child vaccination argumentative essay

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http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2388-4318 Petra Zimmermann 1 , 2 , 3 ,
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2395-4574 Laure F Pittet 3 , 4 , 5 ,
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1756-5668 Adam Finn 6 , 7 ,
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7361-719X Andrew J Pollard 8 , 9 ,
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3446-4594 Nigel Curtis 3 , 4 , 10
1 Faculty of Science and Medicine , University of Fribourg , Fribourg , Switzerland
2 Department of Paediatrics , Fribourg Hospital HFR , Fribourg , Switzerland
3 Infectious Diseases Research Group , Murdoch Children’s Research Institute , Parkville , Victoria , Australia
4 Department of Paediatrics , The University of Melbourne , Parkville , Victoria , Australia
5 Pediatric Infectious Diseases Unit , Geneva University Hospitals and Faculty of Medicine , Geneva , Switzerland
6 Bristol Vaccine Centre, School of Clinical Sciences and School of Cellular & Molecular Medicine , University of Bristol , Bristol , UK
7 Bristol Royal Hospital for Children , University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust , Bristol , UK
8 Oxford Vaccine Group, Department of Paediatrics , University of Oxford , Oxford , UK
9 NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre , Oxford , UK
10 Infectious Diseases Unit , The Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne , Parkville , Victoria , Australia
Correspondence to Dr Petra Zimmermann, Faculty of Science and Medicine, University of Fribourg, Fribourg 1700, Switzerland; petra.zimmermann{at}unifr.ch

Whether all children under 12 years of age should be vaccinated against COVID-19 remains an ongoing debate. The relatively low risk posed by acute COVID-19 in children, and uncertainty about the relative harms from vaccination and disease mean that the balance of risk and benefit of vaccination in this age group is more complex. One of the key arguments for vaccinating healthy children is to protect them from long-term consequences. Other considerations include population-level factors, such as reducing community transmission, vaccine supply, cost, and the avoidance of quarantine, school closures and other lockdown measures. The emergence of new variants of concern necessitates continual re-evaluation of the risks and benefits. In this review, we do not argue for or against vaccinating children against COVID-19 but rather outline the points to consider and highlight the complexity of policy decisions on COVID-19 vaccination in this age group.

child health
communicable diseases
epidemiology

Data availability statement

No data are available. N/A.

https://doi.org/10.1136/archdischild-2021-323040

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What is already known on this topic?

COVID-19 is generally asymptomatic or mild in children, but can be more severe in those with certain comorbidities.

There is no consensus on whether all healthy children less than 12 years of age should be vaccinated against COVID-19.

Data from COVID-19 vaccine use in this age group will become available in the near future.

What this study adds?

The balance of risks and benefits of COVID-19 vaccination in children is more complex than in adults as the relative harms from vaccination and disease are less well established in this age group.

One of the key arguments for vaccinating children less than 12 years of age, apart from reducing acute illness, is to protect them from long-term consequences of COVID-19; other considerations include population-level factors.

The risks and benefits need continual re-evaluation with the emergence of new variants of concern, and new data on effectiveness and adverse effects.

Introduction

Whether all children should be offered vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 has been controversial in children aged 12–15 years old, and remains so for those under 12 years of age, partly because the balance of risk and benefit in this age group is more complex (see figure 1 ).

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Summary of benefits and risks of vaccinating children against COVID-19. PIMS-TS, paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome-temporally associated with SARS-CoV-2.

The risk of severe acute COVID-19 in healthy children infected with SARS-CoV-2 is much lower than in adults. 1–10 Two longer term consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection might therefore be more of a concern in this age group. The first is ‘paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome-temporally associated with SARS-CoV-2 (PIMS-TS)’, also known as ‘multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children’, an immune-mediated disease that occurs in a small proportion of children 2–6 weeks after being infected with SARS-CoV-2. 11–20 The second is long COVID-19, the persistence of symptoms following SARS-CoV-2 infection, a heterogeneous group of conditions. 21

Aside from potential long-term consequences, other considerations in deciding on COVID-19 vaccine policy for children include safety (both common reactions and rare serious side effects), population-level factors, such as reducing community transmission, vaccine supply, cost of vaccination, the avoidance of quarantine, school closures and other lockdown measures, and the potential impact on routine immunisation programmes.

In this review, we do not argue for or against vaccinating children against COVID-19 but rather outline the points to consider to highlight the complexity of policy decisions on COVID-19 vaccination in this age group.

Benefits and risks of vaccinating children against COVID-19

The main question for implementing any vaccine is ‘do the benefits of the vaccine in preventing the harms of the disease outweigh any known or potential risks associated with vaccination?’ To date, two COVID-19 vaccines have been shown to be effective in children aged 12–17 years, and have been authorised for emergency use and subsequently recommended for this age group in many countries. 22–26 Both vaccines are currently being evaluated in children aged 6 months–12 years and it is likely that emergency authorisation will be sought in this age group soon. Nevertheless, COVID-19 vaccine trials in adolescents so far include less than 4000 participants and appropriately focus on efficacy, immunogenicity and rates of common reactions. 25 26 A phase 2/3 trial in children 5–12 years of age recently reported that a messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine was safe, well tolerated and induced robust neutralising antibodies. 27 Results from the same trial in children under 5 years of age are expected by the end of 2021. Rare adverse effects are difficult to detect with such sample sizes, and are often seen only after large-scale use. Outside clinical trials, millions of adolescents between 12 and 18 years of age have been vaccinated, including 13 million in the USA. 28 Arguments for and against vaccinating children against COVID-19 are summarised in table 1 .

View inline

Arguments for and against vaccinating children against COVID-19

Potential benefits of vaccinating children

Protection against covid-19.

COVID-19 is generally a mild disease in children with less than 2% of symptomatic children requiring hospital admission. 1–10 The rate of intensive care admission of hospitalised children ranges between 2% and 13%. 1 7 8 29 30 Higher rates (10%–25%, 31 32 up to 33% in some studies 33 34 ) are reported from the USA. However, these numbers often include children who are hospitalised with COVID-19 and not because of COVID-19, and therefore overestimate the severity. In children and adolescents, the risk of death from SARS-CoV-2 infection is 0.005%, 35 and in those who are hospitalised with COVID-19 it is 0%–0.7%. 1 7 8 29 30 33 34 However, again, these numbers often include children who died with a SARS-CoV-2 infection and not because of it (a recent population-based study showed that only 41% of child deaths reported from SARS-CoV-2 infections were from COVID-19). 35 Therefore, the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection is not as strong an argument for vaccinating all healthy children as it is for adults. Nevertheless, this might change if new variants emerge which cause more severe disease in otherwise healthy children.

There are insufficient data to estimate the risk of myocarditis in children and adolescents with COVID-19, although one report from the USA suggested a risk of 876 cases per million. 36 Another study reported an adjusted risk ratio for myocarditis from patients with COVID-19 compared with patients without COVID-19 of 36.8 in children less than 16 years of age and 7.4 in adolescents 16–24 years of age. 37 A third study reported an 8.2-fold increase in myocarditis admissions during the pandemic, but no cases among the 1371 children and adolescents less than 18 years of age. 38 Information on the long-term outcome of myocarditis resulting from SARS-CoV-2 infection (e.g., progression to fibrosis) is currently lacking.

