Vaccines are one of most successful and cost effective public health preventive tool in current century for preventing communicable diseases. According to UK Health Protection Agency (HPA), vaccination is the second most effective public health intervention worldwide. Immunization protects the individual as well the community from serious diseases. Since the implementation of immunization there has been a 95% reduction in the cases 4. According to WHO immunization prevented 2million deaths worldwide.
An ethical consideration that is important to recognize is respect for persons. This means to respect others’ beliefs. If the individual cannot be vaccinated due to religion, then he or she has the right to opt out from the procedure with valid confirmation. This relates to the policy because one of the exemptions is religion. Also, if the person refuses to be vaccinated, then law enforcement cannot use physical violence to force the individual to be vaccinated.
In the 1850s the first school vaccination requirement were enacted to prevent smallpox. Federal and state efforts to eradicate measles in the 1960s and 1970s motivated many to mandate policies. By the 1990s, all 50 states requirement for children to be enrolled in school must receive certain immunizations and if these requirements were not met than children were not allowed to be enrolled in school (Center for Disease Control Prevention, 2010). For example, in the state of California, private public school or daycare cannot admit children unless vaccinations were received for all ten of the diseases. If the California Department of Public Health implements a requirement for vaccination parent can be allowed to obtain personal belief exemptions that would allow parents to opt out of vaccination for their children if form is filled out by healthcare professional that states vaccinations were countered to personal beliefs. This law has not been implemented as of yet but should be in 2016. The healthcare of policy decision in laws can have an influence on individuals based on the decision that are made. Health care policy and issues can affect providers and patients in many different ways. Stakeholders’ in the policymakers for vaccination main concern is the safety and health of children so the implement exemptions of laws from concern about vaccine
a. President Obama signed into law the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 (CHIPRA) on February 4, 2009. The new law is designed to provide coverage to large numbers of children that are currently uninsured and to improve their quality of care. Key to this legislation is that it reinforces the Children’s Health Insurance
The law eliminated the personal belief exemption for required vaccinations. This exemption allowed parents to opt out of vaccinating their children by completing a form, signed by a health care practitioner, attesting that vaccinations were counter to their personal beliefs.
With a development of media and technological ways of social communication, is it vital to trust information from the reliable sources. Many people who do not trust or not satisfied with the quality of medicine, and usually quest the material from unreliable sources. Therefore, matter of reliability of immunization is still a huge topic for debate. For example, people sometimes rely on anecdotes, rare cases or even opinions that they have heard from others. The following article presents different point of view of the opponents, and emphasizes the evidences that support benefits of immunization.
Throughout the U.S., individualism is greatly promoted. Individualism has allowed our country to moved forward in many, many ways. It has brought about many topics that are controversial due to clashing mindsets. One of the topics that has been heavily debated upon are vaccinations. Vaccinations have been given throughout time in order to make the person receiving the vaccination immune to a disease or to improve their current health condition. Many religions, however, don 't approve of vaccinations or injecting anything in to the body. These religions range from non-theistic religions like Buddhism to monotheistic religions like Christianity. Among religions that disagree are people who have personal issues with vaccinations. These reasons can range from being a vegan to just being against medicine. Whether someone disagrees with receiving a vaccination based on religion or personal belief, their choice should be protected at all costs. I believe that the U.S. should respect an individuals choice on this topic and not only continue to respect non-medical exemptions, but expand their current acceptance of non-medical exemptions across all fifty states. To do this, I recommend that the law that is in place currently, should be put in place in all fifty states to protect the citizens who are choosing to not receive a vaccination, no matter what their choice is based on.
