Discussion
Your exam question asks you to discuss the topic of vaccines, based on the four texts in your source material. In what follows, we will give you some points you can consider when discussing vaccines: pros and cons of vaccines and possible future scenarios related to vaccinations.
Pros and cons of vaccination
All four texts in your exam material present both positive and negative aspects concerning vaccines.
Some of the main pros of vaccines (arguments in favour of vaccination) are:
- Vaccines save the lives of children by preventing the development of various diseases such as measles, diphtheria, tetanus, tuberculosis, pertussis, polio. (Texts I, III, IV)
- Vaccines help prevent the spread of diseases. (Texts I, III, IV)
- Vaccines do not cause autism and are safe for children. (Text II)
- Vaccines helped eradicate smallpox and might help eradicate Polio and other diseases. (Text III)
- Vaccines are a simple, cheap, effective method to prevent diseases in children, who will be protected all their lives. (Text III)
- In the absence of vaccines, many diseases might reappear and cause epidemics, so vaccines are a public health necessity. (Texts III and IV)
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The future of vaccines
The four texts in you exam set can serve as a starting point for describing possible scenarios for the future of vaccines.
An optimistic scenario is suggested in Text III, “Bill Gates: Vaccines Save Lives | Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation”. According to Bill Gates, in the near future vaccines might help eradicate polio. This would be the second disease eradicated by vaccines after smallpox.
Bill Gates also implies that, like smallpox and polio, vaccines might also help eradicate other diseases in time. It is also possible that new vaccines will be created for viruses and disease that do not have a cure in the present. However, this optimistic scenario depends on people acknowledging the importance...
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