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

The thing is I think if something isn't done, then when there are more measles outbreaks and other diseases come back

I think it's easy in today's world to forget the sheer havoc diseases like measles, mumps, whooping cough, polio and rubella can cause.

People actively pooh-pooh it with a "it'll never happen to me or my kids" mentality. Scary. Negligent. Shit parenting.

I have no interest in what they think, because it is fact free nonsense.

That’s the point about a right. It only matters what the person exercising it thinks. 🤷🏻‍♀️

A fed up doctor tired of dealing with idiots who think their opinion deserves respect.

If you don’t think your patients have the right to ignore your opinion, back to medical school you go for a refresher course in basic ethics.

I guess I maybe don't agree that body autonomy in this specific issue is more important than protecting people from serious diseases. Everyone will have their own line in the sand, for me it's just not as important as the return of measles etc.

Problem being, of course, that bodily autonomy that can be revoked at the will of the State on a case-by-case basis is a nonsense. Remove it for one vaccination and you have removed it. Gone. And to me, that is more important than the return of measles.

I simply wouldn’t trust them to have a proper policy for the immunocompromised children who can’t be vaccinated to even consider looking at this as a good policy.

We’ve seen what they’ll happily do to the sick and disabled through welfare cuts and their part over the years in ruining specialist education provision.

Then you have abusive and neglectful parents. The only vaccinations my siblings and I had were ones my nana could sneak us too. Education was our way out of our abusive home for at least a few hours a day. It was also pretty much the only place we got fed when my father was on one. Social services then weren’t around enough to catch how bad it was until I was 7, and I think with how decimated their services are they’d struggle now.

Denying a child an education is a massive thing. For so many education is their only hope of an escape. I don’t trust any of the idiots currently in our parliament to bring in such a policy with proper safeguards for children who need them.

In theory, it sounds a good policy. Not sure what would happen if the parent refuses though, maybe SS involvement? It could be lined to benefits but how many non vaxers would that affect as not everyone is claiming so it wouldn’t cover all.

Yay. Another Vax thread. That makes about five in a week.

YANBU.

In my home country state and private schools require up to date immunizations.

In a country where only the poorest of the poor (living on less than a £1 a day) have access to free vaccines, and everyone else pays up to £200-300 for them when the average monthly wage is £280 and still uptake is higher than some western countries. I think we should be ashamed that people with so little are willing to make the extra effort to keep their children safe

I also think a better tactic would be educating people rather than patronising them and judging them.

My ex was very anti mmr. I got serious pressure not to give it to our girls. I was a very unconfident parent and when you google these things you get bombarded with anti fax sites. Trying to pick out what is real and what is bullshit is really difficult.

I asked my HV and she, and I quite, told me “don’t be ridiculous, it’s perfectly safe, no-one ever gets ill after it”. When I said I was actually looking for the proper statistics, so I could show my ex his theory that “millions” claim from the vaccine damage fund every year was wrong, she sighed and patronised some more.

My GP rolled his eyes when I asked. Every single person patronised or told me off (except the people who were telling the scary stories and vowing not to vaccinate their child). As I was brought up from 7 by grandparents I was also dealing with scepticism because of the thalidomide issue.

Until finally a friends father, who is a GP, spoke to me and actually told me how few people claim from the fund, explained that the reason so many people equate it with autism is because of timing, explained what flawed in that study and told me how many children had had properly bad reactions to vaccines in his 45 year career (which was one).

He is the reason that I was able to confidently vaccinate my girls, and my subsequent three children.

Proper facts, no patronising, and don’t treat people’s fears like they are stupid and you get on a lot better I think.

Schools for the unvaccinated-by-choice I say!

Funny though, many parents would likely hesitate to place their child into such schools, and for good reason!

I am massively pro-vaccine, but would worry that this would fuel the anti-vax movement further. Those that would never willingly vaccinate would find says around it and there will probably be some massive litigation at some point.

A couple of comments have referred to children who 'can't' have vaccines because of fear - are there really a lot of kids who don't get possibly life-saving jabs because of the difficulty in giving them?

On the whole I think I'd rather money put into better education of why kids should have them, how herd immunity breaks down and how it isn't really there to comfort parents who are 'not sure'.

I am pro vaccine and nothing will ever change my stance on this, but I have to be pro personal choice too... They are saying they are considering making vaccines a condition on being admitted to school. Home education is growing as it is, this will only increase it.. Not that HE is a bad thing, I HE my DD, but it should be a choice made for education purposes, not to avoid vaccination! I have to question the quality of the education received if it is a choice made purely to not vaccinate.

All of this!

I wasn't vaccinated due to my mother dying and it just not being picked up on. My life was shit and chaotic but if this was in place I would have been vaccinated. It will work for those with shit lives because you can guarantee their parents or caters would rather they were at schools

I completely agree too. There should only be permitted exemptions on health grounds, not religious grounds. I’ve had enough of pandering to anti-vaxxers and their bullshit.

