable rights as citizens: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Some of the diseases that vaccinations are created to prevent have the ability to kill. Sure, some elect not to vaccinate themselves and their children, that’s their personal choice, but they are putting those that choose to vaccinate themselves at risk.

According to The New York Times documentary “Vaccines: An Unhealthy Skepticism,” there needs to be approximately 94–96 percent of a community vaccinated to prevent one from contracting measles. If we live in a world where vaccination is a completely optional thing, we are putting our loved ones and ourselves at risk.

There have been claims that there is a correlation between vaccinations and autism, however that’s all they are — claims. Until extensive evidence and research are conducted, there is no way for sure to know if this is a reality.

That cliché saying “better safe than sorry” applies to this issue. It’s better to be vaccinated and have less of a chance of contracting the various illnesses that are out there in the world, than to be sorry. Physicians and experts can tell you that vaccinations are not 100 percent effective, but at least they grant us more immunity than not being vaccinated.

Vaccinations are a public health issue, not a political decision. Hopefully in the future, people will make the right choice and vaccinate themselves and their children. If anything, they should do so in the hopes of protecting everyone from the plethora of viruses and contagious illnesses that are out there — not because the government forces them to.

Vanessa Salman is a sophomore policy studies major. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at vksalman@syr.edu and followed on Twitter at @VanessaSalman.

Published on February 4, 2015 at 12:10 am