Do you think forcing vaccination is ethical ?

[Compton_effect]

Many vaccines are indeed created in embryonated eggs, but "next-gen" vaccines are subunit vaccines created through genetically engineered vectors. I don't know how many of the current vaccines available are subunit vaccines, but at least in the future they will be widely available. I'm busy with a project aimed at creating various subunit vaccines

Now that is a project I'd really support. I've heard of subunit vaccines, but don't think there is a lot of them. The allercologist/pediatrician treating my daughter has suggested administering them and keeping her under observation for the next 12 hours, but even she says that is high risk.

 

[STS]

South Africa has amazing education prgrams for vaccination, they distribute flyers and send sisters to schools to pass on pamphlets and so forth. Do people read it ? Nope. Do people come with that "big pharma" conspiracy or hippie movement ? Yes

Vaccines are only as strong against disease as the weakest link. So by having this attitude you are undoing over 50 years of medical triumph. This is exactly why Im asking the question for people who are selfish, blind and stubborn.



This is the fear that is breaking the effectiveness of vaccines

http://www.arthritis-alternatives.c...worst-drug-recalls-in-the-history-of-the-fda/

People should be free to make their own choices and get second opinions. I understand you have a lot of medical knowledge, but all these people that killed thousands of lives were also doctors. Just because the year is 2013 does not mean nothing can go wrong.

 

[Compton_effect]

I know my sister had her kids vaccinated against the normal baddies. If some other kid doesn't have the vaccination and dies, not her (or my) problem really since my kids would already be vaccinated for most, if not all baddies. Fittest survive and all that crap.

I used to joke like that too.
That day you have a moment - when you race the wrong way down the highway, while your 18 month old son is throwing a 42 degree fever fit and the ER team is already waiting at the hospital gates for you. And you hope you don't miss the offramp because you are crying too hard....
Remember this conversation.

 

[Carol35]

My children have had all their shots that they are supposed to have according to their clinic cards. To be honest, I have no clue what the shots are for and have never researched. The son has not had any childhood illness yet ( bar one course of antibiotics when he was 10 for bronchitis) which is quite worrying as when my little one had chicken pox, I got it too ( in my 30's). Have never been so sick in all my life...was a mofo of a time with going to the doc every morning for a week so he could check me out and a cocktail of drugs like I've never had before. Was hideous. I worry he will get it when he is an adult and this could make him sterile?? Is this true? ... They have never had flu shots either nor have I ever given them any type of vitamins etc.

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

Well in the old South Africa us whities where forced to get vaccinations and heaven forbid if you lost your "Book Of Life" with your vaccination history.

I was nearly kicked out of primary school as we could not find mine and the nurses where unable to determine if I had the required shots. Cannot remember what we did to prevent that.

Also remember getting our shots in high school.

Also during the early 80's I went to school in Australia and we also got a vaccination shot at school.

 

[R13...]

How does that work? Mandatory is, well, mandatory.

I'm not advocating the idea that the individual is physically restrained and given the vaccine - if that's what you mean - but as far as I'm concerned no vaccination then the school should have the [-]right[/-] obligation to reject the student, without exception.

I assume the reason schools ask kids to bring their inoculation cards is that they don't admit them if they aren't vaccinated?

 

[bwana]

I assume the reason schools ask kids to bring their inoculation cards is that they don't admit them if they aren't vaccinated?

One would hope so.

 

[RiaX]

People should be free to make their own choices and get second opinions. I understand you have a lot of medical knowledge, but all these people that killed thousands of lives were also doctors. Just because the year is 2013 does not mean nothing can go wrong.

Im well aware of the fails of medicine and the cost of these fails are paid for in blood. If you honestly look at it its a small price we have paid for the advancement in medicine.

You are looking at this as a singular,a luxury the government doesnt have. Now its understandable that people would fear a potential that could ruin a child's life or take it away. The chances of this happening are small but they do exist. However lets throw out some hypothetical but realistic scenarios to get you in the right mindset.

