Rose-Marie Chaperon

Mandatory Vaccination



Posted: Thursday, September 29, 2011

by Rose-Marie Chaperon
Chaperon Consulting, LLC

The subject of interest to me this week is “the mandatory vaccination for children and health care workers”. I do not think that mandatory vaccination is unethical, and I believe it should be required that all children, healthcare workers be vaccinated; because the refusal of significant numbers of parents to vaccinate their children has created a sizable group of people needing very much to be studied, and has raised a number of important public health issues. Foremost among them is the fear that a large reservoir of unvaccinated persons could contribute to epidemic outbreaks that might involve vaccinated individuals as well. Vaccines are one of the most important tools we have to protect the health of our nation’s most vulnerable citizens, its children. As a result of the extensive immunization practices in the United States over the past few decades, children are unlikely to develop deafness or die from Homophiles Meningitis, be confined to a wheelchair for a lifetime as a result of polio infection, or suffer the consequences of measles infection. I would apply the concept of Act-consequentialism which holds that an action is right if it produces a better consequence than alternative actions available to the agent, in this instance; vaccination produces a better consequence to vaccinated children than to those who are not vaccinated.

Many people from smaller religious sectors, most notably Christian Scientists and the Amish, oppose vaccination on religious grounds, other individuals oppose vaccination for other reasons, ranging from non-religious philosophical or moral beliefs, such as a belief that vaccines interfere with “nature’s genetic blueprint. Ethically speaking, what the parents of these religious groups argue is that they have a religious right not to allow their children to be vaccinated. They should be allowed full autonomy to make their own decisions about what medications and vaccinations their children will receive or not receive, because there is that risk from vaccines. What these parents fail to realized is that, their decisions are not in the best interest of their children; in my opinion the benefits outweigh the risk.

On the subject of healthcare workers, I agree that vaccination should be made mandatory for all healthcare workers. I would apply the theory of non-malfeasance which is first “Do No Harm” and cause no needless harm or injury according to reasonable standards of performance while observing due care. In my opinion if a nurse has the flu and passes the flu to a patient, he/she would be in violation of this code.

One might object to my justification for children vaccination, they might say that there are a number of fundamental problems with vaccines, they might say the medical establishment considers vaccines to be effective if they suppress a few targeted illnesses and at whose risk? Other reasons may be that an emerging body of evidence indicates that vaccines can damage a child’s developing immune system and brain, leading to debilitating and life-threatening disorders like autism, ADHD, asthma, peanut allergies, juvenile diabetes, or to SIDS, or death itself. This group might use the principle of autonomy by stating it is the apparent a violation of the parents’ rights and that autonomy is a major ethical argument against mandatory vaccination. Autonomy essentially means that a person has the right to make his or her own decisions and choices in regards to his or her own body once fully informed of the situation. Parents act as legal guardian for their children, therefore all rights to make such decisions rely with them.

On the subject of healthcare workers and vaccination, another group might object that health care workers should also have the autonomy to make decisions as to whether they should be forced to be vaccinated against their rights. One of their arguments may be that compelling someone to receive vaccination not only violates their constitutional rights but places a tremendous amount of pressure and duress on that individual. No one should be forced to take anything including medications in their body if they do not want to.

With taking all the above objections into consideration, I can understand all the groups point of view, however; my belief remains the same because it is important to remember that parents and healthcare workers have an ethical and moral obligation to protect children and patients while making sure they are not afflicted with a deadly or devastating disease which could be prevented with vaccination. The benefits outweigh the minimal risk associated with vaccination, therefore it still remains my opinion that children and healthcare workers should be vaccinated no matter how one feels about it.
Rose-Marie Chaperon also works as a Director of Revenue Cycle for healthcare operations. Rose-Marie's experience is process improvement and redesigning patient access and patient financial services areas. Rose Marie is an exceptional A/R guru and has held many Business Office and Patient Financial Services positions throughout her twenty-year tenure in revenue cycle. She is a very proactive leader and the kind of person who can direct a group of people towards their goals. Rose Marie has experience with a variety of software systems and led three hospitals through a system conversion during her assignments there. Rose-Marie is a Certified Healthcare Access Manager (CHAM). Rose-Marie can be reached via e-mail: rosechaperon@hotmail.com or rchaperon@shenahaiti.org

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