Mandatory School Vaccination

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Mandatory School Vaccination
The public health crisis experienced by the United States has called for all fifty states to table requirements for vaccinations against various diseases such as measles and polio(Ciolli, 129). These states have required parents to vaccinate their children as a pre-requisite to public school enrolment. While nearly all states have molded their vaccination laws to excuse people with medical, religious, and philosophical immunization objections from these requirements, extensive application of these exemptions threatens to compromise the benefits of compulsory vaccinations like preserving herd immunity.
Whether various states should have the requirement that children need to be vaccinated to attend a school or participate in school activities as a law has been answered based on the benefits of vaccination to public health. Vaccination protects people from acquiring an infectious disease. It also protects those with weak immunization systems and is accepted by law from immunization. According to Ventola (426), students who are not vaccinated pose a serious threat to other students, staff, and faculty members. Making immunization a legal requirement to attend school helps prevent this threat.
History depicts that state mandates play a significant role in maximizing vaccination rates to protect the public from disease outbreaks. According to Flanagan-Klygis (386), legallycompulsoryvaccination existed in America in the late nineteenth century when a smallpox outbreak hit Massachusetts. In 1905, the Supreme Court upheld the state law, maintaining that the state has the power to protect citizens from contagious diseases by enacting universal vaccination requirements(Flanagan-Klygis, 386). The Supreme Court also upheld laws requiring vaccination for school entry in 1922(Flanagan-Klygis, 386). Modern childhood vaccination plans started in the seventies to control the transmission of measles in the country. Research shows that schools were primary disease transmission sites, but states that implemented school vaccination laws reported lowermeasles rates than those without such laws(Barraza and Hoss, 16).
Reflecting on the history of mandatory vaccination and its significance in the US, ...