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Ryan Marshall
Professor Stuewe
ENGL 1320 - 043
2/18/2019
Annotated Bibliography
Thesis:
The best way to reduce vaccine-preventable diseases is to have a highly immune population.
Universal vaccination is a critical part of quality health care and should be mandatory through
routine and intensive vaccination programs.

Hinman, Alan R., et al. "Vaccine-preventable diseases, immunizations, and MMWR: 1961-
2011." MMWR Surveill Summ 60.Suppl 4 (2011): 49-57.
This scientific article gives a brief, and descriptive history of the introduction to public
vaccinations originating in 1961 to present. The article by Hinman not only describes the
history of public immunizations, but he also addresses safety concerns, procedures, and
an insight into the future of vaccinations. Hinman provides insight into the history and
studies of vaccinations with the use of hard numbers to back his stance on the subject
without becoming overly biased.
With the collective help from other doctors and other accredited institutions, Hinman is
able to provide a detailed timeline of events and prediction of the future derived from that
history. He also references data tables at the end of the article to strengthen his credibility
with hard evidence in his three-part summary of public immunizations. With the strong
use of data and logos, Hinman ends on a description of what he thinks how future
generations will benefit from public vaccinations, previous outbreaks, and even the
eradication of diseases including polio.
The scientific structure and evidence provide a solid ground to incorporate the use of
logos into my argument of mandating that public immunizations should be a requirement
to benefit the future health of the human population. With the use of the data provided,
there is the opportunity to show that outbreaks and disease related deaths have declined
over the course of about 50 years.
Diekema, Douglas S. "Improving childhood vaccination rates." New England Journal of
Medicine 366.5 (2012): 391-393.
Medical doctor Douglas Diekema states his argument on the case of the refusal of
childhood vaccination by parents. He attributes the decision of parents and their personal
judgements as the primary drop in vaccination rates. Diekema states his case on how to
increase immunization rates by focusing on the parents who have hesitations or
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implications to obtaining vaccines. He goes on to talk about the overall vaccination rate
here in the United States and then focuses more specifically on variations throughout
different parts of the country.
In his article he goes on to look at the deviation of the percentage of children that are
vaccinated for K-12 students due to the lack of resources and opposition from parents due
to safety concerns. Diekema touches on the potential harm that can arise from the lack of
immunizations and uses various outbreaks of different diseases such as whooping cough
and measles as examples of what can happen when children are not vaccinated. He lists
several solutions that he thinks can prevent outbreaks by increasing the number of
vaccinated children in our schools such as eliminating socioeconomic barriers, altering
school vaccination requirements, addressing false information, and by increasing
communication skills of medical professionals.
Diekema’s ideas to solving the crisis of lowered vaccination numbers bring a different
perspective that give a good insight on how to fight back against the argument of not
vaccinating children. Not only did his use of statistics help obtain credibility through
logos, but also with his reference to Aristotle’s The Art of Rhetoric. The topics that
Diekema bring to light will help me with coming up with viable arguments while
providing specific studies and examples that I can use to support my thesis on the topic of
parental opinion.
Zhou, Fangjun, et al. "Economic evaluation of the routine childhood immunization program in
the United States, 2009." Pediatrics (2014): peds-2013.
Zhou and his co-authors collected vast amounts of data to help them evaluate the
economic impact of the U.S. childhood immunization schedule for 2009. The article goes
in depth of the benefit of vaccinating children and the economic benefit that goes along
with getting vaccinated. What the article details is the burden of diseases with and
without vaccinations, the costs associated with getting vaccinated, and the costs
associated with dealing with a disease due to lack of immunization.
Data of the study sampled the effects of all recommended vaccines that go along with the
immunization schedule indicate that the United States will benefit from savings of direct
and societal costs from preventing diseases. The article also includes tables identifying
the incidence rates with and without vaccinations, the average cost of hospitalization of
contracting preventable diseases, and deaths prevented along with the millions of dollars
that are saved attributed to immunizations. At the end of the article a discussion from the
authors is presented that contains the various limitations presented in today’s society to
vaccinations, statistical totals from savings, and their input on the situation. They
conclude by stating that immunizations not only benefit public health of the country but,
are also a great investment for saving money compared to contracting preventable
diseases.
