Compulsory Vaccination: Can't we do better?

If our goal is health, then the risks and limitations of vaccines must be considered in earnest. The argument is not truly “pro” vs. “anti” vaccine as many like to project. The “argument,” or more appropriately, the discussion, is vaccine safety, known risks, and ways to improve, which should include a more personalized approach to health. The science is not settled—there are studies that implicate vaccines as a cause of autism, and there are studies that do not. In such cases, the call for more studies on the subject is warranted—and to say otherwise is truly anti-science.

Are you aware that the United States had a Eugenics program up until just after World War II? The precedent for their Eugenics stance was Compulsory Vaccinations. “They believed vaccination protected individuals and the public from disease and eugenical sterilization protected society from ‘racial degeneracy’” (Humphries, 153).

U.S. eugenics poster advocating for the removal of genetic "defectives" such as the insane, "feeble-minded" and criminals, and supporting the selective breeding of "high-grade" individuals, c. 1926

“Compulsory Vaccination is analogous to compulsory eugenical sterilization to the extent that both are non-punitive and that both involve the seizure of the individual and subjecting him or her to surgical treatment… Vaccination protects the individual from a serious and loathsome disease in the more immediate future; eugenical sterilization protects society from racial degeneration in the more remote future” (Laughlin, 339).

There was “science” to support their motives, and the sterilization of certain groups of people was carried out based on the recommendation of appointed medical boards. New Jersey passed a law in April 1911 about this:
“… hereby created the “Board of Examiners of Feeble-minded (including idiots, imbeciles and morons), Epileptics and other Defectives,” whose duty it shall be to examine into the mental and physical condition of the feeble-minded, epileptic, certain criminals and other defective inmates…” (Laughlin, 24).

By 1937, there had been 25,403 persons sterilized in the United States (most in California), and while other countries also had the legal power to force sterilization, it was applied on a much smaller scale than in the USA (Sigerist, 106).

These standards for sterilization took an even more corrupt turn when they widened the criteria to include immigrants. Prejudice influenced this arena of sterilization: “Due to hardening racial prejudices, in 1924 the United States passed the Johnson Reed Act to introduce immigration quotas” (Humphries 157). In the words of President Calvin Coolidge on the subject, “America must be kept American. Biologic laws show… that Nordics deteriorate when mixed with other races” (Porter 24).

This twisted mindset was supported by “science,” and eugenics legislation was created on this basis: “If the science of eugenics has so far advanced, as seems to be the fact, that it can be determined that certain individuals are afflicted with physical, nervous, and mental disorders that are hereditary and will reappear in the next or later generation, and threaten the safety of society… then there can be no question but that legislation contemplated by the model act will be an effective protection to future generations… Not only must nations defend their future against racial degeneration from within, but they must limit immigration of defective stocks from all other lands[...] this book of yours [Harry Laughlin] warns humanity of the menace to all races—to the entire human race—of racial degeneracy” (Laughlin, 322).

“You Are Sharing the Load! A Hereditarily Ill Person Costs 50,000 Reichsmarks on Average up to the Age of Sixty,” reproduced in a high school biology textbook by Jakob Graf. The image illustrates Nazi propaganda on the need to prevent births of the “unfit.” US Holocaust Memorial Museum

The Nazis took this warped view and absolute governmental power to an even greater extreme. It wasn’t until the world had the Nazis' horrific example, that minds began to change on the subject: “In the United States, eugenics eventually lost scientific acceptance and public support. New scientific discoveries led to the rejection of eugenic research results. Moreover, events in Nazi Germany during the 1930s, and the close cooperation between American and German eugenicists, seriously damaged the standing of the American eugenics movement, and the revelation of Nazi crimes in the 1940s discredited eugenic theories” (Friedlander, 9).

Wait a minute—Eugenics science wasn’t settled?
No, it was not—science is rarely ever settled, and curbing scientific inquiry under the premise that science is settled is absurd and irresponsible especially when it comes to the lives of people and public health.

I visited the Memorial des Camps de la Mort in Marseille, France—the experience reinforced the importance of remembering history so that these horrors are not repeated. A plaque inside the memorial reminds us of our duty to remember, it says:
“Never forget that this has happened. / Remember these words./ Engrave them in your hearts,/When at home or in the street,/ When lying down, when getting up./ Repeat them to your children./ Or may your houses be destroyed,/ May illness strike you down,/ May your offspring turn their faces from you.” ― Primo Levi

Plaque at the Memorial des Camps de la Mort in Marseille, France.

