The very thing that helped eradicate polio is being challenged in the United States. According to Global News, Florida is working to eliminate all childhood vaccine mandates.
This is a step backward. Ontario still has vaccine mandates – let’s keep it that way.
In the Global News article, Florida’s state Surgeon General, Dr. Ladapo, says vaccine mandates are “immoral” and intrudes on people’s rights. He says an effort would be made to end all vaccine mandates in Florida, making the state the first to eliminate so many.
According to the Canadian Paediatric Society, one of the reasons parents decide not to vaccinate their children is the belief vaccines are not tested enough for safety. Freedom of choice is another factor which led Dr. Ladapo to work to push childhood vaccine mandates out of Florida.
While the ability to make individual decisions is important, it shouldn’t come at the price of public health.
The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) explains vaccines help create a “herd immunity.” When a child is vaccinated, so are those around them. This is important to protect individuals who cannot receive vaccines due to immune system problems. Eliminating a vaccine mandate jeopardizes the herd immunity that protects vulnerable people.
Vaccines are safe.
The PHAC says once a new vaccine is developed, it goes through different safety tests and is released once approved by Health Canada. Vaccines are proof of how science has evolved. Removing vaccine mandates undermines the work that has been put into improving the health of people.
Vaccines have been proven to be effective.
Countries with strong vaccination programs have lower rates of disease. Some of the vaccine-preventative diseases include polio, diphtheria and measles. Cases of polio have decreased 100 per cent since the introduction of the vaccine and diphtheria was one of the most common causes of death for children under the age of five in Canada. There have been less than five cases of diphtheria each year in Canada over the last 20 years as a result of vaccinations. This proves vaccines are effective.
When children aren’t vaccinated, diseases can return.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported in 2024, 20.6 million children missed the routine first dose of the measles vaccine. The chief public health officer of Canada released a statement in March which shares that most of the measles cases in Canada have been children who are unvaccinated or under-vaccinated. There are tools to fight the disease. They should be used. Removing vaccine mandates ignores scientific progress and causes unnecessary illnesses.
Freedom of choice cannot overshadow people’s right to have good health, especially since it disrupts herd immunity. The fact that vaccines are safe and effective is made clear through the negative effects of not getting children vaccinated. Refusing to accept vaccines as a part of society’s progress is ignorance.
How many vaccine-preventative disease cases will it take for Florida to start protecting their children?