This information can be used in two different ways to reinforce my thesis such as
providing information from an economic standpoint, and additional statistics that I can
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use. With an economic and monetary aspect, I could encourage the use of logos since
money can be a sensitive topic. Also, with the additional data such as the estimation of
cases and prevented deaths I could use ethos because no person wants to deal with the
diagnosis or situation of death when it could have been so easily prevented.
Betsch, Cornelia, et al. "Opportunities and challenges of Web 2.0 for vaccination decisions."
Vaccine 30.25 (2012): 3727-3733.
Betsch and her collective of authors focus on the social and behavioral sciences of why
the spread of an anti-vaccination movement is happening and how it is spreading. The
authors go on to blame the internet as the reasoning for this movement due to how easily
accessible information is even if it may not be completely accurate. They also say that the
people who spread information on social media platforms may not always be correct in
identifying health problems from the result of vaccinations. As a solution to eliminate the
spread of misinterpreted information, the authors suggest that medical websites should
provide more meaningful and well explained facts to increase the effectiveness of health
messages.
The authors of this article solely target the internet as the root of the anti-vaccination
movement that is spreading not only in the United States, but globally. They attribute the
overuse of the internet and how easy it is to spread information especially when it is
either misinterpreted or lacks evidence. Social media is referenced as Web 2.0 in the
article which is described as a multi-way form of communication that inflates databases
of crowd-sourced knowledge. Web 2.0 is credited as the source that individuals seeking
additional information on vaccines turn towards instead of certified professionals or
accredited sources. The internet which has its many benefits, is said to be the reason for
the quick spread of the unvalidated information on vaccines, which comes from the
influence of outside factors that bear down on the individuals spreading this information.
This study and type of information can be used to provide a more detailed look at how
easily it is to spread information on vaccines even if it is not entirely true. There is also
more detailed information on how many Americans trust health information found online
and how few research the credibility of those sources. Since the research and authors
have strong ties to Europe, there is also an outside perspective
Sun, Lena H., and Maureen O'Hagan. “'It Will Take off like a Wildfire': The Unique Dangers of
the Washington State Measles Outbreak.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 6 Feb.
2019, www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/it-will-take-off-like-a-wildfire-
the-unique-dangers-of-the-washington-state-measles-outbreak/2019/02/06/cfd5088a-
28fa-11e9-b011-d8500644dc98_story.html?utm_term=.f03cb2fc2751.
Lena Sun channels her focus on one specific family in a Washington city that has been
recently hit with a measles outbreak. The main issues that Sun drives on is how to slow
down the anti-vaccination movement so there is not a wide spread hysteria that causes the
everyday lives of individuals to alter due to fear of contracting preventable diseases.
Measles is the main disease that is talked about in this article because of how easily it can
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spread especially in communities where not vaccinating children is socially accepted. Sun
also documents similar outbreaks and scenarios that have happened across the country
and even states that there is a slight resurgence of the measles disease in several areas.
She finally concludes with the debate over a bill that would prohibit exemptions from the
measles vaccine in the state of Washington and hints that making the vaccine a
requirement to eliminate any future outbreaks or safety concerns from the disease.
Sun’s use of references and direct quotes from all supporting parties and even
government officials enhance her source of credibility. This is due to her use of direct
quotes from both sides of the argument, those affected and fearful of the spread of the
measles disease and those that support the anti-vaccination movement. Also, her
relatively unbiased stance provides the reader a sense that she does not have an agenda
influenced by outside sources, supporting the credibility of the information provided on
recent measles outbreaks. The article does go into a more in depth look at the Northwest
region of the country where a large portion of the anti-vaccination movement is
occurring. Sun also references statistics, federal guidelines, doctors and state officials,
and specific examples throughout the article to provide a strong use of logos. She also
uses pathos early in the article by interviewing an individual mother. The article has a
balanced use of hard evidence and direct quotes to address the main idea, which is to
vaccinate children to prevent serious outbreaks and deaths.
The approach that is used in this article by Sun is a great example on how to incorporate
multiple aspects all into one article. Sun’s use of logos and pathos show how strong of an
argument can be made by using numbers and statistics as well as an emotional aspect.
Also, by her use of pathos early in the article, she really hooks the reader into the article
and then uses logos back up her claim. This article shows the importance of providing the
personal feel and exemplifies how strong that emotional appeal can influence the reader.