Vaccination: A Case Study Of Ethical Dilemmas

The argument encompassing whether or not parents should vaccinate their children is ongoing. It is a very interesting matter to learn about and I possess some strong feelings about the case. This issue interests me because there are parents who don’t have their children vaccinated, and there are parents who do have them vaccinated. But all these parents share one particular quality: they all would like for their kids to be safe.

My cousin recently became a mother, and has expressed with me her concerns to vaccinate her child. Her main concern is that vaccines have been linked to autism and other health problems. There are multiple articles circulating the internet alerting parents of possible side effects of vaccinations; some even claiming to have scientific proof to support their claims.

Vaccination was first introduced globally for small pox and later on extended to other communicable diseases which are now known as vaccine preventable disease. Vaccination is beneficial both for individuals and community. This bring us to the ethical dilemma - Vaccination of a healthy child with the intention of protecting both the individual child and the community at the same time exposing the child to the theoretical risk of exposure to disease products whether live, attenuated or killed. There was a time when people never questioned the government or their physicians. Now because of more public awareness and accessibility to medical information, they are questioning the safety aspects of vaccines.

Controversy concerning the risks of vaccinations will always exist. As is the nature of a preventative intervention, it is difficult to rationalize giving a completely healthy child an injection that is known to have varying degrees of sides affects5. Additionally, these injections are to provide immunity to children for diseases that have an extremely low risk of circulating within a population. Since these vaccines have been able to protect so many individuals from experiencing these dangerous infections, most parents do not even have personal experiences regarding the impact of these diseases. As such, many parents do not see the vaccine-preventable disease as a threat to their child. This often causes parents to not fully understand the risk their child has for contracting a disease and the subsequent danger of a vaccine-preventable disease infection verses the potential side effect of a vaccine which is normally only mild to moderate discomfort for their child15.

I believe that ethics is the moral compass we use to make decisions for our patient in providing them with safe and quality healthcare. It makes us ask the questions of right and wrong as we advocate for them. The minute we become a nurse, we are constantly faced with ethical dilemmas. Some may be minute in scale but others are on the grand scale, such as end of life issues. It is very important for the nurse to understand their own beliefs and values when we enter into our work environment. There are times when our own opinion is not relevant to the circumstances of the patient and we need to keep them to ourselves. I might have a different view about why some people do or do not get the annual influenza vaccination. Yet there are time

Through the rise of technological advances in medicine, the vaccine has changed the world for the greater good of the human race. Making a great triumph and virtually eliminating an array of life-threatening diseases, from smallpox to diphtheria, thus adding approximately thirty years to many humans’ life spans. Although, a new complication has arisen, possibly linking neurological digression with this rise of new vaccines. Such a digression has forced parents to exempt their children from receiving vaccinations and brought forth mental anguish affecting the minds of many.

The issues of vaccination controversy is about parents making the choice for their children whether it’s the best for them to associate with the medical procedure. Today every child born are expected to receive with some 30 vaccines by the age of 18 months and and also by the age of five years old with the total up to 38 shots. Even though the parents are unaware that the vaccines can contain ingredients that are safe in the amounts used, but some of the ingredients may be harmful. Some parents might second guess themselves by thinking about the certainty of side effects caused by the vaccine.

There's been a reemergence of vaccine-preventable infectious diseases over the last decade or so, including measles outbreaks in Texas, California, and NY and whooping cough in California. This has largely been attributed to an increase in exemptions, likely due to the negative media attention still lingering from the original MMR/autism fictitious claim and from the overall drastic decrease in disease that leads some to believe these diseases are no longer worth vaccinating against. Even a randomized controlled trial, by many considered the gold standard of research, found you can't easily undue the anti-vaccination mindset. Mandatory vaccination is Constitutional and almost all states allow exemptions for various non-medical reasons (religious

disease to occur with numerous antigens entering the body at once and that their child will not be able to properly metabolize and excrete the mercury from their body.

Living in an environment where we are prone to many viruses, it’s very important that one take the proper precautions or considerations to control the risk of getting affected. However, when utilizing the ability of not becoming infected, one may question the fact weather there’s an actual effective form of prevention or not. To clarify the uncertainty, over many years one of the most strategic methods that have been used for the control and preventions of viruses are vaccinations. A vaccination takes advantage of one’s body natural ability to primarily learn how to eliminate almost any disease causing germ or microbe that affects it. Therefore vaccinations are considered one of the most effective ways to prevent severe outcomes initiated by viruses.

There are many legal and ethical situations that healthcare providers will be faced with when providing medical treatment to either a child or an elderly adult. While there is often much discussion regarding the elderly and do not resuscitate orders, there are often times when the decisions for health care of a child may be overlooked. Some of the legal issues that may be faced by healthcare professionals are informed consent, confidentiality, reproductive services and child abuse. Patients have the right to decide what is done to their own bodies, but for children under eighteen, their parents decide for them. A major issue faced by healthcare professionals is parental refusal for treatment. Healthcare providers will be faced with many conflicting ethical and legal situations regarding refusal of a minor’s healthcare and treatment. These issues

This paper examines the controversy surrounding the public health issue of vaccinations in children. Following a careful review of the literature surrounding this issue, the possible reasons for and implications of having a large percentage of the population who remains unvaccinated are discussed. Possible interventions and purposed interventions for resolution of this problem are discussed and conclusions are drawn based on what it learned from the literature.

Arguments about parental choice and vaccination has at times been very debatable, nevertheless those on either spectrum of the argument are conscientious to the welfare of children. The objective of this particular study is to evaluate how the decision making process between parents who choose to delay or refuse vaccines for their children age 24 months differ from those who do not. In addition, this study incorporates the Health Belief Model and addresses key components which attempts to tackle how these decisions are made, and how psychosocial factors may influence these decisions.

The classic essay Tragedy of the Commons describes the dilemma society faces when the interests of a group conflicts with the interests of individuals (Hardin, 1968). The example presented is that of a group of cattle ranchers commingling their cattle in a common pasture. At full capacity, each cattle owner still has an incentive to include additional cattle, since the slight decrease in overall yield per animal is offset by the additional animal. Unfortunately, this overgrazing inevitably leads to failure of the commons. The community goal of maximizing food production can only be achieved by placing controls on the interests of the individual cattle ranchers in favor of those of the community (Hardin, 1968). This paper is

Our current society is surrounded by the debatable usage of vaccines and its importance around the world. Since the introduction of immunizations, many diseases have been decreased and even eradicated from humanity. Even though this is true, serious side effects along with lifelong illnesses follow the temporary cure of viruses. A vaccine is a substance that delivers immunity against viruses and is used to stimulate the construction of antibodies. Vaccines are prepared from the disease itself treated to perform as an antigen without inducing the disease (Vaccines). These inoculations are used worldwide and various unknown infections have been speculated as the originations for them. Vaccines were originated as an alternative to cure viruses among people but the harmful symptoms, unknown links to incurable