Say you dont vaccinate in fear of autism or something. Your child attends school in a classroom with 30 odd kids, each of which have parents just like you. The kids are in a primary school with 500 odd other kids again with parents just like you. Now say your kid contracts rubella (german measles) or polio or something which can be prevented with a vaccine. Which then infects and kills 50 other kids. How would you explain to the parents of the 50 kids why you did not vaccinate ? You ARE the cause of death for 50 kids not the disease, not the vaccines, YOU because of your failure to comply. A very good lawyer could actually argue you be held accountable and charged for this. How would you face these people ? (so in this scenario you have 51 deaths)

So lets say you vaccinated and your child died. Unfortunate and no one can consolidate you however its only 1 death. Now if you thinking its not like that keep in mind that UK last year reported almost 1200 new cases of rubella infections (my numbers may be off if someone is willing to get the actual figures that be nice ) and sometime back before vaccines were an issue there were almost 0 cases - so one needs to ask WHY? it is a bit heartless and mathematical but thats the perspective a government has to look, its job is to protect its own population and interest not an individual.

The next thing you need to understand is the mindset . Im not saying my answer is correct, I dont know the answer thats why im asking if its ethical.

Lets look at the idea through XDR-TB. Its all fine and dandy to have the whole "i have rights issue" but take XDR-TB, it can be traced to tugela on the east coast as its point of origin. Now government knew this a very long time ago, they were told its untreatable. A similar ethical conundrum came about and quarantine was not implemented. Now with the power of hindsight we know that was a wrong decision. In 2010 there was an estimated 250 000 XDR-TB patients in KZN, on average each will infect 3-5 people before they are diagnosed. This progression could of stopped or at least be slowed down greatly by implementing a quarantine. The 10 'original' patients died anyways. There is no guarantee you would stop the disease at all as separate independent strains will pop up due to again human fails.

Im medicine there are very difficult choices to make sometimes both suck and you have to take the lesser evil.

Consider this (i was actually faced with a similar scenario). You have 5 wards each with 50 odd patients but one those wards is a childrens ward. You have drug X and you only have enough for a couple days to give everyone or you have enough for a month for a single ward (though you need more than a month and if the patient goes without treatment for a week they are pretty much doomed). There is an alternative that is not as effective (call it drug Y) but it cant be used in children. Drug X is out of stock at a manufacturer level meaning the manufacturer of the drug does not have any and its impossible to source it elsewhere. What would you do ? would you evenly distribute drug X in a hope that the manufacture will have made more and delivered it to you in time or would implement the use of Drug Y which is not as effective, more dangerous on the adults and restrict drug X to the children. How would you measure the value of life ? and you cant be so naive to say you dont.

One needs to implement the same logic to vaccines. Vaccines are an issue today because new parents dont know the horrors of polio and other childhood diseases. They have forgotten about things that should not have been forgotten

 

[STS]

Im well aware of the fails of medicine and the cost of these fails are paid for in blood. If you honestly look at it its a small price we have paid for the advancement in medicine.

You are looking at this as a singular,a luxury the government doesnt have. Now its understandable that people would fear a potential that could ruin a child's life or take it away. The chances of this happening are small but they do exist. However lets throw out some hypothetical but realistic scenarios to get you in the right mindset.

Say you dont vaccinate in fear of autism or something. Your child attends school in a classroom with 30 odd kids, each of which have parents just like you. The kids are in a primary school with 500 odd other kids again with parents just like you. Now say your kid contracts rubella (german measles) or polio or something which can be prevented with a vaccine. Which then infects and kills 50 other kids. How would you explain to the parents of the 50 kids why you did not vaccinate ? You ARE the cause of death for 50 kids not the disease, not the vaccines, YOU because of your failure to comply. A very good lawyer could actually argue you be held accountable and charged for this. How would you face these people ? (so in this scenario you have 51 deaths)

So lets say you vaccinated and your child died. Unfortunate and no one can consolidate you however its only 1 death. Now if you thinking its not like that keep in mind that UK last year reported almost 1200 new cases of rubella infections (my numbers may be off if someone is willing to get the actual figures that be nice ) and sometime back before vaccines were an issue there were almost 0 cases - so one needs to ask WHY? it is a bit heartless and mathematical but thats the perspective a government has to look, its job is to protect its own population and interest not an individual.

The next thing you need to understand is the mindset . Im not saying my answer is correct, I dont know the answer thats why im asking if its ethical.

