Vaccination by Force

"There will be a day when you will wish that you had done a little evil to do a greater good."
--Sybilla (Kingdom of Heaven)

A recent measles outbreak has once again raised the interesting question of the role of government in public health. During the ebola contagion last fall, these pages concluded that government might have legitimate power to quarantine people exposed to a deadly, contagious disease. When an individual is exposed to a deadly disease and then interacts with others understood to have been unable to take reasonable precaution against the disease, then the carrier can be seen as an aggressor.

Quarantining potential carriers, particularly when the mechanism of contagion is not well understood, can be seen as a valid power of government under such circumstances. Government's proper role is to help individuals protect themselves against aggression.

In the midst of the measles outbreak, we now hear outcries for mandatory (i.e., enforced by government) vaccination. While this situation may seem analogous to the ebola case above, it is not. With measles we have a case where the disease and its transmission are well understood. Vaccines against the measles have been available for decades. In fact, by the time vaccines were introduced, mortality from measles had already been drastically reduced:

Because of the broad availability of a vaccine, culpability of measles carriers is unlike the ebola case above, because people have attainable means to "self-defend" against measles infection. It is reasonable to assume that those who value the vaccine will choose to use it.

There is also reason to believe that measles vaccines might be harmful. As discussed here, vaccines might throw autoimmune systems out of balance, leading to allergies and chronic illnesses, particularly in children. As estimated here, 1970s kids like me received about 7 vaccines around the age of five or older. Today, kids receive about 25 vaccines by the age of two. Research seeking to connect vaccines to allergies and illness has been inconclusive although, surprisingly, it appears that basic randomized studies of vaccinated and unvaccinated populations have not been done. (The above graph, of course, suggests that the effect on measles mortality could be insignificant.)

The point is that some people may see vaccines as potentially harmful and not worth the risk. Opting out of the vaccine is a valid choice, as is electing the vaccine. What is not valid is forcing someone else to be vaccinated. Greater Good Accounting is a poor argument here. Public health officials and those seeking to vaccinate people against their wills become the aggressors.

Vaccination by force is analogous to war fought in the name of national security. Both are usually acts of preemptive aggression.