Why #Immunization by #Vaccination is Good #Health and #Science Policy

Just the facts#Vaccines and adjuvantsVaccines are made by mixing dead or almost dead, bacteria or viruses (together called microbes) or parts of microbes with compounds called adjuvants. The adjuvant is often a very irritating inorganic compounds such as aluminum hydroxide. And no - aluminum does not cause Alzheimer's Disease. Sometimes the adjuvant also contains molecules called lipopolysaccharides that are combinations of sugars and fatty acids that are made by bacteria. The adjuvants turn on the immune system so that it more easily starts to respond to the dead or almost dead microbes. 
#AntibodiesThe body's response that is desirable to the vaccine is the development of immunity to the bacteria or virus from which the vaccine was made. Antibodies are proteins made by our own cells in response to parts of the microbes. The antibodies provide immunity by binding onto live bacteria or viruses when they come into our bodies. This changes the shape of the antibody. Once the antibody's shape changes, cells in our body that can kill microbes recognize the antibody and eat the microbe and kill it.
ProblemsVery often minor reactions, including sore muscles or fever occurs after inoculation (injection). Other side effects are rare. Vaccines do NOT cause autism. The preservatives sometimes added to vaccines do NOT cause autism. 
Sometimes vaccination does not work. Some individuals immune systems fail to respond. Other times a variant (mutated) form of the microbe develops that can escape the antibodies. Microbes change often so that new vaccines are needed all the time and often cannot be developed until after many people are infected. These are problem that can be overcome by more intense effort in vaccine development. The technology is improving constantly to identify microbial components as targets for vaccine development.
Now for my opinionVaccination has saved countless lives by preventing disease. Smallpox, polio and many other deadly diseases have been largely or completely eliminated. Those are more facts. 
My opinion is that as a society, we need more vaccines to be developed and we need to make them mandatory for most preventable diseases, particularly among children. Why mandatory? Because that protects those who may not have been vaccinated yet or those whose immune cells failed to produce antibodies or enough antibodies when vaccinated. I believe that it is irresponsible for anyone to risk exposing others to a disease when it can almost certainly be prevented. 
Exceptions? Yes, there are diseases including some flu strains for which vaccination fails for the reason of mutation that I described above. This is why I wrote "most preventable" diseases. When immunization is not a certainty for almost everyone, then it would be absurd to to make that mandatory.
But, for the vast majority of preventable diseases where immunization is known to work, not getting immunized is just plain nuts!