Do You Think Childhood Vaccinations Should Be Compulsory?

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Kelly asked for the YES voters to comment, but to be honest, it feels like there is absolutely no point in saying anything positive about vaccination in these threads. People who don't vaccinate are not going to be swayed by us who follow conventional medicine because it doesn't fit with what they believe, and those who do vaccinate feel victimised and made to feel stupid with all these "facts" that get written up without any references. People who are on the fence are going to be swayed but more likely by the non-vaccers because they tend to shout the loudest and come from influential members of the BB community, starting at the top with BB herself. I think there is a lot of scare-mongering about vaccination (admittedly, this comes from both sides) and none of us are really qualified to make the assertions that we do.

Over & out.

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That's not completely true. I don't judge people for vaccinating their kids - it's their choice, and I said that, and I will not judge them for their decision - but it needs to go both ways. Saying something has to be compulsory is judging, isn't it? It's not a reciprocal respect. It's saying that because I believe this, YOU have to too, if you don't you are doing the wrong thing - of course that's going to get people's backs up, of course they are going to start to defend their rights and present the reasons behind their decision. The non-vaccers are not attacking, they're defending their rights of choice. This isn't a "Do you think it should be compulsory to NOT vaccinate", you're not having your choices challenged and judged - we (the non-vaccers) are.

The "compulsory for adults" argument is just as bad. No one has the right to take away another person's autonomy like that!

I hate the saying 'How would you feel if your unvaccinated kid passed xxx on'. What about if your vaccinated kid passed it on? Does that suddenly make it okay?
I delayed vaccinations in one and fully vaccinated another. I don't treat them any differently. If they've been exposed, I won't expose them to others thinking that her vaccinations will protect her.
I think the only correct way to say it is 'How would you feel if your kid passed xxx on.'

I voted no because we have freedom of choice and once you start forcing stuff it becomes a very slippery slope.

No, I certainly don't think inoculation should be compulsory, but I think the idea of compulsory education (independently run, presenting balanced information on the pros and cons and offering information on alternative paths, eg: delayed vaccination) is perhaps one that could be explored in greater detail. Of course, given that the information available (both for and against inoculation) is not always unbiased, and the programme would have to be government funded, and the government is not willing to recognise the validity of any dissent against their schedule it would be hard, if not impossible to present in a balanced way. But it would be nice to think that people could make their choices based on accurate information that is not so polarised.

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those who do vaccinate feel victimised and made to feel stupid with all these "facts" that get written up without any references.

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I'm sorry that's how you feel. I vax myself and my children and I don't feel that way by the comments in these threads. I gave a lot of thought and consideration to both sides of the argument before deciding to vax my son and I appreciate considered positions from others whether they choose to vax or not. I'm always open to new information and if someone offers something that sways me either way then I'm all for it- if the information is that good then please share it.

I voted no. I don't believe any medical procedure should be made compulsory, people should be free to make their own decisions about these things, whether we agree with them or not. For the record, my children are vacced and I am soon going to be commencing my own round of vaccs because it is a requirement of my uni course that I be immunized against specific diseases. So I suppose you could say I am facing the prospect of compulsory vaccination because it is a requirement of the profession/govt department in which I will be doing my pracs and eventually working.

What really gets up my nose is when people from either side of the fence (and I am not saying anyone in here) get on their high horse and believe they are morally superior to the people who do not share their point of view. Worse is when they assume that the only reason someone does not agree with them is because they are uneducated, ill-informed or just plain lazy. That is just offensive and nothing makes me want to disagree with someone more than when they start getting judgemental.

Winter, I think you have me pegged all wrong. I have previously vaccinated my children - I have 2 fully vaccinated according to their respective schedules, 1 vaccinated with all bar the 4yo vaccinations and 1 only vaccinated to 6 months. Then I made an informed decision to stop vaccination. So I am coming from the perspective that I used to do it because it was the 'done thing' and at the time I did truly believe that we were doing the right thing, but now I realise that it might not have been the right thing after all. I would never be so presumptuous as to convince someone to not vaccinate, but I would like to think that I could encourage someone to really think about what they are doing before they do it and not just become part of the herd mentality in regards to it. I don't think that people realise they have a choice to opt out if they want to and that is really sad because if they don't know they can't make a truly informed decision. I'm sure that if you asked people in the street about it that they would have no clue that it wasn't compulsory. People may be making really big decisions for their families without knowing all the information. When you have a baby you aren't told about the 'other side' of vaccinations, we just have masses of pamphlets thrust at us with a sheet that only tells us of the very mildest of reactions that they could possibly have. We don't get told what ingredients are in them and that they can cause problems.

