A Call to End Vaccine Exemptions

"Some would argue that philosophical exemptions are a necessary pop-off valve for a society that requires children to be injected with biological agents for the common good. But as anti- vaccine activists continue to push for easy philosophical exemptions, more and more children will suffer and occasionally die from vaccine-preventable diseases. When it comes to issues of public health and safety, we invariably have laws. Many of these laws are strictly enforced and immutable. We don't allow philosophical exemptions to restraining young children in car seats, to smoking in restaurants or to stopping at stop signs. And the notion of requiring vaccines for school entry, while it seems to tear at the very heart of a country founded on the basis of individual rights and freedoms, saves lives. Given the increasing number of states allowing philosophical exemptions to vaccines, at some point we will be forced to decide whether it is our inalienable right to catch and transmit potentially fatal infections." - Paul Offit, The Wall Street Journal, January 20, 2007, Fatal Exemption

Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:

Drug company consultant, rotavirus vaccine patent holder and vaccine policymaker Paul Offit is calling for an end to exemptions to vaccination unless approved by a medical doctor or government health official. He argues that the unvaccinated place themselves and others at risk for catching and transmitting infectious diseases and, therefore, government should force citizens to purchase and use vaccines without exception. Although Offit admits this authoritarian approach to disease control “tears at the very heart of a country founded on the basis of individual rights and freedoms,” he takes out the sword and urges the slicing begin.

An argument can be made on scientific grounds that the voluntarily vaccinated should have nothing to fear from the voluntarily unvaccinated if vaccines protect individuals from contracting infectious diseases. However, a more compelling argument can be made for the human right to informed consent to medical procedures, such as vaccination, which carry a risk of injury or death. This is particularly relevant when mass vaccination policies do not identify individuals, who are biologically vulnerable to vaccine-induced serious health problems, as has been demonstrated by the more than $1 billion already awarded to vaccine victims under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.

Offit’s flawed analogy comparing no-exception vaccine laws with no-exception laws requiring citizens to buckle a baby in a car seat, to refrain from lighting up in a restaurant and to put on the brakes at stop signs, fails to appreciate that obeying those laws do not require individuals to risk their health or their lives. Even the military draft in times of war allows exemptions for religious and conscientious belief reasons.

Offit and other pro-forced vaccination proponents have various motivations for their totalitarian stance. However, what appears to unite them is a disdain for the intelligence of the average American and an uncontrollable desire to tell other people what to do.

Elitism is alive and well in America and it haunts the corridors of major academic and medical institutions, where those who practice it receive lots of tangible encouragement and support from industry and government. The average American struggling to be free to make informed, independent choices about health care, including vaccination, is being manipulated by elitists seeking to limit both the information and choices available.

The first step to breaking the chains that bind us to elitists in control of health policy is to understand what they believe and want. Paul Offit is making that clear.