Lets look at the idea through XDR-TB. Its all fine and dandy to have the whole "i have rights issue" but take XDR-TB, it can be traced to tugela on the east coast as its point of origin. Now government knew this a very long time ago, they were told its untreatable. A similar ethical conundrum came about and quarantine was not implemented. Now with the power of hindsight we know that was a wrong decision. In 2010 there was an estimated 250 000 XDR-TB patients in KZN, on average each will infect 3-5 people before they are diagnosed. This progression could of stopped or at least be slowed down greatly by implementing a quarantine. The 10 'original' patients died anyways. There is no guarantee you would stop the disease at all as separate independent strains will pop up due to again human fails.

Im medicine there are very difficult choices to make sometimes both suck and you have to take the lesser evil.

Consider this (i was actually faced with a similar scenario). You have 5 wards each with 50 odd patients but one those wards is a childrens ward. You have drug X and you only have enough for a couple days to give everyone or you have enough for a month for a single ward (though you need more than a month and if the patient goes without treatment for a week they are pretty much doomed). There is an alternative that is not as effective (call it drug Y) but it cant be used in children. Drug X is out of stock at a manufacturer level meaning the manufacturer of the drug does not have any and its impossible to source it elsewhere. What would you do ? would you evenly distribute drug X in a hope that the manufacture will have made more and delivered it to you in time or would implement the use of Drug Y which is not as effective, more dangerous on the adults and restrict drug X to the children. How would you measure the value of life ? and you cant be so naive to say you dont.

i can be very naive when measuring the value of life, especially if it's my loved ones. go into a room with 10 women who have terminal cancer, tell them you have 3 pills to cure it, and watch them fight for it. do the same for children, and watch the fighting become even more fierce. saying that "mistakes will be made" is inhuman. how do people know when they're the next batch of pigs for testing and when something is 100% safe?

history is full of people that can say "told you so". people have done stupid things in the past thinking that it was for the good of humanity and things went sour. people should have a right to choose what they receive and what their kids receive, and if they refuse it, they should be informed again, patiently. you cannot force people to take vaccinations just as you cannot force peopel to be christians and go to church

 

[Sinbad]

With freedom of choice comes responsibility, and sadly I think that too many individuals in society do not possess the level of responsibility required to allow great freedom.
Just look how people behave in traffic where our lack of law enforcement provides them with freedom, and the potential consequences of law breaking are a LOT more immediate and severe than the consequences of not giving your kid a vaccine.

 

[STS]

With freedom of choice comes responsibility, and sadly I think that too many individuals in society do not possess the level of responsibility required to allow great freedom.
Just look how people behave in traffic where our lack of law enforcement provides them with freedom, and the potential consequences of law breaking are a LOT more immediate and severe than the consequences of not giving your kid a vaccine.

That is a perfect example. You have no faith in the traffic department, some people have no faith in vaccinations, whether it is their intention, how they are delivered or how effective they are.

With freedom does come responsibility, but when should responsibility start over riding freedom?

One doctor says something works, another doesn't. You cannot force a mothet to vaccinate her child when she lost her sister to a vaccination when they were younger. All you can do is persuade.

To compare it to the circumcision debate, what gives you the right to cut off a person's foreskin, but it's fine to inject them with something that may make them sick "for the greater good"?

 

[Sinbad]

That is a perfect example. You have no faith in the traffic department, some people have no faith in vaccinations, whether it is their intention, how they are delivered or how effective they are.

With freedom does come responsibility, but when should responsibility start over riding freedom?

One doctor says something works, another doesn't. You cannot force a mothet to vaccinate her child when she lost her sister to a vaccination when they were younger. All you can do is persuade.

To compare it to the circumcision debate, what gives you the right to cut off a person's foreskin, but it's fine to inject them with something that may make them sick "for the greater good"?

Responsibility should ALWAYS override freedom. You are never free to endanger someone else's life.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Essentially unvaccinated children would have to be kept out of schools, day care, public parks, swimming pools and so on. No public funding would go to any school that accepts unvaccinated children. But all that would be very hard to police. If vaccines posed a risk anything like the diseases they help prevent, then I could understand refusing them, but the fear is based almost exclusively on lies. Not even faulty research, but outright, intentional lies.

Strangely enough the fact that it took hold is a symptom of fearing science and technology, our inability to properly assess risk, along with the general risk aversion and nannying that is encouraged and practised by the state.

