system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Vaccinations should be compulsory for all persons living in my society (USA, but applicable to all western countries). religious reasons should not be acceptable reasons to get out of it. CMV

Vaccinations prevent diseases, period. They protect not only the person receiving them, but also those who are unable to receive them. This is what is referred to as the "Herd Immunity." If you are not vaccinated, but you never come into contact with someone else who is not vaccinated, then you are given a sort of protection by eliminating your own exposure. **Those who have a religious or ideological opposition to vaccination are therefore partially protected, despite their own opposition to the practice,** and should not be permitted this protection by being present in a society that has taken the effort to vaccinate them.

The only excuse I am ready to accept without argument is a medical excuse for vaccination: If a vaccination will cause injury to an individual due to allergies or immune deficiency, then they should be exempt.

Change my View.



**∆ and Clarifications**: The specific vaccines I feel should be "compulsory" are those that are approved by a panel of experts on the subjects (from Immunology, epidemiology, virology, microbiology, etc), but I expect these would include childhood vaccines TDaP, MMR, Hep B, MCV4, IPV, Varicella, and before long the HPV vaccine. Criteria should include: Severity of associated disease, and record of safety during optional vaccination period.

All vaccines should be provided at no cost through some governmental or insurance program.

Any medically sound excuse, including but not limited to allergies, immunodeficiency, guillan barre syndrome, etc should be valid to excuse an individual from receiving a vaccine, as it would be unsafe for them to receive it. This does not excuse religious exemptions.

Many of you have made the argument that you cannot force a person to get an injection/put something in their body, and I do find that argument compelling. I would be open to a more stringent application of existing rules:

1. All children must be vaccinated in order to attend any school or daycare.
2. Parents who wish to homeschool their children must complete an education course on vaccination and pass an exam on how vaccines work, or have their children vaccinated.
3. Adults must provide prospective employers with a letter from a doctor indicating that they are vaccine compliant (ie, have been vaccinated or have a medically recognized reason for not being vaccinated), or the employer may choose not to hire them due to their failure to get vaccinated.
4. No federal agency will accept an application without a doctor's letter indicating vaccine compliance.
5. Doctor's letter of Vaccine Compliance is also required for a driver's license, but not for a passport. It is required for re-entry to the country.

Edit: Thanks everyone! I will write more replies later, but I have a proposal due on my influenza vaccine research tomorrow, and I need to get my ass back to work.
gpt
I'll play devil's advocate here.

You cannot violate a person's sovereignty over their own body to save other people. This is why you cannot force someone to donate a kidney to save someone else who is dying. Vaccinations are medical procedures and must be carried out with the consent of the patient.

For children, this consent comes from their parents. In extreme cases for immediate life-saving procedures, sometimes their lack of consent is overridden, but a lack of vaccination is not in and of itself life-threatening - it is the possibility of resulting disease that is. If you criminalize lack of vaccination, you are opening the door to criminalizing other unhealthy lifestyles that could be detrimental to society. Nobody refuses vaccination with the intent to cause society harm.