In the USA, with the emergence of the more transmissible Delta variant, a recent rise in infections in children has led to overcrowded hospital and intensive care units. 39 For hospitalised children, intensive care admission and mortality rates are currently stable at 23% and 0.4% 29 – 1.8%, 30 respectively. Of note, this has occurred in settings with low vaccine coverage in adults and suboptimal preventive measures in place. There are no reports indicating an increase in the severity of COVID-19 in children since the Delta variant has become dominant.

At this time, COVID-19 vaccines only have ‘emergency use authorisation’ in children between 12 and 16 years of age, which is for interventions that address a serious or life-threatening condition. It has been argued that, unless children are at high risk of severe COVID-19 because of an underlying condition, it is unclear whether the benefits to the individual outweigh the risks in this age group, and approval through the standard regulatory process should be awaited. 40

There are good reasons to consider offering vaccination to children and adolescents at higher risk of being hospitalised or becoming severely unwell from a SARS-CoV-2 infection, as, in their case, the risk of harm from vaccination is estimated to be lower than the risk of harm from COVID-19. This includes children with neurodisabilities, Down’s syndrome, immunodeficiencies, malignancies, some cardiac, respiratory and renal diseases, obesity and poorly controlled diabetes. 41

The low risk of hospitalisation and death from COVID-19 might not be a good argument against vaccinating against this disease as the risk is similar or even higher than that for other diseases for which vaccines are routinely given, such as varicella, rubella, hepatitis A and influenza. 42 In addition, if a high proportion of children are infected, even a very low rate of severe illness might translate to a high absolute number of cases. Moreover, in low/middle-income countries (LMICs), the impact of COVID-19 in children may be greater due to comorbidities that impact immunity, including diarrhoea, dengue fever, tuberculosis, malnutrition, stunting and anaemia. 33 Similary, in high-income countries, children from deprived and ethnic minority groups are more frequently infected with SARS-CoV-2, which might be due to a greater likelihood of living with unvaccinated adults or in multigenerational and overcrowded households. 43 44 These children have also been reported to have more severe COVID-19 and to more frequently suffer from PIMS-TS. 45–47

Protection against PIMS-TS

The risk of PIMS-TS is low, affecting less than 0.1% of SARS-CoV-2-infected children. Although up to 70% of children with PIMS-TS are admitted to intensive care units, 48 49 almost all patients recover without sequelae. 11–20 48 50 51 Between 79% and 100% of abnormal cardiac findings are reported to resolve within 14–30 days after hospital discharge. 48 52 53 Six months after discharge, 96% of children have a normal echocardiography, and renal, haematological, otolaryngological and neurological abnormalities have largely resolved. 45 However, the long-term consequences of PIMS-TS remain uncertain and the death rate from PIMS-TS is estimated to be 1%–2%. 48 49 There is no evidence to date on whether vaccination protects against PIMS-TS: although by protecting against SARS-CoV-2 infection it may well also protect against post-infectious sequelae; data are needed to confirm this. Since the pathogenesis of PIMS-TS remains unclear, there is also a theoretical risk that antibodies induced by COVID-19 vaccination could cause PIMS-TS, though there is no evidence of this to date.

Protection against long COVID-19

While vaccination prevents infection with SARS-CoV-2 to a degree and thus, presumably, persistent symptoms following the infection, more data are needed to determine accurately the incidence of long COVID-19 in children. 21 Studies to date report a prevalence ranging from 1.2% to 66%. 54–64 However, most of these studies have substantial limitations, including a lack of a clear case definition, the absence of a control group without infection, inclusion of children without laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, follow-up at arbitrary time points and high non-responder bias. 54–63 65–68 Of the five studies to date that have included controls, 55 59 61 65 two did not find a difference in the prevalence of persistent symptoms between infected and uninfected children. 61 65 This highlights the difficulty of separating COVID-19-related symptoms from those attributable to other factors associated with the pandemic, such as lockdowns and school closures. The three that did find a difference had significant limitations, including potential selection bias due to a high non-responder rate, that could lead to an overestimate of the risk of long COVID-19. 55 59

Prevention of community transmission

Another advantage of vaccinating children is helping decrease transmission and thus reducing severe cases in adults and the risk of new virus variants emerging. As well as reducing disease, COVID-19 vaccines also reduce infection. Initial studies reported that vaccinated individuals who become infected are less likely to transmit the virus due to decreased viral load and duration of virus shedding 69 70 and as a consequence, transmission from vaccinated individual to household contacts is significantly lower 71 (by 50% in one study 69 ). However, more recent studies done since the Delta variant became dominant show similar viral loads in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals. 72–75

Children, including young children, can transmit SARS-CoV-2. 76 Nonetheless, even though transmission in schools can contribute to the circulation of SARS-CoV-2, 77 the rate of transmission in educational settings is low and index cases are often adults. 78–81 The risk of infection in schools correlates strongly with local community infection rates, which can be reduced by vaccinating older age groups. Nevertheless, the risk of transmission in different age groups and settings might change with the emergence of new virus variants of concern. For the Delta variant, it has been suggested that infected fully vaccinated individuals are as likely to transmit SARS-CoV-2 as infected unvaccinated individuals, although for shorter duration. 82 83 However, recent data from Australia reported a low risk of transmission in educational settings with protection measurements in place, even with the Delta variant (the transmission rate from adults to children was 8%, from children to adults 1.3% and from children to other children 1.8%). 84

Earlier in the pandemic, it was reported that index cases in households were more likely to be a parent or adolescent than a young child. 6 85–87 However, one study suggests that children and adolescents are more likely to infect others. 88 Another study reported that household transmission was more common from children aged 0–3 years than from children aged 14–17 years. 89 However, this might change with the Delta or other new variants. In a population with low numbers of vaccinated adults, infected children transmitted the Delta variant to 70% of households (in 57% of households all members became infected). 84 Nevertheless, once a large proportion of the adult population is vaccinated, preventing transmission to them from unvaccinated children becomes less important. There is a stronger argument for vaccinating children and adolescents who live with immunosuppressed or other high-risk household members, not only for the protection of the latter but also to benefit the mental health of the former. Also, in LMICs children under 12 years of age form a larger proportion of the population and might therefore have a larger role in tranmission.

Another consideration is that, once SARS-CoV-2 becomes endemic, primary SARS-CoV-2 infection in early childhood, when COVID-19 is mild, with subsequent boosting from ongoing exposure at older ages, may bring about population immunity, as seen with common circulating coronaviruses, more effectively than mass immunisation. 90

Avoidance of indirect (population-level) harms

Vaccinating children and adolescents might help reduce the indirect harms caused by quarantine, lockdowns, repeat testing, school exclusion and closures, and other policies aimed at reducing community transmission, although the extent to which mass vaccination is necessary to achieve this remains unclear. Also, if the purpose of lockdowns and school closures is to protect adults, the incremental benefit of vaccinating children will be minimal once most adults are protected through vaccination. The possibility that vaccination might become a requirement for children for international travel is another consideration.

Potential risks of vaccinating children

Risk of adverse effects.

