Who Will Decide Who Must Be Vaccinated?

Ryan McMaken
Feb. 09, 2015

Last week’s USA Today article demanding that people who don’t use vaccines should all be jailed, pretty much tells you the end game for the compulsory-vaccine crowd. A central tenet of the article’s claims is that there are some people (i.e. cancer patients) for whom the risks associated with receiving vaccines is very high, and thus, the government should mandate that everyone who can be vaccinated must be vaccinated by way of government edict.

What we must ask ourselves then is this: who decides who is a high-risk patient, and who is not? The pro-compulsion crowd itself freely admits that at least for some people, the risk of vaccines is too high. In the media narrative this time around, it’s children who are cancer patients and have compromised immune systems. OK. Fair enough. But in real life, not everything is just cut and dry. So you might say “but perfectly healthy people should be required to get vaccines.” Ok. Well, who is “perfectly healthy”? Who should decide that? Will a government bureaucracy decide who is “perfectly healthy” and who is not? If you say “yes,” then my next question would be: “Based on what criteria? Who will make the examination? Who will appoint the decision-makers?” You may then say “yes, government-licensed doctors will make the examination, and be overseen by a government-appointed board.” And what about doctors who take a different view of what constitutes “perfectly healthy” than the people in charge of the government bureaucracy? Shall they have their licenses revoked? “Yes” you will then say. “We must maintain certain medical standards.” OK, then who dictates those standards?

So now we’ve gone from what some people seem to think is a very simple mandate of “healthy people shall all be vaccinated” to the far more complex reality of the fact that the next thing we know, we need a government bureaucracy to monitor every child and determine if he’s “perfectly healthy.” Then, we need a bureaucracy to monitor every doctor to make sure his or her views of what is “perfectly healthy” are sufficiently orthodox so as not to endanger one’s freedom to continue acting as a doctor. And we’re still left wondering: whose research shall form the basis of what’s “perfectly healthy” and what risks various vaccines pose? The government agency in charge of this will necessarily have to favor some studies and disregard others.Also, how can we be sure that all members of this government agency are immune from undue influence from pharmaceutical companies and other parties with a conflict of interest?

Obviously, those who support mandatory vaccinations haven’t thought this through. Or, they are just so used to simply deferring to government “experts” on everything that it doesn’t even occur to them that something of this sort might be susceptible to corruption and outside influence, let alone simple incompetence.

As Matt Walsh recently noted, its the anti-compulsion people who should be supported by people who have children with compromised immune systems. They are the ones, after all, who will, in the world they crave so badly, be subject to the whims of the government bureau who decides who is and who is not sufficiently healthy to be vaccinated, and who should be ostracized:

Even pro-vaccine-compulsion people (as opposed to just pro-vaccine people, like myself) admit that there are at least some circumstances where not getting vaccinated would be the right course of action. Specifically, for a child who has cancer or is immunodeficient. This further separates non-vaccination from other "risky" behaviors, in that those other behaviors are intrinsically wrong and never OK, whereas even the most ardent folks in the pro-vaccine-compulsion camp (PVC) allow for exceptions. Quite magnanimous of them, isn't it?

These exceptions bring up some questions.

First of all: if vaccines are forced or unvaccinated kids are treated like lepers, segregated in colonies and prohibited from schools and public facilities, would that apply to a child who has leukemia or who's in some other vaccine-disqualifying situation? Taking vaccines out of it, children with compromised immune systems get sick more frequently, and because they get sick more frequently, they are a "risk" to those around them. What should the government do about them?

And who decides what counts as an exception?

It seems odd that so many critics took umbrage to my anti-vaccine-compulsion position, telling me that their child can't get vaccinated and relies on "herd immunity" to avoid getting sick, but don't see that they should be on my side precisely because their child can't get vaccinated. Do they really want the State, or the schools, or the angry pitchfork mob to decide whether their son or daughter should be granted a pass from the vaccine schedule? I'm advocating for their rights to do what's right for their child. And I'm exhibiting the humility (a rare occurrence, so enjoy it while it lasts) to acknowledge that I am not in a position to decide who should have that right and who shouldn't.

With every mandate comes a bureaucracy to enforce that mandate. With every bureaucracy comes politics, and money, and lobbying, and rules, and compulsions, and eventually, fines, prison time, sanctions, and more. Some people apparently believe that this is preferable to simply letting parents decide on the matter. They assume that a politician-appointed bureaucrat will make better decisions than the doctors and parents who know each specific case. Having witnessed many government panels, boards, regulatory commissions, and similar bodies at work in my career, I must disagree.