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Should vaccines be mandatory?
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Governments and pharmaceutical companies cannot be trusted

Many people do not trust the government and pharmaceutical companies to bring us safe and effective vaccines- and rightly so. Politicians and Big Pharma often do not have the best interest of the public in mind.

The Argument

Vaccines should not be mandated because the governments and the companies responsible for making these vaccines cannot be trusted. The primary goal of pharmaceutical companies is to sell drugs and make a profit.[1] Therefore, with profit in mind, there is no guarantee that these companies aren’t rushing out vaccines that are not only unsafe but not as effective as they could be. Politicians have pointed out that there is an “incestuous relationship” between the public health community, vaccine makers, and government officials. Often public health experts who are part of organizations like the WHO or the CDC will also do work for vaccine companies simultaneously.[2] The simultaneous work for the government and a capitalist corporation creates a conflict of interest and compromises the trust between these people and the public. People can look to the coronavirus situation as another example of how vaccines are prone to corruption. President Trump wanted to rush out a vaccine to help his re-election bid.[3] He did not care about the safety or effectiveness of it. There is no way to guarantee that vaccine makers have only the best interest of the public in mind. The desire to line their pockets may lead to unsafe and ineffective vaccines that are distributed and have the potential to do harm.

Counter arguments

Vaccines should be mandated because they can be trusted; they can be trusted because of how heavily regulated they are. There is no way to guarantee that vaccine makers have only the best interest of the public in mind, but there is a system of checks and balances that makes up for this uncertainty. Any licensed vaccine is rigorously tested across multiple phases of trials, must be approved by various organizations, and goes through a heavily regulated and strict process before ever making it into the public’s hands.[4] This system of checks and balances and heavy regulation ensures that the public can trust vaccinations to do no harm and function as promised.

Proponents

Premises

Rejecting the premises

References

  1. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/02/vaccines-are-profitable-so-what/385214/
  2. https://www.autismone.org/content/congressman-bill-posey-speaks-need-openness-and-transparency-within-cdc-issues-vaccine-safet
  3. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-vaccine-election/2020/09/05/c0da86d6-edf5-11ea-99a1-71343d03bc29_story.html
  4. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/basics/test-approve.html
This page was last edited on Monday, 23 Nov 2020 at 04:10 UTC

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