Now that isn't to say that everyone who does do it doesn't make an informed decision, but I can guarantee that there would be many that just do it because they are told to do and and don't give it a second thought.

I just get tired of the only rebuttals that those who vaccinate can throw at us is 'herd immunity', 'for the greater good of society', 'I don't want your child making my child sick', or 'don't you know your child can die' and those are based less in fact than anything those of us can throw back at you, so it's hardly a fair call to say what you did. So that is why I would love to hear why anyone does vaccinate. What are their reasons for it beyond scaremongering as well?

ETA - I just wanted to add that I think it is wonderful that we have this platform where we can discuss it. I know of other forums where if you didn't vaccinate you would be called every bad name under the sun and treated like a pariah for it, just as I know some who are so staunchly anti-vaccination that if you ever mentioned that you supported it you would be lynched for it and driven away. Neither end of the spectrum are good so I think it's great we have a happy medium where I hope that everyone can be respected.

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So that is why I would love to hear why anyone does vaccinate. What are their reasons for it beyond scaremongering as well?

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I mentioned earlier why I vaccinate- I believe they are effective (in the most part- I am aware they are not 100% effective however) and I believe that some of the illnesses they cover justify the exposure to the toxins in the vaccine. I feel that preventing an illness such as tetanus and hepB through vaccinating is better than the cure, as there isn't one. Same with possible complications such as infertility from mumps.

Why did I vaccinate? Having personally watched a three week old baby struggling to breathe and having to be admitted to ICU because of whooping cough, and then be in hospital for 2 months while recovering from it. Having seen the after effects of pneumococcal meningitis and the devastating effects of these. I have an aunt with post polio syndrome (yes she was one of the lucky ones who had it in childhod but came through relatively unscathed, but it really paying for it now). My grandmother just about died form diptheria as a child, and knowing a course of antibiotics wont cure it, that all that can be done is treat the symptoms as they are caused by a toxin excreted by the bacteria quite frankly scares me. Knowing I can prevent them in my own children and maybe help prevent them in others is enough for me.

Trillian, why do I vaccinate?
I did an assignment about vaccination for micro-biology many years ago. All the anti-vaccination material I found was really poorly referenced and researched and had what I call circular referencing (A references B's work, B references C's work, C references A & B's work, D references A & C's work - there is little new information just a bunch of people referencing each other). Finding any peer reviewed research with a large cohort was pretty much impossible. Basically just bad science and poor research.
When I traveled in Vietnam I met people who had had polio - no way in hell do I want that for my children.
When I was a child one of our sheep had tetanus. It's something that you don't forget in a hurry and I would rather the risks of the vaccination to seeing my children going through something like that.

I'm not convinced that there is any need for MMR vaccination and I wouldn't bother with flu vaccinations but I suspect that in many cases if people realised just how awful some of the diseases we vaccinate are that they wouldn't hesitate to vaccinate - we're lucky we live in a country where polio survivors are pretty much invisible (there are still people in their 50's and 60's who have lived almost their entire lives in iron lungs) and diptheria is rare. I hope that any grandchildren I have are grow up in such a disease free society.

I think it's kind of hard to discuss why I vaccinate without scaremongering because frankly the diseases I want my to have increased immunity against are very scary.

Personally I don't care if people chose to vaccinate their own children or not - last time I checked informed consent was still an important concept in medicine.

Considering my dd and DH have had whooping cough this year and gave it to my (at the time) newborn nephew who was hospitalised, TODAY DD and DS have just been diagnosed with German Measles (and we have spent time with a pregnant friend during this week :doh:), YES i think vaccinations should be compulosry!

All my children are immunised too. We live in an area with a very high non immunised population, which I suppose is why these illnesses are more prevelent (sp?) here.

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I hate the saying 'How would you feel if your unvaccinated kid passed xxx on'. What about if your vaccinated kid passed it on? Does that suddenly make it okay?

I think the only correct way to say it is 'How would you feel if your kid passed xxx on.'

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I wouldn't say that it 'makes it ok', but I do think it changes things if the child has been vaccinated. In that case the parent of that child has done everything within their power to prevent the child from getting the illness and unknowingly passing it onto a more vulnerable member of the community when they are in the incubation phase and contagious.

For me, if my child was to get sick as a result of being exposed to an unvaccinated child who was unknowingly carrying one of these illnesses, I couldn't help but feel a bit bitter towards the parent who made the decision not to vaccinate. If the child had been vaccinated, then I think I would feel that the parent had done everything in their power to prevent it iykwim?

