Point and Counterpoint: Vaccines

This piece and the one that follows, “The Paradox of Government Vaccine Mandates” by Tim Rubbelke, present a point and counterpoint in the current resurgence of debate over vaccines. The first, by Kristen Senetar, outlines the positives of maximum vaccination while the second examines the problematic nature of enforcing this notion.

By Kristen Senetar

If you’ve turned on the news lately, you’ve probably heard about the outbreak of measles in the United States. Although the infectious disease has been considered eliminated from the United States since the year 2000¹, more than 120 people have contracted it since the beginning of this year.² How could an outbreak like this happen when there is a vaccine to protect us from measles? Should everyone be required to be vaccinated?

Vaccines are used to protect us against numerous diseases: measles, mumps, polio and countless others. The two-dose measles vaccine, which is spread out over several years, is 97% effective.³ The protection offered by this and other vaccines has helped our world become a much healthier place. While not 100% effective, vaccines have saved countless lives by offering a great defense against diseases that can often turn deadly. They are a quick and easy way to protect yourself and your family from illnesses. So why wouldn’t every parent vaccinate their child?

Some people do have concerns about vaccines. Over the past decade, there has been a growing fear that vaccines are linked to autism. However, the 1998 article, which stated that certain vaccines increase the risk of autism has been proven false, retracted from the Lancet, and the author of the paper later lost his medical license.⁴ There are also some individuals who cannot be vaccinated due to medical conditions such as certain allergies or suppressed immune systems. However, this number of individuals who cannot receive vaccines due to medical reasons is significantly smaller than those who can.

Should everyone be required to get vaccinated against measles and other communicable diseases?

The short answer is yes, everyone should be required to get vaccinated for everything possible, as suggested by their doctor. Except for those who have a specific medical condition and those with religious objections, most Americans can receive all vaccines. It is essential that the majority of the population gets vaccinated because it will support herd immunity. This notion is essential to public health, stating that if the number of people who are vaccinated is significantly greater than the number of those who are not, the vaccinated population can essentially protect the unvaccinated population. However, as the unvaccinated group grows larger and larger, herd immunity becomes less and less effective. Therefore, it is crucial that those who can be vaccinated do so in an effort to protect themselves and others.

There are also some people who have religious objections to vaccines. While religious freedom is a valued good, parents’ choices to not vaccinate endanger their children. If they will not vaccinate their children, then perhaps alternative actions should be put in place during periods of outbreaks, such as not allowing them to go to school. If an unvaccinated child were exposed to a disease, like the measles, and went to school before realizing what they had, they would be placing everyone at their school at risk of exposure. Even though most vaccinated children would go unharmed, the vaccine is not 100% effective. Keeping unvaccinated children out of school during times of outbreaks would help protect both the vaccinated and unvaccinated population.

Medical conditions aside, is it ethical to require everyone to vaccinate his or her children? This can be answered using two of the ethical principles: beneficence and non-maleficence. Take, for example, a newborn baby named Joe. Joe hasn’t been exposed to the germs of the outside world, like the cold virus or measles. He begins his life by staying inside most of the time, only going out for short walks or trips to the doctor’s office. Shortly after turning one, Joe receives his first MMR vaccine, as suggested by his doctor. As he continues to grow, Joe receives all the suggested vaccinations and lives a fairly healthy life. One day, while on an airplane, Joe, who is now a teenager, unknowingly sits next to someone infected with measles. Since Joe received the measles vaccine, no harm comes from the situation and he continues to be healthy as he grows into an adult. This scenario supports the principle of beneficence because the vaccines helped keep Joe healthy and protected against disease.

Now, imagine the same child, Joe, had parents who decided, for non-medical or religious reasons, to not vaccinate him as suggested by his doctor. Joe grew normally, just like kids who did receive vaccines, and led a fairly healthy childhood. One day, Joe, who is now a teenager, got on an airplane and unknowingly sat next to someone who had the measles. Since the measles is a highly communicable disease and the two were sitting so close together, Joe was exposed to the disease. Joe, who never knew the person next to him had the measles, felt fine after leaving the airport but a few days later starts experiencing symptoms. In a matter of days, Joe grows very sick and ends up in the hospital. After several long days, Joe begins to feel better and finally makes a full recovery. While the outcome of a full recovery is the best case, Joe experienced unnecessary suffering and harm. Therefore, the decision Joe’s parents made to not vaccinate him violates the ethical principle of non-maleficence.

