Essay Sample: Should Vaccines Be Mandatory?

📌Category: Coronavirus, Health, Pandemic
📌Words: 502
📌Pages: 2
📌Published: 18 February 2022

For millennia, viruses have been the cause of death of millions of lifeforms; humans, animals, and plants alike. It was only in 1796 when vaccines were invented, and we finally had a defense against viruses.2 However, from the start, vaccines have been controversial. There were many reasons behind vaccine skepticism from concerns about their hygiene to opposing religious beliefs. More recently, disinformation such as Andrew Wakefield's, infamous study, which stated that the MMR vaccine causes autism, has sparked a new wave of vaccine scepticism.3 This has led to decreasing vaccine uptake, causing some to ask, “Should vaccines for all diseases be mandatory?”

One of the most compelling arguments for a vaccine mandate is herd immunity. Herd immunity enables people to be protected from infection due to the fact that others in their community are immune.3 Herd immunity can be achieved naturally, however, the cost of it is immense. In addition to the direct fatalities of a disease, virus – induced immunosuppression and secondary infections are hidden consequences of natural infection. Case in point, the coronavirus pandemic where a study by the CDC found that over 70% of those who had COVID-19 had complications due to pneumonia. 

Mass vaccination programmes, even vaccine mandates, are safer methods to achieve herd immunity. In fact, Dr Alberto Giubilini, a senior research fellow in the university of Oxford states that “mandatory vaccination ensures that the risks and burdens of reaching herd immunity are distributed evenly across the population.” 4 An example of the effects of a loss in herd immunity can be seen in late 2014 to early 2015, when a fall in children receiving the MMR vaccine led to a measles outbreak in the USA.5 Moreover, widespread community immunity is what leads to disease eradication. In 1977, smallpox was eradicated, this feat was accomplished by mass vaccination programmes and focused surveillance.6

However, there are challenges to mandatory vaccination which demand consideration. If a financial penalty for vaccine refusal is enforced, people from less affluent backgrounds would be disproportionately affected - a financial penalty could “turn vaccine refusal in a purchasable commodity for the wealthy” 9. This leads to a varied impact of mandatory vaccination across different backgrounds.

For a vaccine mandate to be successful, vaccines should be readily available and accessible to people from all backgrounds.  However, this is easier said than done, when you consider that a large proportion of the world’s population live in rural areas (around 3.4 billion in 2017).10 Especially in the case of third world countries, which lack the infrastructure such as roads and hospitals, necessary for people to gain access to vaccines.

Another key aspect that comes into play, is bioethics, specifically patient autonomy. It is the notion that patients have a “moral claim to direct their own care”.11 Mandatory vaccination infringes upon this right, and thus could increase the opposition against vaccination programmes.

There is justification for vaccine mandates, considering the public health benefit it has to society as a whole, but whether mandating vaccines is the right answer to increase vaccination rates is debatable.  Strategies such as reducing misinformation and the widespread education of the public to remove skepticism and hesitancy seems to be more effective. Regardless, one thing is certain, high vaccination rates are essential and more efforts should be made to attain them.

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