I originally wrote this as a response to an anti-vax person coming from the libertarian point of view on the anti-vax movement. The person said they neither wanted to be forced to get vaccines nor be held responsible if someone else got the disease from them. The person gish-galloped into shingles vaccines being expensive and not very effective, and vaccines being contaminated with "mammal viruses that cause cancer" (SV-40? That has been shown.) and live, infectious viruses, and not being able to sue for vaccine injuries. That was called "The Cutter Incident", occurred 60 years ago in 1955, and it is brought up like it's current and recurring.
I thought this would be worthy of a diary after removing all personally identifiable information. It's a typical set of arguments.
No vaccine is 100% effective at preventing the disease. They lower the risk - a little bit in some cases, a lot in others. Reducing the incidence of the actual disease in the population lowers the odds of contracting the disease for everyone... the vaccinated, those who cannot be vaccinated, and the wilfully unvaccinated. In the case of small pox, it lowered the risk of getting the disease such that each new case of small pox spread it to less than one person, so the disease became eradicated.
This number of new infections which each case can be expected to infect - e.g., the contagion rate - or the R0 number in epidemiology indicates a spreading epidemic if it is greater than 1. If it is less than 1, the disease is winding down, dying out, going away. If enough people in the population are immune to the disease - vaccination or immunity from prior exposure to get this number down below 1, the disease will eventually go the way of small pox and become extinct.
Refusal to be vaccinated against (very) contagious diseases for which there are effective vaccines is an irresponsible public health concern. Just as there are second-amendment rights to own a firearm does not make it legal to brandish such a weapon in a crowded place, nor fire such a weapon in all directions (expecting others to dodge the bullets or protect themselves by wearing bullet proof vests) one does not have the right to spread a contagious disease to the public. You have a right to drive a car, provided that you pass a driver's license test, register the car, have it inspected as required by local or state law, and have it insured. However, driving that car into a crowd of people is considered at the very least reckless endangerment. Going into public, or sending your child into the public or a school who has, or even may have one of these very contagious, and, yes, deadly diseases, is nothing less than reckless endangerment. Note that someone with measles can be contagious 3 days before they show symptoms. This is one reason that each person with a case of the measles infects, on average, 31 other people with measles (R0=31). The official R0 number, with normal measles outbreaks is 16, according to the CDC. Over 140 thousand people have died - mostly under 5 - 16 per hour - of the measles alone in 2013 - and we've had vaccines that entire time. (source: World Health Organization) In comparison, 2.6 million people died in 1980, before there was widespread vaccination.
The advancement of science is a wonderful thing. In the past, it was not possible to determine where you got a particular viral or bacterial infection. With the advent of DNA sequencing, the source and epidemiology of a particular strain can be determined. In recent years, people have been convicted of attempted murder because of having unprotected sex with someone who had not been told of their partner's infection with HIV, and it can be shown that the HIV the person later had was of the same genetic material as the (accused) partner's. The same thing could be done with polio, measles, mumps, common colds, as this technology progresses and becomes faster, cheaper, and easier. Someone using the measles as a weapon, or brandishing an exposed, unvaccinated child at a chicken pox party, school, or shopping mall could be found guilty of bioterrorism. Mailing chicken pox-laden lollipops has been found to be illegal. Source: Huffington Post
Martin said it is a federal crime to send diseases or viruses across state lines, whether through the postal service or private services like FedEx. Sending the lollipops is illegal under the same law that makes it a crime to mail contagions like anthrax. conviction could lead to a sentence from less than a year to 20 years in prison, he said.
Source: CBS news
The government prohibits and requires all sorts of things which you are required to, may, may not, or are required not to put into your body. Cities fluoridate their water. Milk is required to be pasteurized in order to be commercially sold, for the purpose of keeping bovine tuberculosis out of the public. Many over the counter medications may be used, but they must be proven safe and effective. There are emissions standards and pollution standards which companies and individuals must abide by, in order to keep certain chemicals away from the general public. Certain drugs or chemicals are considered "illegal drugs", which you may not consume, buy, or sell under penalty of law. All of those laws are subject to change because of new information or because of societal changes.
The contaminated polio vaccines to which you refer, I believe, is either to the Cutter Incident in 1955 (which accidentally had live polio virus in some vaccines, leading to 56 incidents of paralytic polio and 5 deaths, and gave life to the anti-vax movement 60 years later) or the SV-40 strain of a simian virus found in many/most polio vaccines between 1955-1963. 60% of the US adult population now has antibodies to SV-40, but most people with SV-40 do not have cancer. SV-40 antibodies can be passed to one's children, like most other antibodies, which is why anyone under 52 has such immunity. This could be avoided by growing vaccines in human stem cells, bypassing issues with monkey kidneys or eggs entirely, but it's illegal in the US.
We now have the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Contaminated or improperly manufactured vaccines are still compensated for injuries, and medical providers who administer recalled or expired lots of vaccines are liable. To make a claim via NVICP, one has to show actual injury, or a mechanism by which such an injury could occur. The vaccines cause autism meme has been thoroughly debunked, thus does not qualify for compensation. This is a conspiracy in the mind of those who believe in a fraudulent, retracted study done and disproven decades ago, and someone who believes a former Playboy model claiming that her child - who has since been shown to not have, and never had autism - got autism from a vaccination over a large number of scientists and peer-reviewed research showing no such link.
We used to have TB sanitariums and leper colonies, for those infected with these diseases which at the time had no effective vaccine or treatment. Those people did not agree to being institutionalized, and they were not accused of any crime. The US Navy - now via the CDC, has a Constitutional duty to impose quarantines. It is part of "provide for the general welfare". They also put Typhoid Mary in isolation on an island, because she would not refrain from working as a cook, spreading her typhoid to those who ate the food she cooked. The FEMA camps, for which there actually is congressional approval, and some evidence that at least some have been built, could well be used to quarrantine those who have some future contagious, deadly disease, or refuse vaccination or other prevention of some known contagious disease, much as Typhoid Mary was so quarantined.
We lock up people who pose clear and present dangers to the public at large - whether it's those who have committed crimes or those who, due to a mental disorder, pose a danger to themselves or others.
I looked up the Shingles vaccine. It costs in the range of $200-$275. It is 51% effective in preventing shingles (CDC).
It's a matter of risk. The odds of getting shingles if you've had chicken pox, especially for someone who has had it more than once, is relatively high. It's not especially life-threatening, but it's painful and adversely effects the quality of life. It is contagious, and one can catch chicken pox from someone with shingles, so a responsible person with active shingles which is shown to be contagious would quarrantine him or herself. If it lowers that risk by 51%, and such a person has a 10% risk of getting shingles, are you willing to get the shot and lower that risk to 5%? The cost to the individual is now a moot point with the ACA, since medically-indicated vaccinations (including the shingles vaccine for those over 50) are now covered at 100%.
Informed consent includes the risks and benefits of a procedure (vaccination), as well as the risks and benefits of not having a procedure (vaccination). Some of the risks of not having a particular vaccine could include death or disability. It can also include the loss of some civil rights, in order to protect others.