As with any vaccine, there are potential rare adverse effects of COVID-19 vaccines. The development of myocarditis or pericarditis after mRNA vaccines has been a recent concern, 91 92 particularly in male adolescents (studies reporting 6.3–6.7 cases per 100 000 second vaccine doses in males aged 12–17 years, 91 93 and 15.1 cases per 100 000 second vaccine doses in males aged 16–19 years 94 ). Another study reported an incidence of 10.7 cases per 100 000 persons in males aged 16–29 years. 95 Of these patients, approximately 6% required intensive care admission. 96 However, most recovered without sequelae (86% had resolution of symptoms after mean duration of 35 days). 97 98 Importantly, even in this age group, recent reports suggest the risk of myocarditis associated with COVID-19 is higher (see above).

The risk of thrombosis after viral vector vaccines observed rarely in adults also needs to be considered. The thrombotic risk in children or adolescents is less 99 and no cases have been reported to date in this age group. However, since the pathogenesis underlying thrombosis associated with COVID-19 vaccines is thought to differ from that for clots from other causes, such as stasis and the contraceptive pill, further data from children are necessary. As thrombotic events have either not been observed or appear to be very rare in Asia, Africa and Latin America, some countries are considering these vaccines as an option. The theoretical risk of COVID-19 vaccines triggering PIMS-TS has been raised but there are no reports of this to date. 100

Long-term safety

The lack of long-term safety data is another consideration. Longer term follow-up of myocarditis cases is needed to exclude any possibility of myocardial fibrosis and associated dysfunction or arrhythmia risk. Two studies showed a high prevalence of late gadolinium enhancement in MRIs in patients suffering from post-vaccine myocarditis. 97 101 Further studies are needed to establish whether this resolves or evolves into fibrosis. As discussed above, information on this risk is also needed for myocarditis resulting from SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Although the majority of adverse vaccine effects occur early after vaccination, any unforeseen adverse effects could undermine vaccine confidence and reduce vaccination rates against other diseases. 102

Vaccine supply

The currently limited global COVID-19 vaccine supply is another factor to consider. To date, many LMICs have only been able to vaccinate less than 5% of their population despite the COVAX programme. At this time, available supplies might be better prioritised for vaccinating adults with a higher risk of severe COVID-19 and death, including healthcare workers. 103 Another consideration is the higher immunogenicity of mRNA vaccines in children, meaning that one dose or a reduced dose might be sufficient to protect this age group. 25 On the other hand, the infrastructure to upscale the production of COVID-19 vaccines already exists and strategies for boosting global supply have been outlined. 104

Since the risks of intensive care admission or death in children are so low, the cost–benefit ratio of COVID-19 vaccination in children is higher. However, the emergence of new variants might change this if these variants cause more frequent or more severe disease in children. 105 The cost of vaccination also needs to be balanced against the reduction in community transmission that might be achieved through vaccinating children, which would enable a faster return to pre-pandemic economic stability with associated benefits to children.

Other immunisation programmes

Routine immunisation programmes for children and adolescents have been disrupted by the pandemic. 106 107 Implementing a universal COVID-19 vaccine programme for these age groups runs the risk of causing further delays by using up existing delivery resources and personnel. This in turn may harm children by resulting in more cases of vaccine-preventable infections and diseases such as cervical cancer, meningitis, measles and pertussis. However, if COVID-19 vaccination is combined with the administration of other routine vaccines, this problem might be reduced.

Concluding remarks

In summary, the case for vaccinating all healthy children against COVID-19 is more difficult than for adults as the balance of risks and benefits is more nuanced. If COVID-19 remains a generally mild disease in children and in vaccinated adults, it may not be necessary to vaccinate all children. 90 108 In addition, it is important to consider different age groups separately; the balance of risk and benefit of vaccination is likely to differ between infants, young children and adolescents. Children under 5 years of age are likely to need separate consideration to those 5–11 years of age. Continued monitoring of disease severity across all age groups is crucial. If a variant of concern emerges with increased severity in children (as is, for example, the case for Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus), this would alter the risk–benefit equation. 90 In LMICs, where the burden of COVID-19 is higher in the paediatric population as a result of comorbidities, there may be a lower threshold for vaccinating children. A one-dose schedule (as now recommended in the UK and Norway) 109 110 or a reduced-dose vaccine might be an option for this age group; this might also reduce the risk of myocarditis with the second dose of mRNA vaccines. Although mass COVID-19 vaccination of all ages, including children under 12 years of age, may become the general approach globally in the future, it seems wise at present to weigh up the risks and benefits with caution and to proceed with care.

Ethics statements

Patient consent for publication.

Not required.

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Twitter @Dr_Petzi, @PittetLaure, @adamhfinn, @ajpollard1, @nigeltwitt

Contributors PZ drafted the initial manuscript. All authors critically revised the manuscript and approved the final manuscript as submitted.

Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Disclaimer The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views of the DHSC, JCVI, NIHR or WHO.

Competing interests AJP is chair of UK Department of Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) Joint Committee on Vaccination & Immunisation (JCVI), but does not participate in policy decisions on COVID-19 vaccine. He is a member of the WHO’s SAGE. AJP is chief investigator on clinical trials of Oxford University’s COVID-19 vaccine funded by NIHR. Oxford University has entered a joint COVID-19 vaccine development partnership with AstraZeneca. AF is an investigator in trials and studies of COVID-19 vaccines manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca, Janssen, Valneva and Sanofi but receives no personal remuneration or benefits for this work. He is a member of the UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation and chairs the WHO Euro Regional Technical Advisory Group of Experts (ETAGE) on immunisation.

Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

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Second Opinion

Why Childhood Immunizations Are Important

Childhood vaccines or immunizations can seem overwhelming when you are a new parent. Vaccine schedules recommended by agencies and organizations, such as the CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Academy of Family Physicians cover about 14 different diseases.

Vaccinations not only protect your child from deadly diseases, such as polio, tetanus, and diphtheria, but they also keep other children safe by eliminating or greatly decreasing dangerous diseases that used to spread from child to child.

A vaccine is a dead, or weakened version, or part of the germ that causes the disease in question. When children are exposed to a disease in vaccine form, their immune system, which is the body's germ-fighting machine, is able to build up antibodies that protect them from contracting the disease if and when they are exposed to the actual disease.

Over the years, vaccines have generated some controversy over safety, but no convincing evidence of harm has been found. And although children can have a reaction to any vaccine, the important thing to know is that the benefits of vaccinations far outweigh the possible side effects.

Keeping track of immunizations

Most of your child’s vaccinations are completed between birth and 6 years. Many vaccines are given more than once, at different ages, and in combinations. This means that you’ll need to keep a careful record of your child's shots. Although your doctor's office will also keep track, people change doctors, records get lost, and the person ultimately responsible for keeping track of your child's immunizations is you.

Ask your child's doctor for an immunization record form. Think about your child's record as you would a birth certificate and keep it with your other essential documents. You can also download an easy-to-read immunization schedule and record form at the CDC website .

Even though most parents and doctors do a good job of keeping up with immunizations, studies show that about one-fourth of preschool children are missing at least one routine vaccination. Most states will not let your child start school without a complete immunization record. Sometimes a vaccination is missed when a child is sick. No matter what the reason, it’s important to make up missed immunizations.

