In recent years, America has seen the reemergence of diseases that have proven preventable thanks to modern medicine and vaccines. These diseases that were once almost eradicated are re-emerging mainly due to the recent trend not to vaccinate children. The support behind this trend is that vaccines cause more harm than good and lead to other diseases such as autism. These ideals however have no concrete evidence to support them as no scientific body has been able to find a connection between vaccines and autism. While not vaccinating a child could cause them to contract a terrible disease, an unvaccinated child also puts those around them at risk. A single outbreak of a disease like measles can infect thousands of vaccinated or unvaccinated people. Although many parents refuse to vaccinate their children due to moral or religious beliefs, this is an irresponsible practice as it is causing the reappearance of diseases such as polio, measles, diphtheria and whooping cough; therefore a national decision must be made to make vaccinations mandatory. A vaccination works by strengthening the immune system early to be able to respond better and faster to the disease. This practice works because a holiday is basically a less virulent aspect of an illness that your immune system can easily deal with. Humans have a special immune system that can remember a disease and how to fight it. The cells responsible for this are plasma cells which can produce certain memory cells to remember how to fight a certain pathogen or disease. With the immune system already introduced to the disease it will be able to respond faster and more effectively to threats against the body. Vaccinations are a safe and effective way to prevent the increasingly common polio, measles, diphtheria and whooping cough diseases. All of these diseases have preventative vaccines that have nearly eradicated them from the United States; However, because parents refuse to vaccinate their children, all the progress the medical industry has made to control these deadly killers has been lost. Although many parents exempt their children from vaccinations for religious and medical reasons, each exempt child increases the risk of infection. Furthermore, parents who have chosen not to vaccinate based on fears that vaccines cause autism are not only wrong and misinformed, but are also the root cause of the growing anti-vaccine epidemic. Before more people have to die, before more children have to die, vaccines must be made mandatory to prevent completely preventable diseases from killing more people..