Should vaccination be compulsory?

[tinfoilhat]

22 minutes ago, PeterKit said:

No they should not be compulsory. If vaccines are, why not extend to other socially 'preferred' behaviours? Vegetables are good for you, why not force 5 a day and have the vegetable police knocking on your door to check?

 

Joking aside, I'm not against vaccinations, but not keen on the number and frequency.  For example, in 2018 there were 33 cases of Polio worldwide. It's been eradicated everywhere but Pakistan and Afghanistan (the WHO figures). Transmission is by direct exposure to the faeces or mucus of an infected person. So what are the chances of someone living in the UK being exposed to Polio? Virtually none. More likely to be hit by a car on the way to the GP than contracting polio. So why do we still regularly vaccinate children against it in the UK?  Other diseases that we vaccinate against such as hepatitis or diphtheria are also uncommon and are often contracted due to unhygienic and unsanitary living conditions that aren't generally prevalent in the UK. Looking at data here is seems there are now far more people dying or being injured by the Polio vaccine than there are by the disease itself. 

 

Secondly, vaccines aren't completely safe. The UK government recognises this by having a vaccine damage compensation scheme. So it becomes a case of weighing up the risks of any single jab. 

 

 

Yeah, because nobody from Pakistan or Afghanistan ever come here. Certainly not illegally.

[Cyclone]

14 hours ago, L00b said:

Well, they’re a danger to their kind, certainly. So let Darwin have his way, that should help both purge the gene pool and mitigate anti-intellectualism.

They're a huge danger to anyone who can't be vaccinated for real medical reasons and anyone who is immunocompromised for any reason.

3 hours ago, PeterKit said:

No they should not be compulsory. If vaccines are, why not extend to other socially 'preferred' behaviours? Vegetables are good for you, why not force 5 a day and have the vegetable police knocking on your door to check?

 

 

The difference is quite clear.  Unvaccinated people are a danger to others.  People who don't eat vegetables are only a danger to themselves.

 

I don't agree with compulsory vaccination btw, but that's the argument and the difference to vegetables.

3 hours ago, PeterKit said:

So what are the chances of someone living in the UK being exposed to Polio? Virtually none. More likely to be hit by a car on the way to the GP than contracting polio. So why do we still regularly vaccinate children against it in the UK?  Other diseases that we vaccinate against such as hepatitis or diphtheria are also uncommon and are often contracted due to unhygienic and unsanitary living conditions that aren't generally prevalent in the UK. Looking at data here is seems there are now far more people dying or being injured by the Polio vaccine than there are by the disease itself. 

 

Secondly, vaccines aren't completely safe. The UK government recognises this by having a vaccine damage compensation scheme. So it becomes a case of weighing up the risks of any single jab. 

 

 

Why do you think Polio is rare?  You've got it backwards.  It's rare because it's vaccinated.  If we went "problem solved" and stopped vaccinating, at some point in the next 20 years we'd have a devastating epidemic of it, no doubt started by someone infected travelling here and then spreading through the unvaccinated community.

 

Vaccines aren't totally safe, but they're generally 100's to 1000's to 10,000's times safer than having the disease.

[alchemist]

8 hours ago, PeterKit said:

No they should not be compulsory. If vaccines are, why not extend to other socially 'preferred' behaviours? Vegetables are good for you, why not force 5 a day and have the vegetable police knocking on your door to check?

 

Joking aside, I'm not against vaccinations, but not keen on the number and frequency.  For example, in 2018 there were 33 cases of Polio worldwide. It's been eradicated everywhere but Pakistan and Afghanistan (the WHO figures). Transmission is by direct exposure to the faeces or mucus of an infected person. So what are the chances of someone living in the UK being exposed to Polio? Virtually none. More likely to be hit by a car on the way to the GP than contracting polio. So why do we still regularly vaccinate children against it in the UK?  Other diseases that we vaccinate against such as hepatitis or diphtheria are also uncommon and are often contracted due to unhygienic and unsanitary living conditions that aren't generally prevalent in the UK. Looking at data here is seems there are now far more people dying or being injured by the Polio vaccine than there are by the disease itself. 

 

Secondly, vaccines aren't completely safe. The UK government recognises this by having a vaccine damage compensation scheme. So it becomes a case of weighing up the risks of any single jab. 

 

 

The main reason for vaccination is ensure that those diseases you mention STAY rare and uncommon.  Measles was officially eradicated in this country after years of hard work, and look what a concerted effort of stupidity has brought about in just a few years

 

You can never relax where diseases are concerned as someone stupid enough can bring about their return

[Annie Bynnol]

Polio can be spread through the community by someone who shows no or very few symptoms.

 

A non vaccinated traveller from the UK could pick it up overseas and return, show no symptoms and spread it around back here.

 

Ignoring procedure, deliberate reactivation, historical lost collections and human stupidity can conspire to re-introduce the disease.

[Pettytom]

On 07/05/2019 at 12:32, L00b said:

Well, they’re a danger to their kind, certainly. So let Darwin have his way, that should help both purge the gene pool and mitigate anti-intellectualism.

Unfortunately it isn’t so simple. The unvaccinated children don’t really have a say in the decision, for a start, so leaving them to contract awful diseases seems harsh.

 

The actions of the anti- vaxxers also reduce herd immunity. That places several more groups at risk, including those some of those who have been vaccinated, as protection isn’t 100%. There are also those who cannot be vaccinated, they also deserve protection.

 

That’s why I asked the question really. I don’t think that it is a personal decision. The potential ramifications are too wide to allow it to be so. Eater Sundae has it right back at the start of the thread. We can’t compel people to immunise their children, but we can make it a requirement of using public services. It is high time that was done, in my opinion.

[Revel]

Yes.