Blog Week 3 - Summarising the debate

Summarising the debate

The last few week's attempts to study had been beset by horrendous sickness; my own, my wife's, our child's and guests from New Zealand we had hosted at our house. So now, whilst trawling through studies into the efficacy of flu vaccines and whether any herd immunity can be attained in an immunised population, I find myself chuckling at the irony of my situation.

The issue at hand:

So as fraught as the wider debate around vaccination itself is and with my position paper topic being quite specifically about mandatory vaccinations as a school/pre-school enrolment requirement I decided to delve into research around the efficacy of mandatory vaccination enforcement for school attendance in other countries. I was hoping to find data on vaccination uptake, contraction incidence and school participation (i.e. were children home-schooled more as a result) in populations where mandatory vaccination policies were initiated.

What I found:

I went on the hunt for as much primary literature from credible and reliable sources (articles published in respected journals) as I could and I found a lot of research done into many aspects of this issue. Sadly all of the research I found (or at least what I've been able to find to date) sides fairly unequivocally with the pro-mandatory vaccination side of the argument. From studies looking into uptake of vaccination in a community where mandatory vaccination has been initiated to journal articles on the ethics around medical liberty all seem to point to a net positive outcome for mandatory vaccination policies (Orenstein Et al. 2015).

Interesting Reading:

One common point that surfaces in many of the papers I'm sourcing for my research is that there are a lot of misconceptions around vaccination held by educators that are confounding the issue of school vaccination (Lawler, 2017). If a school was to enforce mandatory vaccination of children to keep it's micro-population at, above or as close to herd immunity tolerances then teachers at the school should also be expected to be immunised against the same diseases as their's may have worn off (I've learned vaccination has somewhat of a half-life of coverage) or they may not have ever been vaccinated. The ethical side of this issue is where I've found the most literature against enforcement policies but I found much of the debate in the scientific part of this issue isn't debate at all, all roads lead to Rome... mandatory vaccination.

 Reference:
1. Orenstein, D. G., & Yang, Y. T. (2015). From beginning to end: the importance of evidence-based policymaking in vaccination mandates. J Law Med Ethics, 43 Suppl 1, 99-102. doi:10.1111/jlme.12228
2. Lawler, E. C. (2017). Effectiveness of vaccination recommendations versus mandates: Evidence from the hepatitis A vaccine. J Health Econ, 52, 45-62. doi:10.1016/j.jhealeco.2017.01.002

Comments

  1. Zinettie ClarkSeptember 24, 2017 at 4:12 PM

    Hey Evan,
    Awesome research on this topic!
    It is very strange how the scientific perspective is different from an ethical point of view.
    I personally know someone who had a bad side effect from one of the vaccine's she was given at school, and from then has been suffering from mental and physical disorders. although no research has been done on her experience or as to why she became that way.
    I personally have never had a vaccine as my mother was scared that this would happen to me.
    Great position you have on the debate point of view!
    All the best with the continuous research =)

    ReplyDelete

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