Mandatory Vaccination in Children An Ethical Dilemma Essay

Vaccination was first introduced globally for small pox and later on extended to other communicable diseases which are now known as vaccine preventable disease. Vaccination is beneficial both for individuals and community. This bring us to the ethical dilemma - Vaccination of a healthy child with the intention of protecting both the individual child and the community at the same time exposing the child to the theoretical risk of exposure to disease products whether live, attenuated or killed. There was a time when people never questioned the government or their physicians. Now because of more public awareness and accessibility to medical information, they are questioning the safety aspects of vaccines. Most of the time parents take†¦show more content†¦In 1971, small pox legislation was annulled in UK2. Childhood vaccination is no longer compulsory in UK since 20042. In USA the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended an immunization schedule which is a non mandatory one. Most states in USA has adopted this policy and require the children to be vaccinated in order to attend day care centers and public schools in which case vaccination becomes mandatory.2 Exemptions are allowed for medical reasons whereas it is limited for religious and philosophical reasons in 20 US states3. Risks and Benefits of Vaccination Vaccines are one of most successful and cost effective public health preventive tool in current century for preventing communicable diseases. According to UK Health Protection Agency (HPA), vaccination is the second most effective public health intervention worldwide. Immunization protects the individual as well the community from serious diseases. Since the implementation of immunization there has been a 95% reduction in the cases 4. According to WHO immunization prevented 2million deaths worldwide. 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