Are you saying Jenny McCarthy lied to us?!

On topic, the whole problem is that the parents who choose not to vaccinate - their decision affects others. Herd immunity and all that.

 

[porchrat]

I'm keen on human rights but even I agree with mandatory vaccinations. If not getting vaccinated just affected you personally then I wouldn't have a problem with it but unfortunately by not getting vaccinated you put the rest of humanity at risk. At that point I believe it is justified for the government to act.

As an analogy while the state recognises that you have the choice as to whether or not to drive, when your driving puts others at risk (you habitually drive on the pavement forcing pedestrians to leap out of the way or be crushed for example) the state is obligated to get involved. You do not have the right to endanger others and as a result I don't believe you don't have the right to refuse vaccinations and put others at risk.

The only time one should be able to refuse vaccinations is when there is some medical reason to do so (e.g. immunocompromised and allergies to vaccine constituents).

 

[STS]

Responsibility should ALWAYS override freedom. You are never free to endanger someone else's life.

Then you've just condoned mandatory circumcision for males. It may not drop the effectiveness of spreading an STD by much but according to people here, 1 kid misses a chicken pox shot and 50 kids die

 

[Sinbad]

Then you've just condoned mandatory circumcision for males. It may not drop the effectiveness of spreading an STD by much but according to people here, 1 kid misses a chicken pox shot and 50 kids die

Not at all. Circumcision is not the only way to prevent spreading STDs.
Vaccination IS the only way to prevent some fatal diseases.

 

[porchrat]

That is a perfect example. You have no faith in the traffic department, some people have no faith in vaccinations, whether it is their intention, how they are delivered or how effective they are.

The idiots that have no faith in vaccinations are ignorant antiscience fools that can't back it up in any meaningful manner. The entire planet cannot be expected to put itself at risk for entirely unfounded and irrational beliefs.

With freedom does come responsibility, but when should responsibility start over riding freedom?

When you behave irresponsibly and in doing so put others at risk. Duh.

One doctor says something works, another doesn't. You cannot force a mothet to vaccinate her child when she lost her sister to a vaccination when they were younger. All you can do is persuade.

LOL a doctor telling people that vaccines don't work or that they cause autism should lose his/her license to practice. That is destructive garbage.

To compare it to the circumcision debate, what gives you the right to cut off a person's foreskin, but it's fine to inject them with something that may make them sick "for the greater good"?

LOL the odds of a kid getting sick from a vaccine are infinitely lower than the dangers associated with untreatable deadly diseases with no adequate vaccination regiments in place.

 

[porchrat]

Then you've just condoned mandatory circumcision for males. It may not drop the effectiveness of spreading an STD by much but according to people here, 1 kid misses a chicken pox shot and 50 kids die

Condoms are far more effective than the largely ineffectual circumcision.

There is nothing more effective than vaccinations and in many cases there is in fact NO alternative.

Invalid comparison is invalid.

 

[Celine]

http://www.arthritis-alternatives.c...worst-drug-recalls-in-the-history-of-the-fda/

People should be free to make their own choices and get second opinions. I understand you have a lot of medical knowledge, but all these people that killed thousands of lives were also doctors. Just because the year is 2013 does not mean nothing can go wrong.

then i have the freedom to say foff i'm not paying for anyone who doesn't have the money to pay for stuff needed such as shoes for a person who contracted polio due to not being vaccinated at the apropriate age and was offered to them free of charge, or the person who is suffering due to contracting scarlet pox or whatever blah blah. see how it works.

 

[STS]

Not at all. Circumcision is not the only way to prevent spreading STDs.
Vaccination IS the only way to prevent some fatal diseases.

Condoms are far more effective than the largely ineffectual circumcision.

There is nothing more effective than vaccinations.

Invalid comparison is invalid.

uneducated people are not getting vaccinations then are a danger to society.
uneducated people are not using condoms and are a danger to society.

the state forcing people to get vaccinations is effectively the same as the state forcing kids to get circumcised to curve HIV. the state cannot put a condom on your dick or make sure you follow your anti-biotic course through; there are always other once off ways of making a difference however.

even making vaccinations "mandatory" does not mean that you will reach everyone. you just need one photographer to go out to a distant township and come back with every disease imaginable.