Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Is have the right to decide always the best choice?

Autonomy is freedom from external constraint and the presence of critical mental capacities such as understanding, intending, and voluntary decision-making capacity.

The negative side to individual autonomy with immunizations:

  1. Physicians have the training and greater knowledge of the fundamentals of vaccinations and relevant diseases to justify health benefits and risk of an individuals case to be immunized, as opposed to the knowledge held by the general public.
  2. Someone who chooses to be exempt is 35 times more likely to develop a disease that could be prevented through vaccination.
  3. Overall protection to the public and individuals is decreased, if there is no outside intervention to implement vaccinations.
  4. Herd immunity is decreased if many people decide not to get vaccinations.
  5. Transmission is increased. If less people are protected, there is greater risk of spreading the disease.
  6. Total eradication of the disease is less likely to occur and more resistant strains will develop.
  7. An individual’s choice to refuse preventative measures through vaccinations is choosing to risk the chances of dealing with treatment of diseases.
  8. May decide not to get immunized because they believe it is not natural, but a vaccination can help with naturally strengthening the immune system.

Smallpox Eradicated Through Actions of Compulsory Vaccinations

A dramatic example of the benefit to not having individual autonomy is the smallpox epidemic. The World Health Organization required mass vaccinations. All cases discovered enforced vaccinations to those in the household of those infected and vaccinations of those in contact with the household members. In West Africa, it was reported that about 90% of the population received the smallpox vaccine. On May 8th, 1980, the actions of compulsory vaccinations led to the eradication of naturally occurring smallpox, which previously was the cause of over 2 million deaths.

No comments:

Post a Comment