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| I am double vaccinated, I vaccinated my children, I am not anti-vaccination |
Caroline Lucas has written back - she's been lobbied by plenty and promises to oppose compulsory vaccinations against Covid 19, if it comes to a vote.
That's a big IF. It presumes, also, public consultation and a level of debate. One of the first questions is how we establish a difference between vaccine hesitancy and opposition to compulsory vaccination.
In the clamour of the pinging app and Olympics, can medical ethics make itself heard?
The ethics professionals, scientists, medics are already on this - they have been for a while because compulsory vaccination's not new.
One of the voices in the BMJ's Journal of Medical Ethics, is Prof Julian Savulescu who compares compulsory vaccination, in relation to the public good, to conscription, paying taxes and compulsory seat belts. Having examined compulsion and possible payment for vaccination, he argues: "An alternative “payment” model is to pay those who vaccinate in kind. This could take the form of greater freedom to travel, opportunity to work or socialise. With some colleagues, I have given similar arguments in favour of immunity passports."
Ahh, the passport, so reminiscent of BREXIT...
Gratefully, the UK government's rushing its recycled metaphor to the printers, earbuds in to block out the distracting ideas (and warnings) being shared among professionals.
Again, the BMJ reports: "With France and Greece going for compulsory vaccination for healthcare workers, The NHS Confederation has said that the current approach of encouraging uptake through informed consent is the preferred option. The BMA is also calling for targeted engagement and possible alternative mitigations against transmission for people who are not vaccinated. Chaand Nagpaul, BMA council chair, called compulsion “a blunt instrument to tackle a complex issue.”
"Peter English, former editor of Vaccines in Practice and immediate past chair of the BMA’s public health committee, told The BMJ, “The problem with making things mandatory is that it often creates a backlash, and you can get more people refusing to have the vaccine because they are being forced to. The general view is that mandatory vaccination should be a last resort.”"
Will people whose area of expertise is medical ethics be heard among Johnson's populist clamour that has more in common with Turkmenistan and Saudi Arabia?
A briefing paper on UK vaccination policy from the House of Commons library is scanty to say the least, murmuring: "The effectiveness of mandatory vaccination policies is not clear...."
The UK's only compulsory vaccination, against smallpox, was in force between 1852 and 1948.
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