Should Parents have the Choice to
Vaccinate their Children?
(tumblr)
Anna Ridgway, Sophie Lee, Amanda Bemis, Quinn Boyle, Hayley
Rohrbach
© All Rights Reserved
Vaccines
Science, Technology, Medicine
● “Childhood vaccines are one of the great triumphs of modern medicine. Indeed,
parents whose children are vaccinated no longer have to worry about their child's
death or disability from whooping cough, polio, diphtheria, hepatitis, or a host of
other infections.” - Ezekiel Emanuel, a scientist and bioethicist. (“Vaccines Quotes”)
● What is a Vaccine?
● Why is vaccinating children a problem? ("Vaccines and Preventable Diseases")
(Margulies)
(hartford)
Autism
Science, Technology,
and Medicine
● In 1998, people started to fear that vaccines caused autism.
● The controversy started when Lancet published an article by Andrew Wakefield
MD, claiming vaccines cause autism. (Wakefield)
● Thimerosal, a preservative used in vaccines.
 There is no link between vaccines and autism
("Vaccines and Autism: Separating")
(livefreelivenatural)
Science, Technology, and Medicine
PRO
CON
● Adverse reactions to vaccines are
●
extremely rare.
● The ingredients in vaccines are safe
●
in the amounts used.
● Vaccines protect future
(CDC) ●
generations.
● Vaccine-preventable diseases have
not disappeared so vaccination is
●
still necessary.
(Bahar)
● Vaccines
can save children's lives.
●
Vaccines can cause serious and
sometimes fatal side effects.
Vaccines contain harmful
ingredients. ("Possible Side-Effects from Vaccines,")
Vaccines can contain ingredients
some people consider immoral or
otherwise objectionable.
Diseases that vaccines target have
essentially disappeared.
Most diseases that vaccines target
are relatively harmless in many
cases, thus making vaccines
unnecessary.
("Moral Reflections on Vaccines Prepared
from Cells Derived from Aborted Human
Foetuses,")
Are there too many risks to get a
vaccination?
Timeline and Law
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
1796 - Edward Jenner created the first smallpox vaccine
1800 - Benjamin Waterhouse brings vaccines into the states
1855 - Massachusetts passed the first US law mandating vaccinations for schoolchildren.
o New York - 1862
o Connecticut - 1872
o Indiana - 1881
o Arkansas - 1882
1885 - Rabies vaccine created
1925 - Vaccine success for Whooping Cough
1953 - Chicken Pox is isolated in a petri dish
1955 - Polio vaccine announced successful
1966 - Experimental mumps vaccine
1971 - The U.S gov’t licensed Merck’s combined measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR)
1974 - Fewer than 5% of children worldwide were immunized by age 1 against diphtheria, polio,
tuberculosis, pertussis, measles, and tetanus.
Timeline and Law
●
●
●
●
●
●
1979 - The rubella vaccines licensed in 1969 were replaced in the United States by American
physician Stanley A. Plotkin’s newly licensed RA27/3 vaccine, which had been used in Europe for
years.
1981 - The FDA licensed Hilleman’s human-blood-derived hepatitis B vaccine, Heptavax-B. It was
the first subunit viral vaccine developed in the United States.
1994 - On August 20, 1994, the Pan American Health Organization had reported that three years
had passed since the last case of wild polio in the Americas.
2000 -Continuous transmission of measles was halted in the United States.
2002 - Fourteen years after the launch of the global eradication program, the World Health
Organization declared polio was exposed in Europe.
2008 - the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention received reports of 134 cases of measles in
the United States, the most cases in a year since 1996. Of these cases, more than 90% had not been
vaccinated or had an unknown vaccination status.
●
2014 - Ebola virus disease emerged at unprecedented epidemic levels in 2014. Whereas previous
outbreaks had occurred in remote areas and were contained fairly quickly
Timeline and Law
● Each state has its own requirement regarding vaccinating children entering public
school.