Overall, vaccines were created to protect us from harm. No medical intervention is 100% effective or 100% safe. Some people do experience reactions to vaccines, but the majority does not. For most people, vaccines offer a greater benefit than they do the possibility of harm. Medical conditions aside, it is our duty to protect others and ourselves from diseases like the measles by following medical guidance to receive vaccinations. Who knows, the life you save might just be your own.

Kristen is currently a Regulatory Assistant at the University of Texas Southwestern.  She received a B.S. from Butler University in biology with minors in mathematics and chemistry and a Master's in Bioethics from Case Western Reserve University.  Her interests in the bioethics field include genetics, vulnerable populations and the rights of the unborn.

^1,3 "Measles Vaccination." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4 Feb. 2015. Web. 14 Feb. 2015. <http://www.cdc.gov/measles/vaccination.html>.

² "Measles Cases and Outbreaks." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 14 Feb. 2015. Web. 14 Feb. 2015. <http://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html>.

⁴ Caplan, Arthur. "There Is No Other Side to the Vaccine Debate." Chicagotribune.com. 13 Feb. 2015. Web. 14 Feb. 2015. <http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-measles-vaccine-jenny-mccarthy-autism-ebola-perspec-0213-jm-20150212-story.html>.

The Paradox of Government Vaccine Mandates

By Timothy Rubbelke

Few aspects of medicine invoke so much disagreement among people.  Vaccines have fundamentally changed the way we think about illness.  Yet, they are still rejected by a surprisingly large subset of the population.  To ward off potential public health catastrophes we engage in draconian measures, including preventing school registration without proper vaccination.  In spite of this, lack of vaccination has caused a resurgence of diseases thought to be eliminated.  This begs the question: are the mandates working or could they actually be counterproductive?

Public Mistrust of Vaccination

Vaccination is the source of much public mistrust today.  No longer just an issue for fringe groups and religious objections, vaccination bashing has become embedded in popular culture through statements made by celebrities, most famously Jenny McCarthy.  Given that data shows vaccines to be incredibly safe and yet these groups still continue to gain followers, we should look at some of what animates them.

It seems easiest to connect the anti-vaccination movement’s beginnings with the now infamous study by Dr. Andrew Wakefield published in The Lancet in 1993.  A relatively small study, Wakefield concluded that the MMR vaccination caused damage to the intestinal system of growing children, which in turn resulted in more toxins getting into the blood stream, making them more susceptible to developing autism.[1],[2]  Ultimately the Wakefield study would be proven false, the connection between vaccines and autism thoroughly severed by science, and yet this idea remains an incredible concern for many, with some people going so far as to reanalyze CDC data to find a connection.[3]

The theory of dangerous vaccines gained even more traction when the CDC began looking into the possibility that thimerosal, the mercury-based preservative used in many vaccines, was linked to autism.  This potential danger appealed to common sense as well as scientific sense.  After all as Neal Halsey, one of the CDC proponents of removing thimerosal, reasoned: we are cautious about mercury levels in fish, doesn’t it make even more sense to be cautious about the levels in vaccines given to newborns and young children.[4]  Eventually thimerosal would be removed from vaccines, out of precaution, even though the scientific evidence was sparse regarding its effects, if any, on children.  But this resulted in a ripple effect of growing distrust against vaccines.  In turn, this would open the door for groups like the National Vaccine Information Center, an organization that claims to be neutral towards vaccines although it was founded by an anti-vaccination advocate and Generation Rescue, Jenny McCarthy’s charity, to gain credibility as experts on the national stage.[5]

Those with anti-vaccination beliefs are still very much a noticeable group.  Vaccination in some schools in California, for example, has dropped below 50%, with “Personal Belief Exemptions” sometimes outnumbering the number of vaccinated students.[6]  Yet something has to underlie this mistrust for it to continue to maintain a national presence.  I would suggest that the government mandates provide the backdrop which the anti-vaccination uses to gain traction in its fight.

Americans and their Freedom

Before beginning our discussion on vaccines specifically, it may be helpful to first discuss the importance of freedom for Americans.  Freedom, of course, is a broad and somewhat vague word.  When we speak of the American notion of freedom that is of interest here, we are referring to personal liberty, specifically civil liberty.  Civil liberty entails one being free from state interference, except, at the bare minimum, to ensure the public good. Consider as an example the recent pushback against the so-called “individual mandate” included in ACA.  Since the passage of the bill, there has been an outpouring of opposition towards it.  Some 27 states filed lawsuits seeking to have the mandate overturned on constitutional grounds, an argument eventually rejected by the Supreme Court, which declared the mandate a tax.  Ten states have passed various forms of legislation that attempt to overturn the mandate at the state level.  Two of these passed with crushing margins in public elections. One in Ohio passed with a double digit margin.[7],[8]  Similarly, an August 2011 poll of Americans showed that over 80% believed the government should not have this power.[9]  Regardless of one’s individual position on the matter, I think it could be argued it is not well received by the public.  But what does this tell us about perceptions of the government?  It tells us quite a lot.  It is not necessarily that these people are opposed to the idea of purchasing healthcare insurance or even of government helping to control health cost (statistically speaking, many of these people likely already purchase health insurance).  It is the very idea of government telling them that they must do something that seems to be the problem.