If your child has missed an immunization, you don't have to go back and start over for most vaccines. The previous immunizations are still good. Your doctor will just resume the immunization schedule. If, for any reason, your child receives additional doses of a vaccine, this is also not a concern, although your child will still need any future doses according to the recommended schedule.

How many shots do children need?

Although vaccines are combined to reduce the number of shots needed, the list is still long.

Here is a common immunization schedule recommended by age 2:

One vaccination for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR)

Four vaccinations for Haemophilus influenza (Hib), a common upper respiratory infection that can also cause meningitis

Three to four polio vaccinations (IPV)

Four vaccinations for diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (DPT)

Three vaccinations for hepatitis B

One vaccination for varicella (chickenpox) no earlier than age 12 months and only if your child does not develop chickenpox on his or her own (must be verified by a health care provider)

Three vaccinations for rotavirus, a type of infection that causes severe diarrhea

Four vaccinations for pneumococcal disease, a common cause of ear infections and pneumonia

From age 4 to 6, your child will need booster shots for DPT, IPV, MMR, and chickenpox. Children should also start receiving a yearly flu shot after age 6 months. A vaccination for hepatitis A is recommended for all children. This is a lot to keep track of and why you need an immunization records form.

Final tips on immunizations

Keep this information in mind to help your child’s immunizations go more smoothly:

Common side effects of immunizations include swelling at the site of the injection, soreness, and fever. Discuss these side effects with your doctor and ask what symptoms deserve an office call.

Ask your doctor's office if it participates in an immunization registry. This is a source you can go to if your immunization records get lost.

Ask your doctor's office if it has an immunization reminder or recall system. This type of system will call to remind you when immunizations are due and will warn you if an immunization has been missed.

Always bring your immunizations record with you to all of your child's office visits and make sure the doctor signs and dates every immunization.

Vaccines are some of the safest and most effective medicines we have, and they have made many dangerous childhood diseases rare today.

Debate: Should vaccinations be compulsory for children?

With the UK recently losing its ‘measles-free’ status as vaccination rates for children in England fall, two experts debate whether making vaccinations compulsory for school-age children could be the answer to improving coverage.

With the UK recently losing its ‘measles-free’ status as vaccination rates for children in England fall , two experts debate whether making vaccinations compulsory for school-age children could be the answer to improving coverage.

YES – Joan Pons Laplana: Other children should not be put at risk due to the choices of some parents.

I believe that if children are not vaccinated, they should not be able to enroll in mainstream education. Other children should not be put at risk due to the refusal of some parents to vaccinate their own.

To achieve herd immunity (the indirect protection resulting from vaccinating a significant proportion of the population) for highly contagious diseases like measles, around 93% to 95% of people in a community must vaccinated. Research suggests that only by making vaccination compulsory can you reach those numbers.

A study on the ‘No jab, No school’ policy in high-income countries 1 showed that strategies targeting unvaccinated children before they enter primary school can ‘remarkably enhance’ the fulfilment of WHO targets. To persistently eliminate measles in the UK, the study authors recommended either increasing coverage of routine immunisation programmes to above 95% or introducing compulsory vaccination at school entry.

What’s more, I believe that compulsory vaccination should extend beyond just schools. As a nurse, I have a duty of care. For that reason, I think vaccines should also be compulsory in adulthood for certain groups like health workers. It’s vital that staff get their seasonal flu vaccination to protect themselves, family, colleagues and patients from the virus.

Every year 8,000 people die from flu in England. Seven out of ten carrying the virus have no symptoms – meaning they could infect and potentially kill other people, above all those who are vulnerable. Health workers in particular are at risk of passing on viruses to vulnerable groups.

However, a lack of compulsory vaccination is not the only answer. The rapid spread of misinformation is undermining trust in vaccines. Likewise, school nurse numbers are falling and people are finding it difficult to get a GP appointment . To ensure more people receive the vaccines they need, a new system-wide approach should be introduced. We need more investment, better access to appointments, improved public information and better communication with parents on a one-to-one level.

Joan Pons Laplana is a digital senior charge nurse at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He won the British Journal of Nursing’s Nurse of the Year award after working to ensure staff at the hospital have their flu vaccination.

In the UK, vaccine uptake rates are very high – yet in recent years, there has been a small but concerning annual decline. The cause is not entirely clear but most likely a combination of factors including pressure on general practice, where most infant vaccines are given, and public health spending cuts, resulting in fewer health visitors to give all-important early advice.

On the surface, compulsory vaccination seems a sensible suggestion: we want children to be protected from serious infectious diseases, so linking it to school entry would ensure all children were protected. However, it is important to consider whether it would work and whether there is a potential for harm.

The evidence around achieving high vaccine uptake is well-established. Parents need accessible vaccination services. This may include offering vaccinations in non-traditional settings, sending reminders about vaccinations that are due and providing easy access to well-trained health professionals who can discuss parents’ questions effectively.

The evidence that mandatory vaccination works is scanty. For example, the small increase in vaccine uptake in Italy – where the policy was recently introduced – could also be due to the increased publicity and improved organisation that would be required 2 .

It would also be unfair to introduce the requirement if significant numbers of parents had difficulty accessing vaccination services. In the USA, where vaccination has been a requirement for school entry for decades, vaccine uptake rates are no better than the UK. In any setting, you cannot force people to have their children vaccinated. There is also evidence in the USA of people playing the system to sign false medical exemptions.

Currently, the overwhelming majority of parents have their children vaccinated. Despite many headlines suggesting that more parents are refusing vaccination, there is no evidence to suggest this is a significant issue in the UK. Annual surveys of 2,000 parents of young children conducted by Public Health England show that confidence in vaccines is at its highest ever level, with well over 90% of parents reporting they automatically have their child vaccinated when it is due.

However, many parents have questions and concerns about vaccination, resulting in a small minority deciding not to vaccinate their children. It is unlikely that a legal requirement would encourage these parents to vaccinate and it could even make hesitant or unsure parents more resistant. Meanwhile, barring children from school would penalise children for their parents’ decision, which would be less of a concern for families who can afford alternative forms of educations. However, disadvantaged children might be deprived of schooling, which would widen child health and education inequalities.

Rather than moving straight to compulsory vaccination, we should first ensure that other measures known to improve vaccine uptake are put in place, and existing systems are strengthened and properly resourced. If these prove ineffective, only then should compulsory vaccination be seriously considered.

Professor Helen Bedford is a professor of children’s health at University College London.

Filippo Trentini, Piero Poletti, Alessia Melegaro & Stefano Merler (2019) The introduction of ‘No jab, No school’ policy and the refinement of measles immunisation strategies in high-income countries. BMC Medicine 17, Article number: 86
Fortunato D’Ancona, Claudio D’Amario, Francesco Maraglino, Giovanni Rezza, and Stefania Iannazzo (2019) The law on compulsory vaccination in Italy: an update 2 years after the introduction. Eurosurveillance 24(26): 1900371

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The Childhood Vaccine Debate Ignores a Crucial Point: Kids Aren’t Supposed to Die

W ith emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine newly approved for children 5-11, many parents are asking the question—should we vaccinate our kids? To be fair, many parents may have already made up their mind on this topic with the majority not rushing to get their kids vaccinated.

