Three moral reasons why parents must vaccinate their children against measles and other diseases

The United States pbaded a terrible and totally preventable milestone this week: Measles cases reached their highest level in 25 years.

This alarming statistic is not due to changes in public health policy or medical practice, but to the rise of the anti-vax movement. Researchers studying the beliefs of parents who refuse to vaccinate their children found that their motives were both religious and political.

Bioethicist who studies the impact of cultural and social values ​​on medical care, I believe that the position of anti-vaxxers is morally indefensible.

Here are three reasons why.

1. Failure to contribute to the public good

Public goods benefit everyone. Take the example of roads, drinking water and universal education. Public health – the health of the whole population resulting from policies and practices at the societal level – also falls into this category.

Many ethicists argue that it is unfair to take advantage of such products without contributing on their own.

Years of research involving hundreds of thousands of people have proven that vaccines are safe and effective. One of the reasons for their effectiveness – to the point of completely eradicating certain diseases – is due to what scientists call "collective immunity".

This means that once a certain percentage of the population is immunized against a disease through public health programs, it provides general protection to all. Even if a few people get sick, the disease does not spread.

Herd immunity works so that those who are not vaccinated automatically benefit from protection at the group level. I maintain that this is unfair. Because if everyone acted in this way, the immunity of the herd would disappear.

Indeed, this is exactly what happened in California, where measles came back because many parents chose not to vaccinate their children.

Not only did these parents fail to contribute to the public good, but they also actively undermined it, harming others and costing the economy millions of dollars.

2. Impact of health choices on vulnerable people

Viruses do not affect everyone equally. Often it is the elderly, infants, and people with weakened immune systems who are most at risk.

In my family, my brother, Jason, often had to be transported to the hospital because he would easily catch a virus. So when we had visitors, my family asked us if they could let us know if they were sick.

Often, the answers were not truthful. Some would say, "I just have allergies," and others would be downright offended. My brother ended up catching germs and more than once, he almost lost his life because of their lack of interest in his health.

Ethics like Robert Goodin have long argued for special obligations to the most vulnerable. We must be aware of the impact of individual health choices on others, especially the most at risk.

3: Health is common

Political philosophers such as John Dewey have argued that democratic public institutions necessarily rely on belief in scientific evidence and facts. People may have different personal beliefs, but some truths are irrefutable, such as the fact that the Earth is round and revolves around the sun.

Anti-scientific attitudes are dangerous because they compromise our ability to make decisions together as a society, whether in education, infrastructure, or health. For example, if too many people treat the scientific consensus on climate change as a "single perspective", it will hinder our ability to respond to the enormous changes already underway. In the same way, treating the science of vaccines as a "perspective" has a negative impact on everyone.

In the face of overwhelming scientific evidence about the effectiveness, safety and importance of vaccines, citizens need to support immunization and encourage others to do the same.

At the base of each of these duties is a simple and powerful truth: health is collective. The ethical obligations related to health do not stop at home. Thinking that they do it is both empirically wrong and ethically indefensible.

For the local government and the federal government to respond effectively to this public health crisis, it is important to address not only the reasons and beliefs of anti-vaxxers, but also morality.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.