By Wendy Parmet Australia’s recently announced “no jab, no pay” policy offers a potent reminder of the all-too-common tendency to penalize vulnerable populations for public health problems. Like many other countries, Australia has experienced a worrisome increase in the number of families deciding not to vaccinate their children. In response, the government of Prime Minister Tony…
By Allison M. Whelan, J.D.Senior Fellow, Center for Biotechnology & Global Health Policy, University of California, Irvine School of LawGuest Blogger In a previous post, I discussed three possible methods of increasing vaccination and decreasing vaccine refusals in the United States. One of these options was using tort law and allowing lawsuits against parents for…
By Arthur Caplan A new piece by contributor Art Caplan in Forbes: There are lots of reasons why measles, having gone to Disneyland, is enjoying a comeback around the United States and Canada. Unfounded fears of autism scare some parents. Others buy the daffy conspiracy theory that pharmaceutical companies are just pushing vaccination to make…
An article in the Harvard Gazette about our panel “Measles, Vaccines, and Protecting Public Health,” convened on February 25, 2015: The numbers paint a telling picture. In the United States of the 1950s there were between 3 million and 4 million annual cases of measles, a highly infectious virus that causes severe flu-like symptoms and a…
An article in the Harvard Crimson about our panel “Measles, Vaccines, and Protecting Public Health,” convened on February 25, 2015: There is a delicate balance between preserving individual rights and protecting public health when it comes to vaccines, experts argued at a panel discussion at Harvard Law School on Wednesday. In the wake of the…
Measles, Vaccines, and Protecting Public Health Wednesday, February 25, 2015, 4:00 PM Wasserstein Hall, Room 1010 Harvard Law School 1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA The recent measles outbreak centered around Disneyland in California has reignited the contentious debate over childhood vaccination in the United States. Join us for a discussion of the ethical, legal, and public…
By Arthur Caplan A new opinion piece by Art Caplan, via the Washington Post: Amateurs and hucksters are not the only people telling parents not to vaccinate their children. Unfortunately some doctors — men and women sworn to the Hippocratic Oath — are purveying junk science. They say that vaccines cause autism, as in the…
By Allison M. Whelan For many years now, there has been ongoing debate about childhood vaccinations and the recent measles outbreak in Disneyland and its subsequent spread to other states has brought vaccinations and questions about communicable diseases back to the headlines. Politicians, including potential presidential candidates such as Hilary Clinton, Rand Paul, and Chris…
By Susannah Rose and Jalayne Arias Should pediatricians be able to refuse to treat children who are not vaccinated for measles? This issue was raised by Carey Goldberg [here], in which she describes the basic considerations needed to answer this question. Briefly, she reports that several national studies indicate that some pediatricians do discontinue caring…
By Ross D. Silverman In the midst of the national discussion of measles and the state laws that foster or inhibit its spread, a curious fact has emerged, as noted recently by my JAMA co-author Tony Yang: Mississippi, dead last in the nation’s overall health rankings in 2012, 2013, and 2014, leads the nation in…
