Or are compulsory vaccines the best political policy the Tories have ever come up with?

[HollyGoLoudly1]

In the news today, Tory health secretary is investigating compulsory vaccinations for school children.

Before I don my hard hat, for background I have a close family member who is immunocompromised. He has had multiple hospital admissions over the years for simple viruses and other illnesses that most of us wouldn't even need to stay off work for. If he catches something like measles it could be fatal.

To be honest, even disregarding this family member, I am very, very pro-vaccine and would support this policy no matter what. Even if it is from the Tories (who I definitely do not support).

puts on hard hat

Coercion: laws that say you have to accept a particular treatment or X unpleasant implication.

The HCP wouldn't be enforcing an "unpleasant implication" though would they?

I struggle with this issue massively.

I am a childminder and strongly pro vaccine. BUT I am also pro choice. I don’t believe it’s right to make vaccines compulsory.

That being said, I live in N LONDON, very close to a big Jewish community and there has been two child deaths from Measles in the past few months as they were not vaccinated.

It worries me, as some one with a newborn, and a mom who has a very low immune system after chemotherapy, that there are communities of people living so close to me, that are ardent anti-vaxers. The local council has set up drop in clinics on Saturdays and Sundays at children’s centres, to try and encourage more parents to vaccinate but they aren’t biting.

Some of my childminder pals refuse to care for children who haven’t been vaccinated. I now do the same, I feel awful doing it, but it’s not fair, IMO, to put those who are vulnerable, at risk.

Parents should be able to chose what’s right for their own families, but it shouldn’t negatively impact mine. I don’t know what the solution is really.

JenniR29

The Government takes no risks. It represents its citizens. Those citizens are entitled to make healthcare choices their representatives think are “misinformed”.

‘So instead of educating people as to the reasons why it is sensible to vaccinate, we instead choose to deny them an education altogether?’

I think healthcare professionals have been doing their best to educate people since Wakefield but thanks to the internet and social media there seems to be a whole movement dedicated to undoing this work. It grows even more insidious by the day, using emotional anecdotes and conspiracy theories rather than fact. As proved in political campaigns emotion always triumphs over reason.

@seaweedandmarchingbands The WHO has said that the anti-vax movement is a significant risk to public health, why should the government just ignore it for people’s right to believe misinformation. They didn’t pander to smokers rights when they introduced the ban.

The Government takes no risks. It represents its citizens. Those citizens are entitled to make healthcare choices their representatives think are “misinformed”.

Citizens may be entitled to make healthcare choices but that doesn't mean that other people have to suffer as a result of those choices. If you have an infectious deadly disease for example, you would be entitled to refuse treatment. You would not be entitled to expose others to the risk of getting the disease. The same applies to vaccinations I think.

I completely support it. And also the Aus system which does not provide benefits for those unvaccinated.

It does not remove personal choice. It is not forcing anyone to do anything.
It's saying that if you want to use services provided by society you have to actively be apart of that society and work to protect it.

JenniR29

Because the ECHR and the consensus in the medical profession says I am entitled to be wrong, and they are not entitled to force me. My kids have that right as well, mediated by my judgment about what is best for them. It’s not smoking.

Because the ECHR and the consensus in the medical profession says I am entitled to be wrong, and they are not entitled to force me.

You still will be entitled to be wrong. You just won't be entitled to inflict your decision on everyone else. It is the same as smoking in that you can still smoke and risk your own health but you can't make everyone else suffer the effects.

It is the same as smoking in that you can still smoke and risk your own health but you can't make everyone else suffer the effects.

It’s not even slightly the same.

Seaweed

It’s a similar analogy. If someone smokes in front of me or my kids it risks their health, the government decided to ban smoking indoors and in cars to prevent harm to others by some people’s poor health choices.

Your personal health choices should not affect others and when they do the government has the right to intervene.

They have been trying to educate people ever since the Andrew Wakefield research was discredited though and it doesn't seem to be working thanks to the internet. I think that the time to look at policies introduced by countries that are much more successful.

Many areas are back to pre-Wakefield numbers now. They need to focus on the fact that even before that issue there was still only around 91/92% of children getting vaccinated and the reasons why.

Even before Wakefield in 1995/6 the 91.8% of children getting the MMR was below the 95% WHO herd immunity figure.

So there needs to be a new focus on peoples reasons and fears because the blame can't all be focussed on the Wakefield disaster anymore. There are tranches of people who don't vaccinate and they should be targetted and their reasons understood and education given.

What needs to happen is a proper education programme that doesn't just dismiss people's fear as stupid, but answers their fears with proper information.

There also should be, imo, an acceptance that it's understandable people have fear.

This and everything else you've said.

And I find it disingenuous for people to suggest that the medical community have not been patronising in the way they have dealt with this issue. They have been from the beginning, the advertising has been awful and based on a 'top down' approach regarding the science.

We have ASD as well as autoimmune diseases in our immediate family, but trying to express my very justifiable concerns and fears to first, a nurse, then the HV, then the doctor, was met with 'Oh Muuuuuuuuum it's the best way to protect your baby' ie "Just trust us" surface spiel, as though discussing the science or stats any deeper was just too above my understanding (and their pay grade) to bother with.