Much of the argument against vaccinating this younger age group is that COVID-19 just doesn’t seem to cause a high likelihood of significant illness among immunocompetent children. Thankfully, purely as a percentage of total cases, this does hold true. To date, over six million children in the U.S. have contracted this coronavirus which has led to 64,000 hospitalizations and 650 deaths . These numbers pale in comparison to the over 3,000,000 hospitalizations seen during the pandemic in adults that has led to a staggering 718,000 deaths .

The low rates of complications and severe illness from COVID-19 in children is the exact data needed to justify a swift return to normalcy for many kids. It underscores the fact that schools should be open, recreational activities can continue as scheduled, children should be allowed to socialize with each other in a normal fashion, mask-mandates need an end date, and we should minimize learning loss from exposures . Yet, the argument that kids are, for the most part, unaffected medically by COVID-19 ignores a simple, yet essential, premise.

Children are not supposed to die.

The denominator of how many kids have contracted COVID is so vast that it makes it easy to ignore the very small numerator. While the low likelihood of severe illness in children should continue to drive our public policy, the fact that there are children that succumb to this illness, needs to drive our vaccination guidelines. In pediatrics, children recovering from disease is the expectation—the norm—yet we must always remember that it does not always happen.

To put this in perspective, COVID would currently rank 6th in the list of reasons that children die every year in the United States. Trauma (including motor vehicle accidents, drownings, firearm incidents, suffocation and other injuries) dominate the majority of childhood death and drives advancement of seatbelt laws, car seat laws, firearm laws, and swimming pool laws to reduce this number. Cancer, mental health disorders, and heart disease come next which are massive focuses of research spending and medical advances aimed towards improving survival from these conditions. While all of these events are rare, just like deaths of children from COVID, they absolutely do occur and are devastating for the families that go through them.

Yet, none of these conditions have a preventative strategy as profoundly effective as immunity to COVID-19. We vaccinate children to prevent severe illness and death, not to prevent mild disease. It is the same reason that pediatricians emphasize influenza vaccination— not to prevent all kids from getting the flu—but to protect children who should not be hospitalized and die. This remains true for the other 16 pediatric immunizations the CDC recommends and nearly every state requires. The goal is to prevent severe disease in children, keeping children alive and healthy.

If a medication existed today that would prevent children from ever developing and dying of cancer, we would never be discussing whether we should use it—parents would be lined up. If we had a shot that ensured your child would never suffer from mental illness or commit suicide, families would be all in. If a treatment existed to ensure a child would never die from a congenital anomaly or heart disease, it would be criminal to not incorporate it as the standard of care.

Most American parents have never been in a serious car accident, yet they don’t think twice about insisting their children ride in car seats and use seat belts. Why is this? The rate of fatal car crashes as a factor of how often we drive is thankfully low —and similar to fatal rates from COVID. Yet, if a car crash were to occur, the seatbelt may be the only true protection from harm. Simply put, kids buckle up to ensure if on the rare chance a serious car accident occurs, it will have a low likelihood of leading to death.

The COVID vaccination program in children keeps this same premise. Just like in riding in a car, the chance of a fatal or near-fatal event is very low, yet with COVID we use vaccination as our protective tool to prevent severe outcomes . Parents choosing to double down on masking and social distancing maneuvers for the foreseeable future may reduce exposure for a time, but these tools are not sustainable and have no effect on altering the course of the disease in a child.

The vaccine must also be safe to be effective. COVID-19 vaccines have now been given out to more than 6.6 billion people worldwide , with the safety data clear . Furthermore, the vaccine prevented 90.7% of COVID-19 infections in children . The episodes of myocarditis seen more commonly with the mRNA vaccine after the second dose in males are rare, mild and easily treated . We tend to forget that this is the same demographic that has developed myocarditis associated with the actual viral infection, oftentimes developing profound illness requiring intensive care. Yet, minimizing the risk of this rare adverse effect is the exact reason for the lower 10 microgram dose deliberately decided upon by Pfizer in June of 2021.

In pediatrics, we are used to prescribing medications “off label”, meaning not for their initial intended purpose or age range. We do this because we frequently lack clinical trial data in children and have to base medical decision making on assumptions, logic and very small studies. With the conclusion of the current trial, pediatricians will be prescribing this vaccine with more data, knowledge and science behind it than virtually any other medicine we routinely administer. We will base this on billions of real-world examples in adults and thousands of children in a clinical trial. While that might not be enough for many parents, that is vastly more data than other medications we usually give children.

So where did we lose our way? Parents that have fully vaccinated their children up to this point remain hesitant to give this vaccine despite the rationale, safety profile and approval process being identical. We need to return to our usual approach to childhood vaccination by recognizing that a “one size fits all” strategy is impractical and ineffective. Conversations and medical decision-making surrounding childhood vaccine needs to leave the public space and return to the doctor’s office. We should not be discussing the necessity of vaccinating children against COVID; instead we should be determining the best way to do it.

Doing this will allow us to meet the needs of the individual patient in the exact same way we do for all other childhood vaccines. We should be reviewing data that longer intervals (6-8 weeks) between doses increases immune responses , effectiveness and safety and may be a better approach for many children. Providers can discuss with parents how to manage children with natural immunity (none of the cases of COVID in the child trial occurred among those with prior infection) and whether a single dose of the vaccine following natural infection is the best approach in that situation. This is the framework for other immunizations and needs to be for this one as well.

We need ongoing safety monitoring which is exactly what pediatric providers do every day with other vaccines and continues to be the framework for this one. Spending time debating if instead of how children should get the vaccine ignores every parent’s goal: keeping their children alive and healthy.

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Many Parents Won’t Vaccinate Their Kids. Here’s Why.

Even parents who are enthusiastic about the vaccines may not want their young children to be first in line.

The announcement that the Pfizer vaccine appears to work in children ages 5 to 11 is welcome news for many families across the United States. Parents who expect their children’s classrooms to soon be full of vaccinated students shouldn’t be overly optimistic, though. Many moms and dads will wait to get their kids immunized, if they do at all—and that includes those who are vaccinated themselves.

Although about two-thirds of adults and 83 percent of elderly Americans are fully vaccinated , the percentage of vaccinated adolescents is much lower. The Pfizer vaccine has been authorized for 12-to-17-year-olds since May, but only about half of kids ages 16 and 17 are fully vaccinated. Only 42 percent of those ages 12 to 15 are.

Perri Klass: I’m a pediatrician. Get your child vaccinated.

Parents tend to be skeptical of new vaccines. Whenever one is introduced, many of them are initially hesitant to adopt it. Take the varicella vaccine, for instance. Approved by the FDA in 1995 , it protects against the virus that causes chickenpox, an extremely contagious, common, and unpleasant childhood infection. Even though the vaccine was highly effective and showed few side effects, uptake levels were initially low, with only 34 percent of eligible adolescents fully immunized by 2008 . In my experience with my own patients, parents were concerned about the vaccine’s safety and efficacy, and weren’t convinced that chickenpox was a serious enough illness to warrant a vaccination. Immunization rates did improve over time. By 2018 , about 90 percent of children had been vaccinated. But if history repeats itself, people hoping for parents’ speedy uptake of the COVID-19 vaccines may need to reset their expectations.