Would this include annual flu vaccines?

I am not an anti-vaxxer so I hesitate to use the term “pro-vaxxer”, but do the people strongly advocating compulsion really see no issue with the Government legislating that you have to put drugs into your child’s natural body, the one they were born with, and that, by not altering your child’s natural body in a specific way, you are responsible for the deaths of other children, if and when they contract a naturally occurring virus?

Look, I have vaccinated my children, but do these people not see that this is totalitarian and completely unethical?

I am slightly on the fence.

Fundamentally I agree with the PP upthread who summarised it as that if you want to have all the benefits of living in society, including pooling our resources via the tax system to provide education for our children, then abiding by group rules that protect all children by all of them having vaccines is part of that.

However, I don't believe that children should be punished for the idiocy of their parents and all children have a fundamental right to an education. It would be perverse and wrong if the consequences of a parent being stupid and misinformed was to ensure that their child remained ignorant and uneducated.

I would also fear that a policy like this would lead to antivaxxer children being concentrated in the few private schools that didn't have such a rule (I would assume most private schools would adopt the same rule sharpish but some won't) and those places will suffer an overwhelming epidemic of something that will lead to children dying in an entirely avoidable tragedy. And while that would be a valuable lesson, it is not a lesson that we should welcome. Proving a point should not happen via a policy that will lead to additional deaths of children. The anti-vax children are currently protected a little just by being spread out.

Fundamentally I agree with the PP upthread who summarised it as that if you want to have all the benefits of living in society, including pooling our resources via the tax system to provide education for our children, then abiding by group rules that protect all children by all of them having vaccines is part of that.

We live in a society whether we want to or not. We are subject to laws. We are subject to taxation. That doesn’t mean we should surrender all of our individual rights.

Denying a child an education is a massive thing. For so many education is their only hope of an escape. I don’t trust any of the idiots currently in our parliament to bring in such a policy with proper safeguards for children who need them

This.

Proper facts, no patronising, and don’t treat people’s fears like they are stupid and you get on a lot better I think

And this.

but do the people strongly advocating compulsion really see no issue with the Government legislating that you have to put drugs into your child’s natural body, the one they were born with, and that, by not altering your child’s natural body in a specific way, you are responsible for the deaths of other children, if and when they contract a naturally occurring virus?

I have no issue with it at all. Children are not the property of their parents. Parents have a duty to act in their best interests and that has been objectively proven to include vaccination (medical exemptions aside). If parents won’t do that voluntarily then I think it’s fair enough to do something that hopefully pushes the parents towards that. And the reason for the “naturally occurring virus” being so prevalent is down to anti-vaxxers in the first place.

I think all children should be vaccinated unless there is a medical reason not to, but I can't agree that excluding children from a state education is an appropriate way forward. I know a couple of antivaxxers who already home educate and have zero trust in the NHS. These kids will be pulled out of school and have even less contact with established medicine and mainstream life than they already do.

Prominent clinicians within the NHS have made it clear that they disagree with this proposal in the last week. They say it will erode trust and efforts should be made to address the misinformation that is circulating on social media and which fuels the downturn in vaccinations and that they should be allowed to continue to engage with and educate parents who don't want to vaccinate.

And I say all of what I said up thread as someone who went from being unsure and planning single vaccines, to first in the queue for MMR and still first in the queue for vaccinations for my younger children despite my DD2 being one of the people adversely affected by the swine flu vaccine. She’ll live with the consequences of that for life, but she and her siblings have still seen me vaccinate my younger two since that time because we know we made the right call.

If you properly educate people, rather than patronise, that passes on to their children as well.

I'm pro vaccine but could never support this.

Children are not the property of their parents. Parents have a duty to act in their best interests and that has been objectively proven to include vaccination (medical exemptions aside). If parents won’t do that voluntarily then I think it’s fair enough to do something that hopefully pushes the parents towards that. And the reason for the “naturally occurring virus” being so prevalent is down to anti-vaxxers in the first place.

Huh? A virus that spreads quickly and mutates quickly will spread unless people are vaccinated, sure, but that doesn’t mean unvaccinated people are “the reason”. The virus is the reason. Evolution is the reason. The vaccination is an intervention.

But no, I didn’t say children were property. But they are the responsibility of their parents, including providing protection for them. And one thing they may need protection against is illegitimate action by the State. Which we all know happens.

I think it is a great idea although I wouldn't say that the Tories really "come up" with it because it is already in place in many countries and it works. Those with health exemptions would obviously be excluded. I think that the fears that children who are unvaccinated will not be educated are unfounded as this is not what happens in countries where vaccination is compulsory. The parents presumably either like the idea of educating their children themselves even less than vaccines or they are able to afford private schools which don't demand vaccination.

Alternatively they could just fine parents. That seems to work too.