And so it may be with vaccines.  Simply put, it shows that Americans tend to reject what they see as an excessive reach of government which would repress autonomy, especially in issues of healthcare.  Thus we can begin to see that if vaccination is considered, at least by some, to be an overreach of government, the result can be distrust against it.

The Paradox

It should be noted that the intent is not to convince people at the far ends of the vaccine debate -- such a goal would be impossible anyway --  but rather to try to understand how one side, in this case the anti-vaccine groups, captures the minds of those in the middle.  Having said that, we can now see how the mandates might actually be counterproductive to encouraging widespread vaccination.

All conversations about the merits of vaccination must now take place against the backdrop of government mandates and power.  This allows members of the anti-vaccine movement to place these mandates in contrast with the American liberty narrative during any discussion, fostering distrust in government and convincing people of their cause.  Considered alone, the mandates might not cause much of a problem.  After all, they have existed for some time before vaccine rates started to decline, but we must also consider that we’ve developed what might be called “societal amnesia” with regards to many of these diseases. For my grandparents, concerns about polio saturated their lives, and yet many people from my generation have never even seen a polio victim beyond clips of Franklin Roosevelt.  This leads people to erroneously conclude the vaccines have no actual benefit, further reinforcing the idea of an overbearing government.  However, if the vaccine mandates were dropped, this would take away one of the key pillars of their argument. The movement would no longer be able to frame the debate in terms of a battle between personal autonomy and an overzealous government.

Of course the obvious potential fallout from such a maneuver would be that vaccines now have to stand (or fail) on their own merits.  However, not all hope is lost.  In eliminating the vaccine mandates, we will also have severed the connection between doctors and the state, at least to some extent. As such, the trust between the patient and physician, as well as the trust between medical science and society, can be allowed to grow without being poisoned by an overarching political discourse.

There is still a potential danger in rolling back vaccine mandates.  We risk a short term drop in vaccination.  But it’s not clear that this would be any worse than where we are now, with significant numbers of people opting out for dubious reasons, and old diseases (whooping cough, measles, etc.) making their rounds once again, even with mandates in place.

Tim Rubbelke is a PhD Candidate at the Saint Louis University Albert Gnaegi Center for Health Care Ethics. This essay was chosen as a finalist for the 2014-2015 Daniel Callahan Young Writer’s Prize. 

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[1] Goldberg, R. (2010). Tabloid medicine : how the Internet is being used to hijack medical science for fear and profit. New York: Kaplan Publishing.

[2] Interestingly, this is not the actual conclusions of the paper, but it is how Wakefield portrayed them in his numerous interviews following the publishing the study.

[3] Expression of concern: measles-mumps-rubella vaccination timing and autism among young African American boys: a reanalysis of CDC data. (2014). Translational Neurodegeneration, 3(1), 18. doi: 10.1186/2047-9158-3-18

[4] (Goldberg, 2010)

[5] (Goldberg, 2010)

[6] California makes for an interesting case study because it is one of the few states in which the PBE’s allow for “philosophical” objections as well as the commonly held religion based objections.  The interpretation of PBE’s is broad allowing almost anyone to get a waiver.

[7]  Ohio Votes to Nullify Insurance Mandates. (2011, November 8).   Retrieved November 13, 2011, from http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2011/11/08/ohio-votes-to-nullify-insurance-mandates/

[8] Cannon, M. F. (2011, November 9). Ohio’s 2-1 vote against the individual mandate is a wholesale rejection of ObamaCare.   Retrieved November 13, 2011, from http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/ohios-2-1-vote-against-the-individual-mandate-is-a-wholesale-rejection-of-obamacare/

[9] GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications. (2011, August). The AP-National Constitution Center Poll. from http://surveys.ap.org/data/GfK/AP-GfK%20Poll%20Aug%202011%20FINAL%20Topline_NCC_1st%20story.pdf