I once saw a Law and Order episode (great source I know, but did make some valid points) where a mother was charged with negligent manslaughter for not having her child vaccinated. In this case the child passed measles onto a baby at the park who then died as a result of the illness... I'm not saying that this is right, but then we do send people to jail for cultiple driving when they kill someone... Yes if it is because of speeding or drink driving it doesn't really compare, but when it's because they were distracted by something or tired, perhaps it does...

BTW I want to make the point that I think there are circumstances where it is inappropriate to vaccinate a child because of health issues etc. But where the child is healthy I can't help but feel this way.

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I just get tired of the only rebuttals that those who vaccinate can throw at us is 'herd immunity', 'for the greater good of society', 'I don't want your child making my child sick', or 'don't you know your child can die' and those are based less in fact than anything those of us can throw back at you, so it's hardly a fair call to say what you did. So that is why I would love to hear why anyone does vaccinate. What are their reasons for it beyond scaremongering as well?

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My response is not trying to offend anyone in any way but I feel the need to point out that scaremongering happens on both sides of the fence. I admit there are a lot of scare tactics used for pro-vax, but I also feel they are used for those who choose not to vax or delay vax and there are many catch-cry phrases repeated over and over again - 'I don't want to inject toxins in my baby', 'the research is unreliable and biased', 'there is mercury in the injections', 'Vaccines are not foolproof', 'The people that are getting sick at the ones that have been vaccinated.' While I think these are all valid points, they are used over and over again to either validate the position of challenging mainstream vaccination and also listed off as scary things about vaccinated. I really don't think either side is immune from this. Scaremongering is part of why we all make our decisions - we worry about the alternative and choose the path we choose.

Why did I choose to vax?

1. My DH has done a Bachelor of Applied Science majoring in micro biology and has read extensively peer reviewed literature on the issue of vaccination. He feels that vaccines are safe and reliable and there is very little evidence that is credible in the mainstream to refute this and in fact, there is plenty of evidence in favour. Also many of the arguments against vaxing can be refuted by this research. I am not trying to offend anyone and challenge anyone in saying this but you asked why I choose to vax and this was a big consideration for us. We did look into - well, DH looked into it a lot more than I did and has a much more comprehensive understanding but it was something that he felt very strongly about and as they are our children and I value his opinion a great deal, I took it on board.

2. Our children are healthy with no history of adverse reaction to vaccinations in either side of our family. We did look into this a lot too to try and determine what our risk factors would be. While this is not foolproof, we felt the risk for us was relatively okay and the risk of illness was probably greater than an adverse reaction to the vaccine. I speak in probabilities because I don't believe that anything, on either side of this argument is 100% certain. I think we all weigh up the risks for ourselves and decide which is the least amount of risk to us and probably to do with what we find important. Neither side is wrong, I guess it is just how value systems are established, ITMS.

3. Vaccinations do have a history of greatly decreasing, if not eliminating, illness and therefore are effective. Diseases like polio and smallpox did not come under control by themselves. Vaccinations played a huge role in this so I do believe that vaccinations work and continue to work in the prevention of disease. I don't believe that vaccinations are foolproof and I do think research needs to be maintained and up to date to make sure that vaccinations are happening so that they are treating illnesses in their current form and strains rather than treating a strain that is no longer existent while new strains develop.


In saying all of that, I don't believe that vax should be made compulsory. I think the system is reasonable at the moment for giving people an incentive to vax or to do the necessary research to sign a consciencious objectors form. I don't think the system needs changing and despite my reasons listed above, I reserve the right to change my mind should research come to light that proves otherwise, changes in family circumstances that show adverse reactions to immunisations or simply because my priorities change and I feel differently about the issue. As a parent, many of my ideals have changed as I have gone along and I am not stuck like glue to this ideal either. It is a choice I feel very comfortable with at the moment and feel satisfied with my reasons, but things do change over time and I parent very differently to how I thought I would 4 years ago. I want the option to choose for myself whether or not I vax my kids.


ETA: I just got my tests back for my Rubella immunity for this pregnancy and I am not immune. I have always come back positive and it was quite a shock to find that I don't have immunity this time. I am quite relieved that I have at least had my kids vaccinated against it but it does mean for the next few months, I am going to have to be very careful about who I come into contact with. Honestly, no-one told me that you could lose immunity for it, though I did wonder why they tested me for it every pregnancy - but then they test my blood group every pregnancy as well and that is hardly likely to change. I don't think that it is the responsibility of other parents though to have vaccinated their kids to 'protect' me from rubella. I think it was my health care providers responsibility to inform me that I was not going to be immune from it forever and that I should have been tested for it again before falling pregnant. They tested before my first pregnancy, but have not tested me for it again preceding a pregnancy. It was also my own responsibility to make sure that my own immunisations were up to date. Now it is my own responsibility to do as much as I can to avoid coming into contact with it while I am pregnant and pray like heck that I don't ;) Just thought I would put that out there ...