Most American parents of small children are between the ages of 25 and 39. Only 55 percent of them are fully vaccinated. We can expect that parents who have chosen not to vaccinate themselves are not likely to vaccinate their children quickly, if at all. We can even expect that some who did get vaccinated themselves will still be reluctant, at first, to immunize their children. This is supported by the current difference in the vaccination rates of parents and adolescents. Even parents who are enthusiastic about the vaccines may not want their children to be first in line.

Research bears this out. The C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health found that across the United States , more than half of parents of children ages 3 to 11 said they were unlikely to have them vaccinated against COVID-19. A Kaiser Family Foundation national survey found that only 26 percent of parents would vaccinate their 5-to-11-year-olds right away.

Colleagues of mine at the Indiana University Fairbanks School for Public Health went further. They surveyed more than 10,000 parents across Indiana to see whether they planned to vaccinate their children and how they were thinking about it. More than 40 percent of parents of elementary- and middle-school children said they definitely would not get their children vaccinated against COVID, or would do so only if it were required by their schools or for other activities.

Read: Why is it taking so long to get vaccines for kids?

Ironically, more parents (60 percent) said they would not vaccinate their children if someone else in their household had already been infected with COVID-19. This could be because they assume that their children would have developed some natural immunity from the exposure, even if they did not get sick. Or perhaps the parent themselves had only a mild case, and therefore believes that COVID-19 isn’t dangerous enough to warrant vaccines for their children. This same type of thinking happens with influenza. Because most people don’t die from the flu, some adults don’t take it seriously enough and choose not to immunize their children.

The IU survey also found that roughly 15 percent of parents would “wait and see” how things went. This cohort is a good model for the “malleable middle” of parents, who might be nudged toward vaccination. Some of them said they might be motivated by more evidence of the vaccines’ safety and effectiveness as large numbers of other children get their shots. Others said they would be moved by recommendations from a trusted health-care provider, or by the vaccination of other children in their social circles.

Generally, the main reason children are vaccinated against other diseases is that schools mandate vaccines . When vaccines are required for school—as is the case with the varicella vaccine, for instance—vaccination rates increase quickly. When they are not—as is the case with the HPV shots—overall immunization rates stall at lower numbers .

I’ll be surprised if many public schools require the COVID vaccines in the near future. Given that many states are barely enforcing school mask mandates, vaccine mandates for students seem unlikely. A reasonable argument could also be made that although Pfizer’s studies have shown the vaccines to be safe so far, requiring them will be difficult until much more safety data are obtained, as was the case for adults before any mandates went into effect. Any available vaccines will also only be authorized for emergency use, not approved, which will further limit mandates in some areas.

Still, children getting vaccinated as soon as possible is important for their health and that of those they care about. I asked one of the researchers involved in the survey, Nir Menachemi, a professor and the department chair of health policy and management at the IU Fairbanks School for Public Health, what we might do to bring more parents on board. He said, “Parents, especially those on the fence, need different information than parents who already vaccinated their older children. Parents need to hear from their child’s doctor or other experts and peers from within their community that vaccinating against COVID-19 is a good thing. Up until now, most of the messages have come from media outlets, and that is not enough.”

Read: Parents are lying to get their kids vaccinated

That’s one of the key takeaways Menachemi and his team discovered through their work. Parents are used to getting their children vaccinated at their doctor’s office. If we want to persuade them to get their children the COVID vaccines, we will need to use the tools they trust. We have failed to do this again and again throughout the pandemic.

The news is full of stories about parents desperate to vaccinate their young children, some of whom have even resorted to trickery to get it done before they’re eligible. We need to be careful not to let such anecdotes convince us that it will be easier to vaccinate kids than adults. The opposite is likelier true. We need to communicate the value of vaccination to parents before the vaccines are authorized for their younger kids, because immunizing children benefits not just them , but everyone around them too.

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W.H.O. Declares Global Emergency Over New Mpox Outbreak

The epidemic is concentrated in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but the virus has now appeared in a dozen other African countries.

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A health worker in a yellow gown, a white mask and a blue hairnet holds a sealed plastic bag containing samples in a makeshift laboratory space in a tent.

By Apoorva Mandavilli

The rapid spread of mpox, formerly called monkeypox, in African countries constitutes a global health emergency, the World Health Organization declared on Wednesday.

This is the second time in three years that the W.H.O. has designated an mpox epidemic as a global emergency. It previously did so in July 2022. That outbreak went on to affect nearly 100,000 people , primarily gay and bisexual men, in 116 countries, and killed about 200 people.

The threat this time is deadlier. Since the beginning of this year, the Democratic Republic of Congo alone has reported 15,600 mpox cases and 537 deaths. Those most at risk include women and children under 15.

“The detection and rapid spread of a new clade of mpox in eastern D.R.C., its detection in neighboring countries that had not previously reported mpox, and the potential for further spread within Africa and beyond is very worrying,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O.’s director general.

The outbreak has spread through 13 countries in Africa, including a few that had never reported mpox cases before. On Tuesday, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared a “public health emergency of continental security,” the first time the organization has taken that step since the African Union granted it the power to do so last year.

“It’s in the interests of the countries, of the continent and of the world to get our arms around this and stop transmission as soon as we can,” said Dr. Nicole Lurie, the executive director for preparedness and response at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a nonprofit that finances vaccine development.

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Learning from five bad arguments against mandatory vaccination

Maxwell j. smith.

a Faculty of Health Sciences and Rotman Institute of Philosophy, Western University, 1151, Richmond Street, London, Ontario N6A 5B9, Canada

Ezekiel J. Emanuel

b Perelman School of Medicine and The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 423, Guardian Drive, Blockley Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19104-4884, USA

Associated Data

No data was used for the research described in the article.

1. Introduction

The suboptimal uptake of COVID-19 vaccines in many parts of the world has prompted unprecedented public debate concerning the ethics of mandatory vaccination [1] . It is imperative we learn lessons from this debate so we are better positioned to navigate policy proposals for mandatory vaccination in the future. Specifically, we should aim to dispense with unsophisticated ethical claims that distract from or otherwise parody more nuanced and forceful arguments and which overshadow other important ethical concerns that have by comparison received little attention. To this end, we identify five ethical objections to mandatory vaccination that are of poor quality but have been frequently raised during the COVID-19 pandemic, including that mandatory vaccination violates the Nuremberg Code, that it is coercive, that it violates informed consent, that it is discriminatory, and that it infringes civil liberties. We argue that, presented as such, each ought to be rejected, allowing future consideration of mandatory vaccination to be focused on concerns more worthy of ethical scrutiny.

2. Mandatory vaccination violates the Nuremberg code

The Nuremberg Code is a set of principles for the ethics of human experimentation delineated in the 1947 Nazi doctor case of United States v. Brandt et al. [2] . Principle one emphasizes that voluntary consent is essential for human participation in research. Vaccination mandates violate the Nuremberg Code because COVID-19 vaccines are ‘experimental’ and because mandates undermine the voluntariness of informed consent.

2.2. Response

COVID-19 vaccines used in practice and involved in vaccination mandates are either authorized or fully approved by national regulatory authorities. Hence, they are not experimental and not part of research, and thus not covered by the Nuremberg Code. Taking approved medicines prescribed or used as a matter of regular medical or public health practice does not constitute an experiment or research in any common understandings of the terms.

