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26 HEC F. 1 (2014)

handle is hein.journals/hecforum26 and id is 1 raw text is: HEC Forum (2014) 26:1-3 DOI 10.1007/s10730-014-9236-6 Introduction: Moral and Political Issues in Vaccination James Stacey Taylor Published online: 6 February 2014 © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014 In 1998, The Lancet published a research paper by Andrew Wakefield that provided support to the formerly-discredited theory that the Measles, Mumps, Rubella (MMR) vaccine could cause colitis and autism spectrum disorders (Wakefield et al. 1998). Although this paper was fully retracted in 2010 after being exposed as fraudulent, it served as a catalyst for concerns about the safety of vaccination, both the MMR vaccine in particular and vaccination in general. While the scientific consensus concerning both the MMR vaccine and others that are routinely provided to persons in developed Western countries is that the benefits of receiving them far outweigh the risks, there is still serious concern on the part of some parents about the safety of vaccinating their children. Moreover, in addition to concerns about the safety of vaccination some parents are concerned about the effects that receiving certain vaccinations will have upon their childrens' volitional actions. For example, the possibility of vaccinating against the (typically) sexually transmitted human papilloma virus (HPV), which is associated with the development of cervical cancer and genital warts has raised concerns that vaccinated adolescents will be more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior. These concerns-as well as others, such as the concern that vaccination is not as effective at preventing disease as it is claimed, and the concern that the long-term safety of vaccination is unknown-have led to many parents refusing to have their children vaccinated. Such refusals do not merely affect the children who are unvaccinated-they also affect other children through compromising herd immunity and hence putting everyone in the population in question at greater risk from communicable diseases. The medical practice of vaccination thus gives rise to a set of related moral questions. While it is generally agreed, for example, that parents have the moral right to decide what medical treatments their children should J. S. Taylor (E) Department of Philosophy, Religion, and Classical Studies, The College of New Jersey, 2000 Pennington Road, Ewing, NJ 08628-0718, USA e-mail: jtaylor@tcnj.edu I Springer

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