Immunity as Relativity Thießen, Malte
Historical social research (Köln),
01/2021, Volume:
46, Issue:
4
Journal Article
COVID-19 was a shock. The shutdown of entire societies was considered a historic turning point already in 2020. Vaccinations promised a way out of the crisis. Even before the vaccination campaigns ...began, they were seen as a weapon that would decide the war against the pandemic, even as a promise of salvation. These hopes were dashed in 2021. Vaccinations offered a relatively high level of, but not absolute, protection. Vaccinated people were still contagious and thus a risk to others. My article traces the history of this disappointment and the attempts to solve it. I focus on German debates about prioritising vaccine distribution, dealing with side effects, and debates about compulsory vaccination and increasing social pressure on the unvaccinated. Vaccination campaigns thus serve as a probe with which to examine social orders and social distortions. At the same time, I place the current developments in a historical perspective. I ask both about the historical roots of today’s debates and about new developments since 2020 that only become visible in a historical perspective.
Vaccination for children has been a controversial topic for decades and lately it has regained particular importance. We have seen an increase in vaccine hesitancy and decrease in vaccine confidence ...throughout Europe, particularly due to vaccine-safety concerns by parents. Consequently, vaccination rates for children have dropped and this in turn has led to an increased spread of vaccine-preventable infectious diseases, such as measles. As a reaction to this phenomenon of vaccine hesitancy, several European countries have introduced, while others are in the process of introducing, laws making vaccinations compulsory for children for a number of vaccine-preventable childhood diseases. The introduction of such laws affects and gives rise to several competing interests of the parents, the child and the State. Against this background, this article seeks to determine how the European Court of Human Rights should balance the competing human rights that are at stake in cases concerning compulsory vaccinations for children.
The purpose of this study was to estimate the vaccination coverage (VC) rate in persons aged from 9 months to 18 years and to describe it according to the predictive factors of good vaccination ...status.
Descriptive and etiological study.
The study involved 1332 persons aged below 18 years and members of 521 representative households in French Guiana. VC was estimated by the proportion of people with complete immunization for 13 vaccines (four mandatory, seven recommended, and two specific). This vaccination status was described in terms of sociodemographic characteristics. The relationship between vaccination status and predictive factors was analyzed in a hierarchical mixed, polytomic, and ordered regression model.
For compulsory vaccination, VC was 81.2% for yellow fever, 63.4% for diphtheria, 61.7% for tetanus, and 61.6% for poliomyelitis. The proportion of people with complete immunization for recommended vaccines remains well below 50% (11.7% for pneumococcus and 6.2% for meningitis). Regardless of the vaccine, respondents aged 3–7 years were 2.5 times more likely to have an up-to-date vaccination compared to respondents younger than 3 years of age (P < 0.001).
The VC observed in this study is still below the departmental objectives. The link between age and vaccination status could be explained by the efforts of the national education authorities to systematically check health cards for preschool and school enrollment.
•The description of vaccination status in Guiana is a complete and original problem.•This department, with a high risk of epidemic, has a special status in relation to mandatory vaccination.•Vaccination against yellow fever and against three other diseases (diphtheria, tetanus, and poliomyelitis) is mandatory.•This study shows, however, an insufficient vaccination status, with regard to this compulsory vaccination.•This study also expresses the need to extend this obligation to other vaccines.
Security, Society, and the State Thießen, Malte
Historical social research (Köln),
01/2021, Volume:
46, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Vaccinations are a dream of planning public health. They promise the eradication of epidemics and pandemics, the decline of infant mortality, and the control of collective health conditions. ...Vaccination is therefore never just about the health and disease of the individual. Vaccination campaigns always aim to optimize the society as well. The article traces this history of vaccination in the 19th and 20th centuries from the German Empire and the Weimar Republic to the Nazi era to the Federal Republic and the GDR. The history of vaccination is one of fears and hopes. In the fight against smallpox, diphtheria, and polio, against tuberculosis, measles, or influenza, Germans negotiated images of man and models of society, ideas of security and the future. This article therefore focuses on disputes between politicians and entrepreneurs, doctors and scientists, journalists, and parents. From the 19th century to the present day, they argue about the opportunities and risks of the immunized society.
