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Greater good vs rights: What should be done about anti-vaxxers?

Greater good vs rights: What should be done about anti-vaxxers?

Following a recent outbreak of measles in Minnesota, the familiar battle cries of the anti-vaccine movement and their detractors are being heard yet again.

On the one side, you have people who claim that vaccines are bad for kids — a scam perpetrated by the medical profession that could lead to serious health consequences. On the other, you have those who are worried about herd immunity and who think that anti-vaxxers should be forced to comply with medical recommendations for the good of society as a whole.

Personally, I take a somewhat more nuanced position in this ongoing argument. First, the facts: I do not believe that vaccines are harmful to children. The evidence for such claims is insufficient, and I remain unpersuaded. That being said, I do support parents’ rights to make decisions about their childrens’ health, even if it means defying the state or medical orthodoxy.

To begin with, a certain degree of skepticism toward official dogma is always healthy, particularly in a field like medicine, where dangerous misinformation has historically outnumbered sound advice many-fold.

Let us recall that bloodletting, leeches, and the use of toxic mercury were all once universally held to be beneficial to patients. In the early 20th century, it was en vogue to surgically remove part of the large intestine, due to the belief that severe constipation and fecal matter released toxins that poisoned the body. People died from this ridiculous surgery.

Not long after, it was believed that drinking water laced with radium or other radioactive elements could make you more healthy and energetic. Of course, the craze only lasted until people started dying very painful deaths from radiation poisoning. My point is not that doctors are always wrong or that they should be ignored, but that they are fallible, and that it is incumbent on each of us to think for ourselves — and not blindly comply with what the experts tell us to do.

It’s understandable that someone wouldn’t want their children stabbed with needles at the mandate of the state. And though I may disagree with them, I can’t really fault them for exercising their independence. After all, there is a word for coercively administering drugs to a child without his parents’ consent: assault.


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But what about herd immunity? Isn’t it wrong for parents to endanger others by refusing to have their children vaccinated?

It’s a fair point, but your health is ultimately your responsibility, and it seems unreasonable to expect others to modify their own lives with the goal of protecting you. If you don’t want to get measles, there are many things you can do to protect yourself, including, first and foremost, getting the vaccine. Pushing that responsibility onto others is at best a passive and unmotivated approach to managing your health.

Of course, the problem is compounded by the fact that most children are legally compelled to attend schools, where they are forced into small confined spaces with their peers. In this situation, it seems entirely reasonable that the children be inoculated for the protection of the group, for the simple reason that the kids have no choice but to be together. However, I would prefer to see a society that doesn’t treat children like cattle — forcing them into shared pens for six hours a day — rather than to use this arrangement as an excuse for mandatory vaccination.

A responsible approach to health care should be about giving individuals as many choices as possible, and letting them control their own care to the greatest extent practical. I am sympathetic to people’s fears of infectious disease, but state-mandated injections set a precedent that will ultimately do more harm than good, as well as deprive parents of their basic rights over their children.

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