Essay On Mandatory Vaccination

Mandatory school vaccination is one of the most intensely debated issues in society. All 50 states and the District of Columbia have vaccination requirements for children attending public elementary and secondary schools. Over the years the debate has moved from whether states have the right to mandate school vaccinations, to should vaccinations be required for school attendance. I believe immunizations should be mandatory for students because vaccinations protect public health, are cost-effective, and prevent infectious diseases.
In 1855 Massachusets became the first state to mandate school immunizations by requiring smallpox vaccinations for attendance. Henning Jacobson later challenged the state’s authority to mandate vaccinations in the United States Supreme Court case, Jacobson v. Massachusets, on the premise mandatory vaccinations violate the Fourteenth Amendment. In 1905 the Supreme Court rejected Jacobson’s argument and ruled states have the constitutional power to restrict individual liberty to protect the safety of the general public
All 50 states and the District of Columbia require Polio, Measles, Rubella, and the DTaP vaccination for students attending public elementary and secondary schools. On average these routine childhood vaccinations range from $22 to $68 a dose for the public sector (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017). In 2005 a measles outbreak in Indiana was traced to an unvaccinated teenager and cost public health authorities more than two hundred thousand dollars (Moser, Reiss, & Schwartz, 2015). Comparing the cost of routine childhood vaccinations with the total cost of Indiana’s measles outbreak shows a significant value of mandatory school