Even the idea of these religious exemptions being less harmful than other matters such as increase in crime, increase in child mortality, etc. is a grave problem in itself. Although, the Anti-Vaccination campaign may not seem to have a lot of effect at the surface, it has an intense effect on the overall immunity in the case of a disease outbreak. It affects the immunity of the entire community and preys on the immuno-compromised people in the community. Furthermore, if the government were to increase accommodation in the cases of Anti-vaccination the decisions will likely pave the way towards similar but more harmful
Legislature plays a crucial role in protecting the interest of public health, although no vaccination policy exist at a federal level, each individual state has compulsory laws that mandate certain vaccines for children (Escobar 268). Escobar describes, three types of vaccine exemptions that may be offered by the state, according to their own stipulations, which include medical, philosophical, and religious exemptions. Medical exemptions are granted to immune-compromised children, in which vaccines can pose a danger of illness, and or adverse reactions if vaccinated (268). Philosophical and religious exemptions are not considered detrimental and may or may not be granted. The controversy in these exemptions, are related to increasing the
This vaccination policy should only allow medical exemptions. If one decides to claim a medical exemptions then proof should be required, such as a doctor’s note. Reasons would include bad reactions and allergies. Exemptions like religious and philosophical shouldn’t be allowed. Individuals could just simply
Vaccination is a primary prevention of disease and has been strongly integrated into modern medicine. For generations, epidemics of measles, whooping cough or polio have been largely nonexistent from populations across the globe. However, there are still many parents who choose not to vaccinate their children and adults who are unaware of or unable to access vaccines that prevent infectious diseases. There are college students still being exposed to meningitis and even some people in the healthcare industry not staying current and questioning the efficacy of them. The purpose of this paper is to present some facts about vaccinations/immunizations, barriers to obtaining them and suggestions from research on how to overcome those barriers from a community health perspective.
Vaccination has and is continuing to have a huge impact on public health in society today. Programmes implemented around the world have led to a decline in mortality and morbidity of infectious diseases, and are foreseen to eliminate yet more (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011). Beginning from the eradication of smallpox in 1980, there has been significant reductions in the occurrences of other debilitating diseases such as poliomyelitis and measles worldwide (World Health Organisation, 2011). Despite the upward trend towards immunisation, there still remains much debate about the use of vaccines (Larson et al, 2013; Dubé et al, 2014), with many concerned largely by their safety and effectiveness, brought about by the confluence of various sociocultural factors. There have also been arguments centred upon economic, ethical and religious grounds. All these have served to delay and derail global immunisation efforts considerably. In this essay, I will explore the reasons as to why people object to vaccination programmes and evaluate future measures that can be put in place to ameliorate the problem.
The major disease that I have chosen is meningitis. According to Hales, “meningitis is an extremely serious, potentially fatal illness that attacks the membranes around the brain and spinal cord; caused by the bacterium Neisseria meningitis” (2016, p.305). Bacterial meningitis symptoms develop within hours, and viral meningitis symptoms develop quickly or over several days. The most common symptoms of meningitis include fever, headache, neck stiffness, nausea and vomiting, disorientation, drowsiness, and reddish or brownish skin rash. Vaccination is recommended for all American adolescents, with initial immunization at age 11 or 12 and a booster at age 16. The CDC recommends routine vaccination with a new type of meningococcal vaccine, which
The increase in life expectancy during the 20th century is largely due to improvements in child survival; this increase is associated with reductions in infectious disease mortality, largely to immunization. (Healthy People 2020). Nation’s attempt to control diseases, "Vaccines are one of the most cost-effective clinical preventive services and are a core component of any preventive services of infectious diseases"(Healthy People 2010)because diseases do not stop at geopolitical borders or exclusive only to third world countries. Immunizations saved 33,000 lives. prevents 14 million cases of disease,and it reduces direct healthcare costs by $9.9 billion. Communities who remain un-vaccinated and under vaccinated are at increased risk for outbreaks of preventable diseases. New strains of vaccine-preventable disease can result in significant increase of serious illnesses and death.
Foremost, the importance of vaccines has long been ignored in the developing world. 3 million people still die from vaccine-preventable diseases each year, finds the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. (Global Immunization: Worldwide Disease Incidence). Vaccines have the potential to preclude most of these deaths and save millions of people. Case in point, Paul Wilson, Assistant Professor of Public Health at Columbia University, argued that, “wider use of available vaccines could help avert a further two million deaths annually in children under five years,” (2). Additional aspects of vaccines in the developing world are their availability and coverage. Rebecca Casey, of the Global Immunization Division of the CDC, concurred that it is to be expected, that major discrepancies in vaccine coverage exist between first and third world countries, even though third world countries would see the most benefits with wider vaccine coverage (1270). This imbalance of coverage between regions leaves millions of people vulnerable to hazardous diseases they have no defense against, without vaccines.