● DTaP, IPV, and MMR are required vaccinations in all 50 states in order to enter
kindergarten.
● 48 states (excluding Mississippi and West Virginia) allow religious exemptions for not
receiving any vaccines.
● 19 allow for philosophical reasons.
● 1989-2014, 3,000+ compensation awards have been made by the National Vaccine
Injury Compensation Program and 9,000+ cases have been dismissed.
● In some states, you have the option to be exempted from vaccination or revaccination if
you can show proof of existing immunity for certain diseases.
● If a person has recovered from the natural disease or has been vaccinated, a blood titer
test may indicate there are enough naturally acquired or vaccine acquired antibodies to
“prove” immunity to a particular disease.
Do you think there should be more laws
regarding vaccinations?
Sociol, Global, and Political
“ EVERY day seems to bring a new story of a
politician saying something stupid or evasive about
vaccines. Rand Paul frets that they might cause mental
disorders. Chris Christie said that his own children had
taken their shots but that "parents need to have some
measure of choice". Barack Obama, who once waffled
on this subject, has declared his strong support for
vaccinating children against measles, as has Hillary
Clinton.”
("What Experts Say, and What")
Perspectives
Democrats and Republicans are about equally likely -- at 61 and 62 percent, respectively -- to say the
science itself on vaccines is indisputable. More than 70 percent in both parties consider vaccination a
public health issue (Edwards-Levy).
Democrats
●
●
●
Originally liberals were antivaccination, linking it to autism
Today many liberals support
vaccinations and the mandate of
them by the state such as Hillary
Clinton and Obama
30 points more likely than
Republicans to have at least a fair
amount of trust in vaccination
policies
Republicans
●
●
●
Originally conservatives were provaccination
Today, many conservatives assert
that vaccinations should be a choice
Religion is used to legitimize their
argument
(Drum)
Against the Constitution
-Ron Paul stated, "intimately personal
medical decisions should not be made by
government… Freedom over one’s physical
person is the most basic freedom of all, and
people in a free society should be sovereign
over their own bodies.”
-Against our personal
(Georgetown University)
freedom that is given to us in the Constitution
-The First amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
-Some religions don’t believe in vaccinations
-Violating their freedom of religion in their eyes
(Ron Paul)
(Cornell)
Ethical Issues
● Religious/philosophical beliefs the conflict with vaccinations
○ STD vaccinations contradict against abstinence based-messages
● Infringe upon individual freedom and independence
● Vaccine development and testing
● Although federal guidelines do not require consent before vaccination
● Debate over consent
○ some believe its ethical so that parents are better informed about
vaccines
○ opponents fear that consents may add unnecessary fear or
concern to the vaccination process
Ethical Issues
● Increasing the number of vaccine producers would greatly
influence health positively
○ when vaccines are in short supply decisions must be made
about who should be protected
● Developing countries face threats from disabling and deadly
infections, and vaccine development lags behind community health
needs
● Public health and medical officials must make difficult decisions
about which health needs to address, and how to incorporate
vaccination into often-scarce services (“Ethical Issues and Vaccines”)
Opinions on Vaccinations for Public Schools
-
-
All states require certain vaccinations for children going to public schools
All 50 accept medical exemption, 48 religious exemption, and 20
physiological exemption
Those who are for vaccinations say, “Vaccination is safe and one of the
greatest health developments of the 20th century.”
Those against respond saying,
“Children’s immune systems
can deal with most infections naturally
and that injecting questionable
ingredients into a child may cause
side effects…”
(CDC)
(Malone)
(Texas Children’s Hospital)
Measles Outbreak
● Measles outbreak due to lack of kids
getting vaccinated
● Started in Disney Land California
● 121 cases in 17 states
● Because of the current trend of not getting
vaccinated, diseases and illnesses that we
have not seen in a long time like the
Measles are coming back (Duncan)
(CDC, “Measles Cases and Outbreaks”)
Twitter
What Do You Think?
Should Parents have the Choice
to Vaccinate their Children?