Essay On Mandatory Vaccination

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Invoking and amending Ontario’s Health Protection and Promotion Law to make vaccines compulsory will create herd immunity, providing protection to those who have not been vaccinated (Sadanand, 2011).Additionally, if vaccines are mandatory by law for all children, then the entire community is protected against the spread of infectious diseases (Sadanand, 2011). In contrast, if children are not required to get vaccinated than the chance of a disease outbreak increases (Sadanand, 2011). There are parents who choose not to have their children vaccinated for various reasons. Mills et al., (2005) discuss that public health decision makers and physicians need to understand why parents are against vaccinating their children to plan vaccine awareness. Some of the reasons revealed include parents beliefs that vaccines cause illness, barriers to access, distrust of the medical community, poor communication and unpleasant staff (Mills et al., 2005). Parents lacking education about disease and illness and attitudes and behavior of health professionals can be targeted health promotion and education…show more content…
In Canada, only three provinces have mandatory vaccination policy, Ontario, Manitoba, and New Brunswick. However, there is still an exemption clause that allows parents not to vaccinate their children, although, in the event of an outbreak, the child may not attend school (Walkinshaw, 2011). The clause prevents backlash and yet the policy enforces high vaccination rates in school children (Salmon et al., 2006). As a policy maker, the rates of vaccination need to be examined before mandatory interventions are enforced (Salmon et al., 2006). If vaccination rates in children are already acceptable, then mandatory vaccination policies in children will not be beneficial (Salmon, et al.,

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