To think perhaps schools should insist on vaccinations.

[Lovestonap]

Good animal boarding kennels etc will not take animals without their vaccinations up to date.
Should our schools be able to insist on a completed course of childhood vaccinations (up to age appropriate) before giving a space at a school? Obviously children who are unable to be vaccinated would have a medical exemption certificate. I think this would be a good idea, but then I'm wondering if this is a nanny state too far thing. Probably implications for human rights I haven't considered.

Surely the very point of this measure is that it isn't forcing parents to do anything. Vaccination is still totally optional.

However if you want to participate in the benefits of being a member of modern society you have to accept some of the burdens. Rights come with responsibilities. Your right to free education comes with the responsibility to vaccinate.

Of course there is a financial issue. The pharmaceutical companies have huge amounts of influence and lobbying power. Plus if certain diseases can be eradicated through achieving herd immunity that will mean less cost in treating those diseases on the NHS.

monsan which poster has said they carry no risks? And don’t make me laugh about that sham of a ‘vaccine court’. There is no real burden of proof with a majority being settled without the vaccine being proven to have caused harm. Please have a read af this time.com/3995062/vaccine-injury-court-truth/

If people can’t be arsed here’s an important part

From 2006 to 2014, approximately 2.5 billion doses of vaccines were administered in the U.S. In that time, a total of just 2,976 claims were adjudicated by the special masters and only 1,876 of those received compensation. Divide that number by the vaccine dose total and you get less than a one in a million risk of harm. Going all the way back to 1988—before the flu vaccine became part of the recommended schedule of vaccines—a total of 16,038 claims have been adjudicated and 4,150 have been compensated, bringing the total payouts up to the $3.18 billion figure

The anti-vax arguments in this thread are either ignorant or strawmen arguments, as usual.

I wonder if most of you are also anti welfare. Would make sense.

How does :"I want vulnerable to be safe from preventable diseases and so people should vaccine" make a person into anti welfare certainly doesn't make sense to me...

oh my god, no one is saying Theresa May should be allowed to come at you with a syringe.

To be fair, though, she’s probably pretty handy with one.

If you had a very serious communicable disease, do you think you’d be allowed to refuse treatment and leave hospital? If you were admitted with Ebola, do you think you’d be allowed to just leave? There are situations where medical treatment would be an essential condition of leaving hospital.

@OftenHangry I assumed England has similar requirements as Aus and refused welfare if unvaccinated. If not, that's a positive for your gov.

@SinkGirl Well, that would make sense. Treating every child like a walking talking disease and treating them as though they are is where I see the issue. Obviously sick people should be quarantined. I absolutely support parents keeping their sick kids at home and sick adults using up sick days when ill. Makes sense.

Do I think they should lose their job if they happen to turn up to work when sick? No.

Anyone thinking the governments haven't seen this as a great way to save some money are simply naive. I wonder if most of you are also anti welfare. Would make sense.

Sorry, what’s a great way to save money?

monsan as I said previously, my son had a significant skills regression overnight at 18 months old. If I lived in America and he’d had that same regression shortly after his 12 month jabs, I could have gone to that court and probably would have received a settlement. The vaccine clearly wasn’t responsible, he had no problems for six months. It did however happen within a week of starting to walk, so maybe walking causes autism?

He came off a medication he’d been on from about two weeks old a few weeks before the regression, so maybe not being given medication causes autism?

Or it was quite warm around that time, maybe summer causes autism?

Correlation is not causation.

Education benefits all of society and doesn't interfere with a persons right to refuse medical intervention (with risk) where it isn't needed.

Even if one were to accept that was true (I don’t, is base of fact you’re incorrect and ethically it’s debatable on the question of greater benefit to society), there is still the issue of those services, such as financial benefits, where the impact is much more individual. Why should individuals retain access to those benefits when they refuse to do things that are beneficial to the wider community?

This is a well-trodden path. People who smoke and drink make a contribution to the state, in part to pay for the social and financial impact of those choices. For vaccinations, it is an issue of withholding rather than imposing, but the principle is the same.

How convenient to forget that mass vaccination proved effective in eradicating smallpox.

Please @Onehandinmypocket continue to educate us on how bad vaccines are, your posts are so deluded that are actually hilarious. (Because you are not pro vaccines, right?)

