Guidance From Vaccination Jurisprudence

摘要

Antommaria (2013) steps outside of traditional ethical analysis for compulsory vaccination programs for health care personnel (HCP) by utilizing an ethics framework for public health to provide a broader examination of justification not only for obligations but for implementation as well. Yet, as the author notes, the primary issue in implementing these programs is determining the role and scope of exemptions. While medical exemptions are accepted as necessary, Antommaria (2013) insists that conscientious objections, both religious and nonreligious, should be allowed after a thorough evaluation of their sincerity to ensure their allowance is not exploited. If the author had utilized the lengthy history of case law covering compulsory vaccination policies he might have seen that including conscientious exemptions and evaluating their validity can be difficult, administratively cumbersome, and potentially unconstitutional. Furthermore, vaccination jurisprudence has suggested that nonmedical exemptions are not legally required to pass constitutional muster due to the public health threat they address and their neutral applicability