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I wouldn't say that it 'makes it ok', but I do think it changes things if the child has been vaccinated. In that case the parent of that child has done everything within their power to prevent the child from getting the illness and unknowingly passing it onto a more vulnerable member of the community when they are in the incubation phase and contagious.

For me, if my child was to get sick as a result of being exposed to an unvaccinated child who was unknowingly carrying one of these illnesses, I couldn't help but feel a bit bitter towards the parent who made the decision not to vaccinate. If the child had been vaccinated, then I think I would feel that the parent had done everything in their power to prevent it iykwim?

I once saw a Law and Order episode (great source I know, but did make some valid points) where a mother was charged with negligent manslaughter for not having her child vaccinated. In this case the child passed measles onto a baby at the park who then died as a result of the illness... I'm not saying that this is right, but then we do send people to jail for cultiple driving when they kill someone... Yes if it is because of speeding or drink driving it doesn't really compare, but when it's because they were distracted by something or tired, perhaps it does...

BTW I want to make the point that I think there are circumstances where it is inappropriate to vaccinate a child because of health issues etc. But where the child is healthy I can't help but feel this way.

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I guess the point I was trying to make is, I don't think its fair to treat unvaccinated kids like dirty disease carriers. There are many other natural ways to boost immune systems and I've seen a lot of immunised kids sick with the diseases that they were immunised against.
Again, I choose to vaccinate, albeit on a delayed schedule.

I think the real issue with success rates is not unvaccinated kids, more so with adults. Adults who go to work sick. Go to the shop sick. Or the adults who send their sick kids to school.
Vaccinations aside, how prevalent would diseases be if we all followed those basic rules?

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Besides all that, we would have to be vaccinating and quarrantining people straight off the plane as well because they could be carriers.

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You know, I actually don't think quarantining people who are coming into the country is that bad of an idea. I don't know why we stopped doing it in the first place. Australia is a lucky country with regards to the spread of disease purely because of its isolation, the fact that diseases and such CAN be stopped 'at the border', so to speak, as we are an island.
I found it staggering that amongst the height of hysteria during the swine flu 'pandemic', the government left the floodgates wide open to citizens and visitors who were arriving from countries that were known to have plenty of cases of a supposedly life-threatening illness. I personally didn't buy into the panic, I will not have the swine flu vax, nor will I submit my children to it as it appears to be a relatively mild illness in healthy people, but at the time the health authorities and media squealed like a bunch of swine about how it was going to kill a few billion people and we should all lock ourselves indoors and try not to breathe in case an infected person two suburbs over sneezed that morning.
So, why did they leave our uninfected country open to a virus that the authorities were very frightened of? We had the opportunity to close the borders and keep ourselves safe.

Just Me, Muminalice, Onyx and Meow, thanks for posting. I get the impression that you think I was looking for a fight by asking though ;) I am genuinely interested to know why. And I do understand that the negativity comes from both sides as well.

I didn't think you were looking for a fight at all ... and I was trying very hard not to start one (with anyone is this thread). This is a hard topic to express how we all feel while trying not to offend other people because everybody feels strongly about their position and has reason to. I thought your question was a valid one ... thanks for asking :)

I really do appreciate the detail and the effort you took to answer me JM.

Glamourcide, I guess it comes down to logistics as to why they can't shut borders during times of epidemic, but then it only takes one infected person to come that creates the epidemic in the first place. As a country Australia held out pretty good before the first case got here and kicked things off, but then with the incubation periods that some illnesses have it would make it impossible to detect a lot of things in time.

Huh? Really? Even re-reading my post I'm not sure how you thought I thought you were looking for a fight Trillian? I've tried to express my neutrality to the issue of vaxing, even though we choose to vax ourselves.

I choose to vax because I believe the science supports it (as Just Me said- I found the anti-vax science to be fairly unsupported). We delay and partially vax though as I don't believe in the schedule. That all said- it was a very carefully considered decision and I would have been comfortable with a decision to not vax if that seemed the best. I completely respect others choice not to vax and I'm sure you've felt swayed by the information in a different way to me. I KNOW how hard that information is to wade through so I think it's EXTREMELY plausible to come to the opposite conclusion I did.

I just wanted to say too that I don't at all feel other children should be vaxxed to protect my child. I attend a natural parenting playgroup and some children there are not vaxxed. I'm not at all bothered and I'm quite happy for my son to be there.