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Sidney Hibbs

Vaccine Hesitancy

27 July 2019

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Part 1

As a young adult in today’s society I have grown up watching this country fight and

disagree more than they have tried to unite and come together as a whole. There are many

controversial topics that just divide this country further and further apart each day and a lot have

to do with politics and such, but I have decided to write this paper on the major problem of

vaccine hesitancy our country faces. I just turned 19 years old a little over a week ago, so I know

I’m young and haven’t been around as long as a lot of people, but I am a very informed and

knowledgeable woman. A lot of people my age aren’t as informed on things that are happening

in this country but it is important to understand what’s happening at an early age because we

determine how our future will end up. I believe the topic of vaccine hesitancy is very important

because if we do not try to inform more people on the importance of vaccines and people start to

believe that vaccines do more harm than good, then deadly diseases are going to start being

brought into our country and everyone will start popping off like flies. I want to explore this

topic a little bit more because I can politely and respectably back myself up if an antivaxxer ever

tries to argue with me. What makes this situation complex is that many people in the United

States are so ignorant and are not willing to listen to the facts and science behind this issue. A lot

of people only hear what they want to hear and will not take a second to listen to educated and

factual people such as scientists who have studied this issue for years. This problem lacks a

solution because people are opinionated, one-sided, and not willing to listen. There will always

be people that will be against vaccines and it is very dangerous for many reasons, but I will talk

about that later in the paper.

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Part 2:

For the first ethical approach, I am going to be talking about the egoism ethical

viewpoint. I think that this fits very well with vaccine hesitancy. This viewpoint is talking about

how in morality we should consider only the consequences for ourselves, and that acting

selfishly creates a better world. With this viewpoint, there is no correct side that says is best.

Instead of deciding that everyone should vaccinate themselves and their children, or deciding to

not vaccinate yourself and your children, you do what you think is best for yourself and that is

morally correct. In situations dealing with vaccine hesitancy this viewpoint could be very helpful

deciding on what side of the spectrum you stand. For example, if a person was diagnosed with a

disease that had a good chance of being cured with vaccines but no guarantee that it would cure

it had the choice of vaccines and no vaccines it is saying that whatever choice you decide it is

okay. This viewpoint would not be helpful in a situation where it was a life-threatening decision

and you knew what it would take to save yourself, but you chose to be selfish and not listen to

what other people were saying.

The second ethical approach I will be talking about that deals with vaccine hesitancy is

Utilitarianism. I believe that this is the best approach in dealing with this type of situation.

Utilitarianism basically states that the purpose of morality is to make the world a better place,

and that it is about producing good consequences, not having good intentions. What this

approach would say to do would be to vaccinate because a majority of the country would agree

because they would agree that having less disease and deaths is making the world a better place,

rather than watching death and illness overtake us. It is kind of hard to think about the types of

situations that this approach would not be useful besides the complete opposite of what I stated

earlier in the paragraph and if the roles were reversed. If antivaxxers somehow got lucky and
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persuaded people to turn to their side to somehow make the world a better place, but I highly

doubt that would ever happen.

The third ethical approach I have decided to pick is Divine Command. I believe that this

is a good one because a lot of people believe that God plays a vital role in their decision on

whether or not they decide to vaccinate themselves. Divine Command states that we should

always do the will of God, and whatever we do if we do it in Gods will, we do the right thing and

vice versa. Many of the people that have decided not to vaccinate for the many reasons have

stated that it is somehow correlated to God and religion. Now, I am not a religious person just

because that’s not who I am, but I know so many people that are which is great for them. I just

have never understood how God can play a dangerous role in telling you not to trust and believe

science and facts. I personally don’t believe that a decent human being would want to wish harm

on other people let alone yourself by the spread of preventative diseases, so situations like that

could be harmful on viewpoints for this topic. However, if you are a firm believer in God and

believe that whatever he says goes, then this viewpoint could be helpful.

After writing about these three viewpoints, I personally think that the Utilitarianism

viewpoint is the most useful for me and my viewpoints on this specific topic. As you can tell

from the previous paragraphs, it is quite obvious as to which side I am on for the topic of vaccine

hesitancy. The Utilitarianism viewpoint just works best for me because with all of the research

compiled together, and all of the modern technology that has improved over the years it just

makes the most sense personally to use and believe in the power of vaccines. One thing that I

have learned at an early age is that you don’t have to agree with everyone, but you can respect

their opinion and still be civil. Many adults and elders never learned that growing up, but then

again things were a lot different back then.

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Part 4:

Vaccine hesitancy is the reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite the availability of

vaccines (Akbar). My parents have always been vaccinated their whole life, so of course it

makes sense that both my brother and I are vaccinated as well. I have always grown up getting

shots and going to the doctors and it truly wasn’t until a couple of years ago I heard that there are

people out there that don’t believe in doctors, current medicine, and vaccines. I was completely

taken by surprise because I thought that everyone went to the doctor when they were sick. I

wasn’t able to find a statistic on the number of people that are vaccinated in the US, but I came

across a statistic that 85% of 1-year old had been vaccinated as of 2017 (Elflein, 2018). In an

ideal world I would prefer that number to be 100% of everyone to be vaccinated but that is an

unrealistic expectation. I believe that the ethical viewpoint that fits best with this position would

be the Utilitarianism viewpoint just because it states that it wants to make the world a happier

and better place. You don’t want to put children and infants through the pain of harmful diseases,

as well as run the risk of spreading diseases to other people. For example, there was a study done

between 25 vaccinated children and 25 unvaccinated children. Out of the 25 kids that had been

vaccinated only one had gotten measles, and 4 had suspected whooping cough. Compared the 25

kids that had not been vaccinated 3 kids had died, and 11 had gone down with measles