Seit vielen Jahren werden Impfungen kontrovers diskutiert. Neben einer Minderheit von Impfgegnern gibt es eine zunehmende Zahl an kritischen Ärzten und Eltern, denen es insbesondere um eine ...informierte und individuelle Impfentscheidung geht. Der Artikel geht auf mögliche negative Folgen von Impfungen und deren Ursachen ein und stellt die Grundlagen einer individuellen Impfberatung dar, die eine freie Impfentscheidung von Eltern auf der Basis von möglichst objektiver und ideologiefreier Information ermöglichen soll. Der ausführlichen Aufklärung wird der klare Vorzug gegenüber einer Impfpflicht gegeben, welche wegen der Einschränkung der Grundrechte abgelehnt wird.
For many years, vaccines are controversial. In addition to a minority of vaccination opponents, there is an increasing number of critical physicians and parents whose main concern is an informed and individual vaccination decision. The article discusses possible negative consequences of vaccines and their causes and sets out the basics of individual vaccination counseling, which should enable a free vaccination decision of parents on the basis of information as objective and non-ideological as possible. The detailed education is given the clear advantage over a vaccination obligation, which is rejected because of the restriction of the fundamental rights.
»Zum Zusammenspiel von Risiken, Impfungen und Staatlichkeit im Deutschland des 19. und 20. Jahrhundert«. Vaccinations protect from infections, reduce infant mortality, and increase the standard of ...living. They enable a modern risk management. However, vaccinations require a risk management also in a very different sense: the danger of side effects and fatal incidents questions the benefits of vaccination up to the present day. Therefore, vaccination programs pose fundamental questions. What weighs more: a risk for the common good - or a risk to the individual? The article pursues the history of this risk management in Germany, and analyzes the interaction of risk ideas and concepts of social order. I focus on communication strategies for vaccination that came into use in the twentieth century that could not any longer rely on coercive measures. They also needed to appeal to the public and resort to "risk" as a public argument. The article therefore examines risk discourses with which the population should be convinced of the necessity of precautionary measures. The main thrust of the article will be that this kind of risk management was a prerequisite for a 'social engineering', with which the idea of the "preventive self" was raised to the leading figure of modernity since the 1940s.
The refusal of vaccination by health professionals, as a scientifically proven method of protection against disease, in a time of COVID 19 is deeply worrying because they are the ones who should ...explain to patients the characteristics of the vaccine and its benefits. The WHO believes that the introduction of compulsory vaccination can be counterproductive and that other non-coercive measures should be employed beforehand to achieve high vaccination coverage. States should therefore strike an appropriate balance between the autonomy and the right to self-determination of health professionals and the principle that their actions must not harm patients (the principle of non-maleficence) or must contribute to patient well-being (the principle of beneficence). This paper aims to analyze the response of the Republic of Croatia to this exceptional public health crisis. The paper is divided into two main parts. The first part of the paper explores the doctrinal, legal, and social issues surrounding the model of voluntary vaccination and the model of compulsory vaccination concerning health professionals. Special emphasis is placed on reasons for vaccine refusal among healthcare professionals. The second part of the paper deals with the issues of (compulsory) vaccination of health professionals through the labor law perspective in the Republic of Croatia, but also the practices of EU Member States that have introduced vaccination as an obligation of employees. The authors focused their research on socio-legal and qualitative analysis, as well as methodological pluralism.
When the first preventive HPV vaccine became available in 2006, it drew both enthusiasm and multiple ethical problems. In the case of HPV vaccination, there is a clear conflict between the scientific ...data that claim a definitive advantage for preventing HPV infection in the exposed population and the ethical and moral issues resulting from a compulsory program. Despite the evident success of routine and compulsory vaccination in young women, there is increasing concern about safety, efficacy, and equity of the vaccine and to close the knowledge “gaps” about HPV infection and consequent health outcomes. Some of these fears are expressed particularly in conservative groups that link these arguments to those of religious and moral issues contending that HPV vaccination is an indirect license for liberal sexual activity in youths, resulting in promiscuity and/or less participation in cervical cancer screening. It has been well demonstrated that HPV infection can lead to harm through the induction of premalignant and cancerous lesions. Therefore, any proven method for preventing infection, such as HPV vaccines, should be used in persons at risk. These policies, however, should be strictly linked to cervical cancer screening programs.
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