@SinkGirl see my reply below to @OftenHangry

Oh please, please make anti-vaccers also become anti-antibiotic! It will be a very shallow learning curve and a huge increase in Darwin Award candidates, but well worth it.

@prequelle posters were refuting the claim that vaccines carry risks. Most modern vaccines are safe for MOST people. But in some people (particularly those with allergic tendencies and other medical conditions) they can trigger reactions. Those reactions could be triggered by something ELSE as well - it's like being allergic to nuts AND sesame - either one can set you off. The PROBLEM is not the vaccine programme it is the insistence that EVERYONE should have the vaccine and that there is no need to think twice or exclude certain groups. THAT is dangerous because it is a whitewash.

@PeggySuehadababy I'm not even sure where I've done what you're accusing me of. I do not support mandated medical intervention where it is not necessary. I am neither pro or anti vax, it would be silly to be either as I am fully vaccinated as are my children but I do not support it being mandatory, ever, for anything.

You people love your labels though, so, go hard.

Sorry, what’s a great way to save money?

Eradicating diseases. And apparently it’s a giant conspiracy and the government only wants everyone to be healthier because it’s cheaper.

I don’t think it’s any secret at all that one part of the drive to vaccinate is economic, both in terms of cost to the health service and wider economic costs to productivity. It’s right there in the JCVI papers.

The idea that there is a financial motivation should be comforting to those who are worried, actually. A financially-motivated state on this issue would not be pushing vaccinations that weren’t effective and resulted in greater healthcare costs and lower productivity.

Most things that are socially productive are also economically productive. There are some exceptions, such as smoking, where the balance sheet isn’t as clear cut, but still the public health response is to cut smoking. Which should also provide some comfort. If the state was only financially motivated, it’d keep cigarette duty high and cut stop smoking programmes.

monsan I haven’t seen anyone say ‘vaccines don’t carry risks’, I may have missed them. I would appreciate it if you could point me to them?

Treating every child like a walking talking disease and treating them as though they are is where I see the issue.

That’s ridiculous hyperbole. Again, perhaps if your child had almost died from one of these illnesses you would understand. I cannot explain the anger I felt at knowing someone had brought such a dangerous illness into a NICU, even though logically that had to be tempered by the fact that whooping cough is not as severe in adults, they may not have realised what it was, unless pregnant adults don’t have whooping cough boosters, etc.

How would you honestly feel if you sent your child to school and they caught measles from an unvaccinated child and died or were permanently disabled?

How would you feel if your child needed chemotherapy and sending them to school was like playing russian roulette with their health when so much of the risk could be easily prevented?

Personally, I think people who choose not to vaccinate (rather than those who can’t vaccinate for medical reasons) are foolish and dangerous. It’s not them who’s suffering, it’s their children and others around them. Should their children be pinned down and physically forced? No. But they should have to take precautions to prevent the deaths of other people - we are potentially talking about children and vulnerable people dying here.

Why shouldn’t people have to face the consequences of their decisions, when they could be life or death consequences?

@Onehandinmypocket this is how problems start. People assume without bothering to check for facts

@Booboostwo Oh, you're still lurking.

@Booboostwo So you have proof that the majority of the population is immune to the illnesses vaccines are meant to prevent? Can I see it?

I am neither pro or anti vax, it would be silly to be either as I am fully vaccinated as are my children but I do not support it being mandatory, ever, for anything.

No one on this thread has advocated mandatory vaccination. No one. They have, however, suggested that access to certain state-funded services should be contingent on participating in other state-funded programmes.

In the case of vaccination, there is a particular conflict where individual and community rights conflict at school. At its most acute, why should the right of a child to attend school without being vaccinated outweigh the right of an immunocompromised child to attend school safely? And then there is a sliding scale of conflict of rights for healthy children who still may be at risk due to imperfect vaccine effectiveness if herd immunity is compromised to an untenable level.

If the state was only financially motivated, it’d keep cigarette duty high and cut stop smoking programmes.

Slight tangent but that’s exactly what’s happening where I live! Stop smoking services are now only available in pharmacies

YANBU but equally it isn’t the children’s fault their parents have neglected to vaccinate them so I don’t feel they should be punished.

Slight tangent but that’s exactly what’s happening where I live! Stop smoking services are now only available in pharmacies

Oh that’s grim!!