Using Kingdon 's Policy Streams Model

The state of Florida has a selection of laws in place regulating vaccinations and vaccination exemptions, but what drives them? Vaccines against meningococcal meningitis and hepatitis are mandatory for enrollment in the K-20 public education system. An individual enrolled in any postsecondary institution who will be residing in on campus housing must provide documentation of these vaccinations. A majority of parents argue that its unethical to force someone else’s child to be immunized, in any situation. There is a request that can be made for religious requirements, and must be presented to the facility or school on the Department of Health’s Religious Exemption from Immunization form -DH 681 Form-. The DH 681 Form is issued by county health departments and is only for a child who is not immunized because of their family’s religious practices. (nvic.org) The vast majority of parents are so strongly opinionated on whether vaccinations will positively or negatively impact their children, but no one takes into consideration the parents who differ in opinions themselves.

While supporting the voluntary immunization for children and defending the right to have information regarding the risk involved with vaccines, the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) oppose the elimination of or possible barriers of entry to obtain Non-Medical Exemptions. In an effort to reduce vaccine related injuries and/or death and support those who do not want to receive vaccines due to personal, spiritual, or religious beliefs, the NVIC supports the right to Non-Medical Exemptions. The primary purpose of this paper is to analyze the safety, efficacy, and economic burden of vaccines, as well as the right to choice in regards to Non-Medical Exemptions.

According to the Center’s of Disease Control and Prevention (2012), there are no federal requirements for childhood immunizations. While the CDC (2012) provides recommendations, each state sets their own rules and exemptions for schools and childcare attendance. On June 30, 2015, Governor Jerry Brown of California made history by eliminating the exemption from immunizations due to personal beliefs for children in public or private schools; however, medical exemptions initiated by a DO or MD will still be allowed (Royce, 2015; California Department of Public Health, 2015a). In 2013-2014, there were nearly 17000 personal belief vaccination exemptions in California (Almasy, 2015). Throughout the history of vaccinations very strong opinions for or against immunizations have existed,

On June 30, 2015, California governor Jerry Brown signed the new version of Senate Bill 277, which eliminated California 's personal belief exemption. These laws create a very low bar for parents to obtain an exemption. Often they simply have to check a box stating they don’t want to vaccinate their children, and that is sufficient. States with personal belief exemptions have 2.5 times the vaccine refusal rate as states with religious exemptions only. Essentially, the easier it is to obtain a vaccine exemption, the lower the vaccination rate. Personal belief exemption rates have gone up dramatically since 1994. During a survey done by Alexander Capron for his medical journal, “Personal Beliefs Exemption from Mandatory Immunization of Children for School Entry”, in 1994, schools on average had 0.6% of kindergarten students claiming personal belief exemptions; by 2009, the number was 2.3%. By the 2013–2014 school year, schools, on average, had 3.15% of kindergarten students claiming personal belief exemptions. While these percentages may seem low, they are not evenly distributed: Some communities have much higher rates, and a recent research paper demonstrated that those communities were most vulnerable to outbreaks.

I am passionate about this issues. I have worked as an immunization nurse for several years in the state of Maryland. In Maryland there are strict requirements for vaccinating children for school entry. I worked for Prince George’s County and Baltimore County Health Department. In the state of Maryland many children each year are out compliance and therefore are not allowed to attend school until the requirements are satisfied.

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

In April, California’s State Legislature moved forward a bill that would make it mandatory for children enrolled in public schools to be vaccinated, regardless of religious or personal beliefs. If the parents still do not want to vaccinate their children than they must homeschool them. In return, this sparked a huge debate on whether or not the bill should be passed. Just like almost anything there are pros and cons for parents vaccinating their child(ren). Some of the pros being: vaccines can save children’s lives; they protect the communities that children live in;

Likewise, some people should not receive vaccinations. These individuals should not receive vaccinations due to their age, health conditions, among other factors. These other conditions are independent depending on the type of vaccination received. “They can range from an individual who cannot swallow, to a pregnant woman, to a person with a life-threatening allergy, to a component in the vaccination” (Hales 543). A small percentage of individuals do not respond to a particular vaccine. ”All states provide medical exemptions, and some state laws also offer exemptions for religious and philosophical reasons” (State Vaccination Requirements). “Some religions even prevent certain parents from vaccinating their children because of their belief that the disease is a naturally occurring thing and humans have no right interfering with it” (Hales 544). However, most state laws establish vaccination requirements for school children. These laws apply to public schools, private schools, and day care centers. “State laws also establish mechanisms for enforcement of school vaccination requirements” (State Vaccination Requirement). “Vaccines save

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.