(Vaccinated versus unvaccinated). When people think of vaccines has harmful and detrimental to

their children, they automatically think of how serious and sometimes fatal side effects as well as

autism from the vaccination. Another big one is that a lot of people think that vaccines are

unnatural and that you should not be putting medicine like that in your body (Should Any

Vaccines Be Required for Children?). I can understand that because not everyone grows up the

same as everyone else, there are always different and unusual circumstances monetary and
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environment wise. Some people just have not experienced things like that, so they prefer to stick

to what they’re used to even if there is science to back it up. There a couple of things that have

an influence on my viewpoint on this topic. Vaccines are a simple and inexpensive treatment that

prevent death and illness, and it even lowers health care costs (McCarthy, 2017). I often think

about people that are below the poverty line and that are struggling in developing countries.

People in situations like that do not have the opportunity like most of us do to just go to the

doctor and get a simple shot. To most of us, we couldn’t care less about going to get our shots,

and some of us dread it but put yourself into their shoes. Someone living in those conditions

would do a lot of things to receive basic health care, but in our society it is difficult. 3 million

people die each year from vaccine-preventable mostly in poor countries, but that includes 1

million children (Bier, 2018).

I have learned a lot from my own ethical values. Before if anyone asked me anything

about any of the 5 ethical values, I truly would have no idea what they are or what they are

talking about. I came across one ethical value that I think I relate to the best, and that would be

the Utilitarianism. I think that one fit me the best just because I related to it and agreed with

everything that it had to say especially in context of vaccine hesitancy. Throughout this class I

have learned that there are many different types of people and they differ from each other a lot

more than I thought but are very similar to each other in ways as well. It was pretty cool to learn

about. I have learned a lot about ethics in global health because there are so many important

things that don’t get talked about enough in this world and they just get shoved under the rug like

it’s nothing. I gained a lot of knowledge from every quiz I took every week, and I guarantee you

that I wouldn’t know half the things I acquired from this class if I didn’t challenge myself to take

time from my busy schedule to actually learn the material and retain the information. I am now
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able to inform my friends, family, and classmates on important information and stories that need

to be talked about more, and I am super grateful for that.

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Bibliography

Akbar, Rada. Ten threats to global health in 2019, www.who.int/emergencies/ten-threats-to-

global-health-in-2019.
This source had the top 10 threats to global health in our current year of 2019. It had anything
from air pollution, climate change, measles, and vaccine hesitancy which is where I got the idea
for my topic to write this paper. It gave statistics for each little ranked paragraph and it was just
super helpful, and a good starting point go get me going on this paper.

Bier, Dan. Why Don't Vaccines Work as Well in Poor Countries, 1 June 2018,
www.freethink.com/articles/why-dont-vaccines-work-as-well-in-poor-countries.
This article was a good one and I enjoyed using it because it not only informed me on the
difficulties these countries face every day but gave great statistics as well. I had never really
thought about the poorer countries until I came across this article. I went back and edited quite a
bit because I was welcomed to a whole new perspective.

Elflein, John. Vaccinations in the U.S., 11 Sept. 2018,

www.statista.com/topics/3283/vaccinations-in-the-us/.

I didn’t really use this article as much as I did the other ones, but it still had a couple good facts
that I could use while writing this paper. It was just one paragraph giving me statistics on
vaccines and such in the United States.

McCarthy, Claire. Why vaccines are important for our country’s financial health, too, 25
Apr. 2017, www.health.harvard.edu/blog/why-vaccines-are-important-for-our-countrys-
financial-health-too-2017042511659.

This was a good and super credible source because it was written by a pediatrician at Boston
Children’s Hospital who is also an assistant professor at Harvard. She had done the science and
had actual facts as to why vaccines were necessary, and it really caught my attention and I
enjoyed using it. She even threw in the fact that prevention costs less than treatment which I
loved, so vaccinate yourself and your kids.

Should Any Vaccines Be Required for Children? vaccines.procon.org/.

This article was pretty good and had a bunch of pros and cons for vaccine hesitancy. It had stuff
for both sides whether you agreed with vaccines or not. I could use this source for backing up my
arguments but also learned more as to why people don’t vaccinate, and it was quite interesting.

Vaccinated versus unvaccinated children, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2260220.

This was one of my most favorite articles that I came across when doing my research because it
was an actual survey and seeing the results astonished me because it literally had facts and
statistics backing up why you should vaccinate your kids because of the amount of deaths and
illnesses. It was pretty helpful in my essay on backing up my argument as well.
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Works Cited

Akbar, Rada. Ten threats to global health in 2019, www.who.int/emergencies/ten-threats-to-

global-health-in-2019.

Bier, Dan. Why Don't Vaccines Work as Well in Poor Countries, 1 June 2018,
www.freethink.com/articles/why-dont-vaccines-work-as-well-in-poor-countries.

Elflein, John. Vaccinations in the U.S., 11 Sept. 2018,

www.statista.com/topics/3283/vaccinations-in-the-us/.

McCarthy, Claire. Why vaccines are important for our country’s financial health, too, 25 Apr.
2017, www.health.harvard.edu/blog/why-vaccines-are-important-for-our-countrys-financial-
health-too-2017042511659.

Should Any Vaccines Be Required for Children? vaccines.procon.org/.

Vaccinated versus unvaccinated children, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2260220.