But what of the fact that COVID-19 vaccines are still being studied? All medicines undergo on-going study without being considered experimental. The study of medicines does not cease once evidence regarding their safety and efficacy has met the standards of regulatory approval and are used in regular clinical and public health practice. For instance, a drug’s effectiveness is often compared to other interventions. But this does not render those medicines ‘experimental’ and subject to regulations for human subjects research.

Ultimately, whether something is called ‘experimental’ is arguably irrelevant and unhelpful when evaluating the ethics of vaccination mandates because this is a term that could include everything from first-in-human use to off-label use to medicines authorized for emergency use. Each of these has different evidentiary standards, requiring different forms of ethical scrutiny, and so should be assessed accordingly. The mere charge of being ‘experimental’ is therefore of little or no moral importance; instead, what should matter from a moral perspective is whether there is sufficient causal evidence and a positive risk-benefit ratio to justify the use of the medicine in practice [3] . In practical terms, approval or authorization by a national regulatory authority indicate when this condition has been satisfied.

Finally, this objection seems to be confused because no country has in fact legally recognized the Nuremberg Code for the ethical conduct of research. Consequently, a ‘violation’ of the Nuremberg Code would represent a violation of principles of historical ethical importance, not a violation of a law or regulation (e.g., actual regulations governing research or laws concerning informed consent for vaccination).

3. Mandatory vaccination is coercive

Coercive policies use force or threats to compel individuals to do something they would not otherwise do [4] . Mandatory vaccination compels people to get vaccinated by, for instance, threatening them with job loss or a fine if they aren’t vaccinated, and are thus coercive, and hence, unethical.

3.2. Response

People are routinely compelled to do things they would not otherwise do under threat of punishment, including paying taxes, heeding speed limits, and showing up to work on time. If one considers these to be examples of coercion, then the power wielded by governments and employers is commonly ‘coercive’ power. Consequently, the mere charge of coercion is not enough to conclude that an activity is necessarily ethically wrong. Instead, opponents of vaccination mandates should explain why the use of coercion is unjustified, for example because it is not necessary or proportionate to achieve an important objective, because the ethical costs of coercion outweigh the goods that can be achieved through its use, or because its consequences would be so severe as to negate meaningful choice [5] .

Conversely, ethicists sometimes define coercion more narrowly as a state of affairs where people are made worse off no matter which choice they take (where ‘worse off’ may be understood both in terms of becoming materially worse off or becoming worse off by virtue of interference with one’s rights, but not simply disliking one’s choices) [4] , [5] . The classic example is the thief with a gun demanding “your money or your life.” If one believes people are not worse off for having obeyed tax policies, speed limits, and work requirements, or because such activities are justified by people’s consent to the overall scheme of society, one might conclude these cases do not actually constitute coercion. This is reflected in the claim that “if the mafia threatens to destroy your property if you fail to pay protection money, this threat will count as coercive; but if the just, well-regulated state threatens to confiscate your property unless you pay taxes, this threat is arguably not coercive.” [6] . Hence, on this account, mandatory vaccination would be coercive only if people were made worse off no matter which option they choose. Consequently, on this view, opponents of mandatory vaccination should show why all options they are presented with, including being vaccinated with all accommodations or exemptions for medical or religious reasons, makes people worse off (appreciating that no policies, e.g., tax policies, speed limits, etc., carry no burden at all). And as previously noted, even if one is successful in arguing that mandatory vaccination is coercive, one must still argue why that use of coercion is ethically objectionable, and hence, unjustified.

4. Mandatory vaccination violates informed consent

Vaccination is a medical intervention for which there is an ethical and legal requirement to obtain informed consent, which must be given voluntarily. Mandatory vaccination violates informed consent because the consent is not voluntary.

4.2. Response

Mandatory vaccination and laws requiring informed consent have co-existed for decades, strongly suggesting that mandatory vaccination does not, or at least need not, undermine legal requirements of informed consent. Mandatory vaccination would be involuntary if it were truly compulsory; that is, a forced injection. But typically, mandatory vaccination policies tend to require that one be vaccinated as a condition of work or to use a service. Do these conditions undermine the voluntariness of informed consent?

Requirements to get a medical intervention exist in many situations without violating informed consent. As an extreme example, doctors staying the winter at an Australian Antarctic station are required to prophylactically have their appendix removed [7] . In some instances, organ transplant patients are required to have various vaccines, such as the hepatitis B vaccine. While these examples share few features with vaccination employment conditions, they are analogous insofar as they illustrate how requirements to get a medical intervention as a condition to do something else, like work in a particular setting, need not vitiate the voluntariness of informed consent. By making a voluntary decision to stay the winter at an Australian Antarctic station or get a transplant, a person has made a choice to accept the associated required medical intervention. There is no requirement to get an organ transplant or stay at an Australian Antarctic station. While there may be compelling reasons to do so, a patient remains free to refuse consent to those conditions.

The important moral sense in which informed consent to be vaccinated is voluntary is if one is able to visit a vaccination clinic, experience no pressure to be vaccinated, and be free to walk away at any point without getting vaccinated. That one has a compelling reason to visit the vaccination clinic and get vaccinated does not necessarily mean the voluntariness of their consent has been undermined.

5. Mandatory vaccination is discriminatory

Mandatory vaccination imposes restrictions or sanctions on individuals who are unwilling to be vaccinated. This discriminates against people just because they are unvaccinated.

5.2. Response

Differential treatment is not inherently discriminatory in the important moral sense of the term. For example, employment conditions routinely impose requirements of education, skills, or medical procedures. These lead to the unequal treatment of people who belong to different groups. But this does not necessarily constitute discrimination that is morally objectionable, and hence, prohibited by law—that is, wrongfully imposed disadvantageous treatment—because the distinction is not arbitrarily related to a characteristic the person does not control or that is unrelated to job performance, such as sex, race, sexual orientation, or religion. Employment conditions become discriminatory when they make distinctions between people on grounds that are unrelated to job performance or occupational health and safety. Vaccination status on its own is not considered discriminatory because it is modifiable and can reflect a bona fide requirement of occupational health and safety.

Where vaccination status could be construed as discriminatory in the important moral and legal senses is when it is meaningfully connected to grounds otherwise protected from discrimination, such as disability or religion [8] . Consequently, vaccination mandates typically provide reasonable accommodations to avoid discrimination on these protected grounds. But this obligation is not absolute. If the accommodation puts others at risk of harm, the duty to accommodate may be limited. This is why some jurisdictions, like the state of Mississippi, maintain that “exemption from required immunizations for religious, philosophical, or conscientious reasons is not allowed.” [9] . Moreover, some human rights agencies have noted that while discrimination based on religious beliefs (i.e., ‘creed’) is prohibited on human rights grounds, personal preferences or singular beliefs about vaccination do not amount to a creed and thus do not constitute a protected ground upon which discrimination is prohibited [8] .

6. Mandatory vaccination infringes civil liberties

The imposition of direct or indirect restrictions or sanctions via vaccination mandates interferes with civil liberties, including the right to liberty, privacy, and bodily integrity, which renders them unethical.