On my commute home, I read the Metro newspaper. One of the articles discussed NYC schools and their vaccination rates. I found that NYC schools had 98% vaccination rate overall. I already knew getting vaccinated is important, but I realize that if a child didn't a shot they aren't allowed in a school. The article supplied details pertaining to the ages at which vaccinations are required; 2 months to 18 years. As I read the article, it reminded me of a show I watched a few years ago where these people from this church wouldn't let the ambulance in because they didn't believe in medicine. The article mentioned this as well, saying, in some states, someone's religious or even philosophical beliefs don't exempt their child from getting vaccinations.

The model states the steps of policy process (Lindblom, 1959: 79 – 81; Forester, 1984: 23 – 24). At the beginning of the sequence, administrators of public sector would try to distinguish policy objectives by using an empirical analysis to develop alternative policies. The second step is examining all alternative policies possibility in order to obtain the most valuable policy that needed. Then, the administrator would take a decision on what policy that should be taken based on the process that had been done. It looks like that the process is choosing main goals of policies that already identified by all of examination process. It means policy result is already established and the process is the way to justify it and does not need to have a consultation because the process is fully integrated and acknowledged (Forester, 1984: 25). Forester (1984) also added that the policy process of rational comprehensive also coverage fully base line of information and costs for each information, and has enough time and resources to produce a best policy (Forester, 1984,

Should children’s health be at risk for the greater good of community health? The news today is full of tragic stories about complications of vaccine use and there have been injuries from the beginning of vaccine use due to incomplete data on the side effects. The injuries have also brought about changes in the way vaccines are manufactured. The Georgia State Government requires citizens to receive vaccines in order to attend day care, go to school, and work at certain jobs and each state has its own mandates as well. The only way to get around the vaccine is to claim religious or medical exception. For either of these exceptions, one has to have a notarized affidavit for religious exception or a

In California a public health crisis has begun to arise. Parents are choosing not to vaccinate their children much more often then they have in the past years. According to “Plunge in Kindergartners ' Vaccination Rate Worries Health Officials,” an article written in the Los Angeles Times, “California parents are deciding against vaccinating their kindergarten-age children at twice the rate they did seven years ago, a fact public health experts said is contributing to the reemergence of measles across the state and may lead to outbreaks of other serious diseases.” According to the same article, “for measles and whooping cough [to be avoided], at least 92% of kids need to be immune.” That is to say, at least 92 percent of children need to have had their full immunization in order to avoid specific disease outbreaks such as measles and whooping cough. As the stereotype against immunizing children becomes more prevalent, children (even if they are completely immunized) are increasingly placed at risk. Vaccines are not effective in all cases; although the large majority of kids who receive a vaccine will develop immunity, some will not and are still susceptible to infection. Additionally, children who haven’t received full vaccinations are significantly more likely to contract various diseases than others who have. Once infected, these non-immunized children become carriers who will

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “Immunization is the process whereby a person is made immune or resistant to an infectious disease, typically by the administration of a vaccine. Vaccines stimulate the body’s own immune system to protect the person against subsequent infection or disease.” In the United States, there are certain vaccines called “routine vaccines” that can protectkidsfrom diseases, such as measles, polio, tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis (whooping cough). These are required vaccines for children entering public schools. (SOURCE?) All 50 states require vaccinations for children. Forty-eight of these states, excluding Mississippi and West Virginia, have religious exemptions, and 19 states have exemptions

Many people may argue that immunizations should not be required in the United States school systems because natural immunity lasts longer, you can’t get rid of all diseases in the world, and because of certain religious beliefs. According to Life Long Immunity, “Natural immunity lasts longer. Actually getting chicken pox can give you lifelong immunity With Vaccinations, whereas getting the vaccine may not” (Lauren Feder). If you get a certain illness, you will have lifelong immunity and your body will know how to fight it off in the future. Getting the disease/illness will make your body stronger and prevent you from getting that certain disease or illness again. According to the article Pros and Cons of Vaccinations, “It is completely impossible to rid the world of all diseases. Not only do they constantly adapt and change, but different countries have different diseases” (Hew Health Advisor). Some vaccines may create new diseases and many get sick after getting vaccinated. There is still a 5% chance of getting the disease or illness. According to the article Vaccinate With Persuasion not Coercion, “Those who have genuine religious objections are unlikely to allow their children to be immunized, whatever the penalty” (David Elliman). People may have certain religious beliefs that may prevent them from getting immunized. We shouldn’t penalize people because of their religious beliefs. They should be allowed whether or not to vaccinate their child. What this argument