Mandating the HPV Vaccine as a School-Entry Requirement: Ethical and Policy Considerations

Mandating the HPV vaccine is very controversial because although eliminating cervical cancer is a worthwhile cause, a variety of issues come into play with the HPV vaccine that our nation's public health officials have yet to encounter in any other vaccine, prompting a re-evaluation of the proper role of vaccine mandates. This thesis evaluates what makes the HPV vaccine different from previously mandated vaccines, offering an analysis of the proposed HPV vaccine mandates and arguing that the vaccine does not provide sufficient public health benefit to justify overriding individual autonomy for the sake of the public good. Although the HPV vaccine confers prospective benefit in the form of prevention of HPV-derived cancers to those who receive it, there is not enough of a public health necessity to justify imposing the high financial and moral costs of vaccination on the public. Because the potential burdens of an HPV vaccine mandate can be minimized through alternative, voluntary vaccination programs that confer similar public health benefits as mandates without coercion, and because in the absence of a public health necessity, it is unfair and unjust to impose the burdens of a vaccine mandate on the public, HPV vaccine mandates are not the ideal legislative solution.

Grantor dc:publisher

Wake Forest University

Year dc:date.issued

2011

Author dc:creator

• Maultsby, Margaret Louise

• Bioethics

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/33449

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:wakespace.lib.wfu.edu:10339/33449