Ethical aspects of vaccination

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Overview

• Vaccinations are among the most effective and cost-effective means to reduce the burden of serious infectious diseases.
• As vaccination rates remain too low to realize the full potential to reduce morbidity and mortality, strategies to increase immunization rates are ethically and economically mandated.
• Questions to be addressed in this framework are:
  1. Which restrictions to individual decisions are ethically acceptable in order to achieve a sufficient protection of the community?
  2. Does the individual have an ethical obligation to get vaccinated?
  3. Which requirements do vaccines have to fulfill to be ethically acceptable?
• Five criteria are presented:
  1. Proven efficacy/effectiveness
  2. Favorable benefit-to-risk ratio
  3. Acceptable benefit-cost ratio
  4. Minimized restrictions of the individual
  5. Fair and transparent decision procedures
• Depending on how far the five ethical requirements are met, strengths of recommendations range from level 1 (do not offer vaccination) to level 5 (vaccination required by law).
• Ethical issues on the vaccination of children arise when parental rights conflict with children’s rights to optimal protection from disease.