http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/refusing-to-get-vaccinated-is-selfish/article1339120/ Refusing to get vaccinated is selfish
Anthony Jenkins / The Globe and Mail
Canadians who decide against having the flu shot should consider the harm that might come to other people and the health-care system
According to Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, David Butler-Jones, the risk of experiencing severe side effects after receiving the shot is one in a million, compared with the 20 to 35 per cent of the population who will get sick from this pandemic flu without protection. “If every single Canadian is inoculated,” he said, “then 30 Canadians could have the potential for a severe side effect, compared to 10 million people sick, 100,000 people in hospital and 10,000 people dead.”
In the face of such numbers, Canadians should consider not just the risks to themselves, their loved ones and those with whom they come in contact, but also to our health-care system. [...]
Mass H1N1 vaccination refusal similarly might destroy (at least temporarily) our health-care system, with the threatened 100,000 people in hospital. We have a limited number of hospital beds and respirators and a finite number of people who know how best to use them. Every vaccinated person increases the likelihood that health-care professionals will be free to treat other people. What's more, inoculation reduces transmission. If unvaccinated people make health-care workers sick, they cannot look after other patients.
While the tragedy of the commons can shed light on vaccination choice, it cannot explain why an individual would choose to act against his or her self-interest. [...]
Such interaction includes talking. Perhaps the gravity of the current situation requires unusually frank conversation among Canadians, such as, “My diabetic child needs ongoing access to health care that you, refusing H1N1 vaccination for yourself and your children, might block.”
It seems better to have these conversations now than next year when it might be too awful to speak about how vaccination refusal put such a strain on health-care resources that loved ones with other conditions died.
Canadians share a common plight: an influenza pandemic; an already overstretched public health-care system tending to a vulnerable and aging population; the availability of a safe and effective H1N1 vaccine; and our Chief Public Health Officer's recommendation to become vaccinated as soon as possible.
These facts require citizens to decide how best to assess personal interest and to reconcile it with the duty to protect the public good.
thanks to
the_nita for the link.