Vaccines And Individual Rights
By
Leonard Zwelling
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/25/opinion/measles-vaccines-rfk-jr.html
This editorial from The New York Times on April 26, bemoans the increase in measles cases and looks upon this increase as a harbinger of increases in the incidence of other diseases that can be prevented by vaccines. The article clearly blames the increase on the bad information emanating from Robert Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services along with a long-standing torrent of garbage on the internet from the attribution of the cause of autism to vaccination to the concept of “shared clinical decision making” when it comes to issues of public health especially when it applies to the safety of children.
In debates I have had with other doctors, there is a clear schism between those like myself who believe that the government does have a right to make you get vaccinated (affirmed in Jacobson v. Massachusetts a Supreme Court decision from 1905) and those who believe that every person has the right to choose whether or not to get himself or his child vaccinated. The problem with those espousing the latter view is that it leads to measles epidemics like the one we are having now along with cases of whooping cough. It also can lead to the loss of herd immunity which is what protects infants too young to receive certain vaccines from several infectious diseases.
Let’s say, for a moment, that someone devised a safe and effective way to eradicate breast cancer with a series of vaccines at age 21. Can the government mandate these vaccinations for all women or would each person determine for herself whether or not to get the shot? If someone decides to opt out and then contracts breast cancer that could have been prevented, does insurance still need to cover her therapy or can insurers raise prices for the unvaccinated as they do for smokers?
I have been called a socialist by my more conservative and libertarian readers because I believe that government activism is required in certain situations because when you consider the overall burden to the health care system that might be lessened by things like vaccines and what that might mean for everyone’s insurance premiums, you have to ponder when the preservation of individual rights damages the society and the pocketbooks of others. Not getting vaccinated for communicable childhood diseases affects others not just the unvaccinated. It is the second-hand smoke of infectious disease.
The anti-vaxxers claim that many of the current recommended vaccines are not of proven efficacy and safety. My understanding is that the FDA has reviewed their safety and efficacy and that, when there was a valid panel of experts at the CDC guiding vaccine schedule recommendations, the safety and efficacy of the vaccines was validated by experts. This doesn’t mean that these vaccines are perfect. Side effects do occur and a breakthrough case can happen even in someone vaccinated. However, such a case is usually of lesser severity in those vaccinated (e.g., Covid).
I know that many don’t trust the “experts.” I know that these same people think they should have the right to decide what vaccines their children receive or whether they get any at all. I think this is baloney.
Perhaps the most fundamental right of any American is the right not to die. Yet, in previous times of war, including during the Vietnam conflict, the government drafted people who did die. My fraternity brother, Warren Franks whose grades were not high enough to remain at Duke, died in June of 1970 in Vietnam. Did he have a right not to be fighting? I guess not.
The people, including doctors, who oppose certain vaccinations do so with no expertise beyond what they glean from the internet. Our government, specifically DHHS and the CDC, have a responsibility to make decisions about the wisdom of vaccination, the best schedules, AND the absolute requirement for these injections.
If my insurance rates climb because you won’t get the new breast cancer vaccine, should one come along, your decision is not just affecting you. It’s affecting me.
I understand the great American desire for independence and the great American demand that all decisions belong to the individual. Let me remind you of the last line of the Declaration of Independence whose 250th anniversary we celebrate this year:
“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
We Americans have been in this together since the very beginning. In our fight against infectious diseases, we still must be.
It is not OK for measles, whooping cough, or polio to come back after having been eradicated because people who know nothing of medicine or public health demand independent decision making in all cases. No. As an American, you have a responsibility for the next guy, too.
To be blunt, it’s not all about YOU.
I end with the famous quote from Benjamin Franklin at the signing of the Declaration in response to John Hancock’s urging delegates to stand united:
“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