6.2. Response

Civil liberties are not absolute and can be justifiably limited. This is reflected in the adage “my right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins.” This idea is also commonly enshrined in law and constitutions, where a balance is effected between the rights of the individual and the interests of society by permitting limits to be placed on guaranteed civil liberties. Consequently, the mere charge that vaccination mandates infringe civil liberties is not enough to conclude they are necessarily ethically wrong. In fact, mandatory vaccination could in some cases advance civil liberties. As the American Civil Liberties Union argues: “Far from compromising civil liberties, vaccine mandates actually further civil liberties. They protect the most vulnerable among us, including people with disabilities and fragile immune systems, children too young to be vaccinated and communities of color hit hard by the disease.” [10] . Opponents of vaccination mandates should instead argue how vaccination mandates are more than minimally impairing of rights and that the overall impact on a person’s rights is unnecessary or disproportionate to achieve the stated objectives of the mandate [11] .

7. Conclusions

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught the world many lessons, including about the ethics of mandatory vaccination. Many of the arguments frequently raised against mandatory vaccination represent unsophisticated claims that, if not significantly modified to engage the ethical contours related to the approval of medicines, coercion, informed consent, discrimination, and civil liberties, should not be taken seriously. Moreover, we should not accept these unsophisticated claims as ‘shorthands’ for more sophisticated ones, whereby we are expected to ‘fill in the blanks’ about how, for example, one’s mere charge of coercion or discrimination entails the sorts of arguments that may give that charge greater moral force. Such arguments must be made explicit. To be clear, the five arguments against mandatory vaccination presented in this paper are bad arguments (but are nonetheless common). They can be improved to become more forceful. But as presented, they do not supply the necessary elements to be convincing, and thereby distract from more nuanced arguments that carry greater force and overshadow other important ethical concerns that have by comparison received little attention, such as concerns related to the potential negative impacts vaccination mandates may have on equity and public trust and how those impacts might be mitigated. [1] It would be a shame if when the next pandemic occurs the world rejects the possibility of vaccination mandates on the basis of the superficial claims identified in this paper rather than engaging with more sophisticated arguments for and against their use.

8. Author statement

All authors attest they meet the ICMJE criteria for authorship.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: MJS is an uncompensated Expert Advisory Member of the World Health Organization (WHO) COVID-19 Ethics & Governance Working Group, WHO Expert Group on Ethical Considerations of Social Listening and Infodemic Management, Public Health Agency of Canada Public Health Ethics Consultative Group, and Ontario Public Health Emergencies Science Advisory Committee, and from 2020-2021 served as a compensated member of Ontario’s COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Task Force. EJE reports the following: UNESCO Global Conference uncompensated speaker; School of Pharmaceutical & Biotech Business uncompensated speaker; NIH Demystifying Medicine Series uncompensated speaker; ASPO 45th Annual Meeting uncompensated speaker; Blue Cross Blue Shield uncompensated speaker; National Health Equity Summit uncompensated speaker; The Galien Foundation uncompensated speaker; Temple Shalom Chicago speaker series uncompensated speaker; AIFA Italian Medical Agency uncompensated speaker; Rainbow Push Coalition/CEF uncompensated speaker; IDSA uncompensated speaker, personal fees from Rise Health, travel fees from The Galien Foundation; Vin Future uncompensated speaker; personal fees from Well Sky; personal fees from Rightway; Brown University uncompensated speaker; personal fees from Signature Healthcare Foundation; Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development uncompensated speaker, personal fees from Healthcare Leaders of New York; 21st Population Health Colloquium uncompensated speaker; personal fees from Medimpact; American Academy of Arts & Sciences uncompensated speaker; Village MD uncompensated speaker; The Galien Foundation uncompensated speaker; University of Sydney Australia uncompensated speaker; personal fees from Massachusetts Association of Health Plans; Virtahealth uncompensated speaker; Tel Aviv University uncompensated speaker; American Philosophical Society uncompensated speaker; personal fees from Princeton University; personal fees from Philadelphia Committee on Foreign Relations; Health Action Alliance uncompensated speaker; personal fees from Yale University Grand Rounds; personal fees from Hartford Medical Society; UCSF uncompensated speaker; Ichan School of Medicine uncompensated speaker; University of Minnesota uncompensated speaker; IPHS Addis Conference uncompensated speaker; personal fees from AAHC Global Innovation Forum; personal fees from HMSA & Queens Health System; Faith Health Alliance Project uncompensated speaker; travel fees from Macalester College; CDC Learning event uncompensated speaker; travel fees from Oak CEO Summit; American Academy of Political & Social Science uncompensated speaker; Primary Care Transformation Summit uncompensated speaker; 16th World Congress of Bioethics uncompensated speaker; Blue Cross Blue Shield Research Health Alliance uncompensated speaker; personal fees from Advocate Aurora Health Summit, travel fees from DPharm Conference; personal fees from UPMC Shadyside Medical Center; ASCO Quality Care Symposium uncompensated speaker; travel fees from UCSF Department of Urology Grand Rounds; personal fees from Advocate Aurora Health; personal fees from Cain Brothers Conference; personal fees from Bowdoin College; Brookings Institution uncompensated moderator; travel fees from Galien Jerusalem Ethics Forum; non-financial support from HLTH 2022 Las Vegas; National Academies Forum on Microbial Threats uncompensated speaker; National University of Singapore uncompensated speaker; Williams College uncompensated speaker; NIH Grand Rounds uncompensated discussant, travel fees from HMSA; Stanford Graduate School of Business uncompensated speaker; World Bank uncompensated panelist; travel fees from Tel Aviv University; Serving on the following boards: Board of Advisors Cellares; Advisor Clarify Health; Unpaid External Advisory Board Member Village MD; Occasional Advisor Notable; Advisory Board Member JSL Health; Advisory Board Member Peterson Center on Healthcare; Special Advisor to Director General WHO; Expert Advisory Member WHO COVID-19 Ethics & Governance Working Group; Advisory Board Member Biden's Transition COVID-19 Committee; Advisory Board Member HIEx Health Innovation Exchange Partnership sponsored by the UN Geneva.

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What is already known on this topic?

What this study adds?

Introduction

Benefits and risks of vaccinating children against COVID-19

Potential benefits of vaccinating children

Protection against PIMS-TS

Protection against long COVID-19

Prevention of community transmission

Avoidance of indirect (population-level) harms

Potential risks of vaccinating children

Long-term safety

Vaccine supply

Other immunisation programmes

Concluding remarks

Ethics statements

Read the full text or download the PDF:

Why Childhood Immunizations Are Important

Keeping track of immunizations

How many shots do children need?

Final tips on immunizations

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W.H.O. Declares Global Emergency Over New Mpox Outbreak

Learning from five bad arguments against mandatory vaccination

Ezekiel J. Emanuel

Associated Data

1. Introduction

2. Mandatory vaccination violates the Nuremberg code

2.2. Response

3. Mandatory vaccination is coercive

3.2. Response

4. Mandatory vaccination violates informed consent

4.2. Response

5. Mandatory vaccination is discriminatory

5.2. Response

6. Mandatory vaccination infringes civil liberties

6.2. Response

7. Conclusions

8. Author statement

Declaration of Competing Interest

Data availability

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