All this to say that if we inflict compulsory vaccinations on the public using coercion, one-sided arguments, and brute force we are dangerously close to alliance with such thinking that birthed the Nazi movement. Yes, that’s an extreme statement, but for the sake of all those who suffered under Nazi horrors and all those who fought against it and gave their lives to oppose it—I will say it. I’m reminded of another excellent quote by Edmund Burke:

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

The Nuremberg code was created for a reason; and forced medical procedures, of any kind, for the “sake of protecting the greater good” is an assault on individual safety and liberty. It took the horrific extremes of Nazi Germany to restrain the American eugenics program—what will it take to stop the mandatory vaccination program? Severely vaccine injured children? Check. United States Autism Rates steadily increasing (currently 1 in 45)? Check. Death caused by vaccination? Check. What’s next?

A blanket vaccine policy is antiquated—and perhaps understandable during a time when we knew little about the immune system and individual risk factors, but we know a lot more now than we did when vaccines came into existence, and anyone who is truly pro-health would agree that a personalized approach to vaccination is not only necessary, but is the only truly ethical way to approach it—this must include informed consent and free choice—anything less than that is truly an infringement on the Nuremberg code.

So, my plea to our legislators, the CDC, FDA, AAP, and Public Health officials is this: Can’t we do better?

Before taking the route of forced medical procedures and coercion in promoting vaccines, perhaps we can take a step back and consider how to improve and make them safer. It’s been said that “a tree that is unbending, is easily broken,” and I think that holds true for vaccines and pharmaceutical companies. The more rigid and unyielding you make the laws surrounding vaccines, the more people are going to be harmed by them, and the more people are going to rally against them. It makes much more sense to listen to the people, hear their concerns, and work with them. Vaccine safety and comprehensive public health should be the primary goal, not mandating, not shutting down informed consent and choice on medical procedures. I think we all know that removing the right to ethical and medical exemptions (which is a growing movement across the US at this time) is really just a stepping stone to removing them altogether. There would be far fewer resistance on this subject if you gave more options, not less. Personalized vaccination policy that includes safer vaccines, the option to delay and spread out inoculations (flexibility in vaccine schedules), the option to have single dose vaccines vs. multi-dose, implementing screening procedures to determine those who are at high risk for vaccine adverse reactions, and the right to refuse medical procedure without coercion tactics.

When it comes to health, vaccines can be an important tool for disease prevention—but they are not the only tool. The factors that made the most impact on disease prevention in history was not vaccination as we are led to believe, but improved sanitation (clean water supplies and proper waste management) and improved nutrition. The Leicester method in England is a more than sixty-year example of this multifaceted approach to health in general, and specifically to disease prevention and management.

The "all" or "nothing" approach is absurd--health does not work that way. I think it makes more sense for comprehensive health to approach each individual as an individual who will respond to vaccines (as they would a drug) in different ways based on multiple variables.

It seems militant, desperate, and close-minded to approach the vaccine issue as it currently is being approached. If government would allow us to vaccinate in a way that was supportive of a child's development and medical history, without censure and penalty, with more choices on the avenue of vaccines, and preservation of the right to informed choice,  I’d venture to say they’d be amazed by the outcome. The failure of the Eugenics program reminds us that errant beliefs can infiltrate our society, and something that seems horrific to us now, at one time seemed reasonable--I hope that in the near future the same will be said for compulsory vaccination. Instead of arguing over a basic human right that was secured by the Nuremberg code, we could channel that energy into something more worthwhile–like helping those who have been vaccine injured—for they are the casualties of government’s war on disease, and instead of being honored and cared for, they have been made the pariahs of society.

This should be a conversation that we have with people.

I think when we step back from the illusion that it is "them" vs. "us,"
it makes it easier to communicate, understand each other,
and find ways to truly improve public health.

References:

Laughlin, Harry Hamilton, DSc, Eugenical Sterilization in the United States, Psychopathic Laboratory of the Municipal Court of Chicago, December 1922

Humphries, Dr. Suzanne and Roman Bystrianyk, DissolvingIllusions: Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History
Sigerist, Henry E., Civilization and Disease, Cornell University Press, New York, 1943.

Porter, Roy, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, Harper Collins, New York, 1997.

Friedlander, Henry, The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1995.