In the end I consented but I genuinely worried if I was doing the right thing for my DS, and had he gone on to develop autism like his two cousins - it may have not been linked - but I would have had a 'what if' in the back of my mind for fucking ever. But my fears were just seen as completely unimportant to address, dare I say because mostly in these cases it is women presenting with their children asking questions and 'hysterical woman' bias starts kicking in.

I note that when I or DCs have been in hospital with an illness I am spoken to like an adult and risks and fears pros and cons of any procedures addressed. It's a noticeable contrast.

JenniR29

It’s an analogy, but it isn’t the same. Why?

1. Smoking or not smoking is something you can do or not do at a particular time. You can take it on and off, as it were. A vaccination is a permanent change that cannot be reversed.

But that isn’t important because:

2. Smoking is an action that YOU choose to perform. It can harm others. Harming others isn’t okay. But a vaccination - in the case of compulsion - would be an action you were forced to let someone else perform on YOU. The risk of harm is to YOU. Whether or not the Government believes a vaccination won’t harm your child, try asking the Health Minister to categorically say in public that it won’t. He can’t. Vaccination carries some risk.

So: what is actually happening in this case is very different from the smoking analogy. You are not being forced to refrain from a harmful action, but to undergo a potentially harmful treatment. That puts the moral onus on the Government to definitively prove that it could never be harmful. And they can’t.

@chocolatedaim

I used to live in the same community. They are so insular that it would be very unlikely to contract it from them. The issue there is within the community given that the average household has 7 children.

Any concern from me comes from my own demographic who my children mix with frequently and who might have more reason to be dishonest about their vaccination status in some social circles. Some politicians for example, have refused to say either way. I know some anti vaxxers understand the point of herd immunity and how to achieve it through routine vaccination but as someone else said, they've made the informed choice that they'd rather not assume the risks of vaccination for their child to protect someone else as most childhood illnesses. It is an incredibly selfish stance in my view because it ignores the fact their child today is benefiting from the fact we don't have diphtheria or polio floating around so they can afford to allow them to be vulnerable to such diseases and others like measles and mumps are often minor and temporary.

Mandatory vaccination makes me extremely uneasy

Yes me to (and my children were vaccinated)

We already have presumed consent coming in for organ donation (here in Wales it's already happened)

Where will this end?

I also think there is an element of people not knowing how horrific these illness are, (because the vaccines work!) and so the potential side affects seem worse. People are so ill informed and it’s dangerous.
However compulsory vaccinations make me feel really uncomfortable

So there needs to be a new focus on peoples reasons and fears because the blame can't all be focussed on the Wakefield disaster anymore. There are tranches of people who don't vaccinate and they should be targetted and their reasons understood and education given.

They have tried and if it didn't work even before the internet there is less chance of it working now. It's time to look at the policies of countries with better vaccination rates.

What i see is going to happen - falsified vaccine records will be in demand.

But a vaccination - in the case of compulsion - would be an action you were forced to let someone else perform on YOU. The risk of harm is to YOU. Whether or not the Government believes a vaccination won’t harm your child, try asking the Health Minister to categorically say in public that it won’t. He can’t. Vaccination carries some risk.

Yes, but not being vaccinated is also a risk too not only for you but also to others and just as you shouldn't be forced to have the vaccine other people shouldn't be forced to live with the consequences of you not having it.

Yeah, it's a good idea. We now have compulsory measles vaccination for school and kindergarten children here in Germany, after measles cases started to rise.

What i see is going to happen - falsified vaccine records will be in demand.

They will have to find doctors willing to do this and whilst some will, it will account for a relatively small proportion and won't effect herd immunity.

woodchuck99

Unfortunately, what they are living with is their own physical condition. It isn’t to do with mine. They don’t have the right to force other people to undergo potentially risky treatments to improve their own chances of survival. That’s fundamentally unethical, as much as I sympathise with anyone with a compromised immune system.

They have tried and if it didn't work even before the internet there is less chance of it working now. It's time to look at the policies of countries with better vaccination rates.

What have they actually tried though? Because in going through the system with my kids I haven't seen a single change. Other than HCP's getting more snotty with people for being dubious.

Where is the education with proper statistics? Where is the acceptance that occasionally vaccines damage, but here are the exact numbers? Where's the understanding that people have fears?

Your lucky these days if you even have a HV to discuss any issues with, far less one that's actually aiming to get people to take up vaccines.

You can't say 'they've tried' when Surestart centres, HV numbers and services related to babies and children have been absolutely cut to the bone.

Also if you are going to insist on mandatory vaccinations then you need to sort out the shambles that is the Vaccine Damage Payment System and make it fit for purpose.

Have a look at the hoops those who have had their lives massively impacted by the Pandemrix/narcolepsy issue have been put through by the DWP. Many, including my DD, still haven't received the compensation they are due.

The treatment of sick and disabled people under numerous governments has been nothing short of scandelous.

There's no way any system to discount immunocomprimised children would be fit for purpose - they've shown numerous times how they can't deal with disabled or sick people in a compassionate way and people are daft if they think that would be different with children.