SAGE Journals Online
Advertisement
Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.

 

Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Advertisement

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Scandinavian Journal of Public Health
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Krantz, I.
Right arrow Articles by Nilstun, T.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Krantz, I.
Right arrow Articles by Nilstun, T.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Ethics and vaccination

Ingela Krantz

Department of Medical Ethics, Lund University, Sweden, ingela.krantz{at}skaraborg-institute.se, Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Epidemiology, Umeå University, Sweden, Skaraborg Institute for Research and Development, Skövde, Sweden

Lisbeth Sachs

Skaraborg Institute for Research and Development, Skövde, Sweden

Tore Nilstun

Department of Medical Ethics, Lund University, Sweden

Background: Immunization programmes are ethically defensible and society has a significant role to play in providing vaccination against measles and safeguarding herd immunity to optimize its individuals' capabilities. Since preventive actions interfere with individuals who consider themselves as healthy, public health strategies - as distinct from advice in a clinical consultation - require something approaching certainty as to benefits and possible side effects of an intervention. The principle of individual autonomy, a fundamental value in bioethics, often makes discussions covering ethical issues in public health interventions difficult and non-productive as to practical solutions. In encounters intended to provide information on vaccination, discussions regarding risks tend to simplify the issue into an individual one: either the child gets measles or not, or is affected by side effects or not. Method and conclusions: A model is suggested for identification and analysis of the ethical conflicts in measles vaccination programmes, which contains two different dimensions: the affected persons and the relevant ethical principles. Justice as solidarity, not utility, should be paired with autonomy in ethical deliberations on preventive health interventions such as a vaccination programme for measles. If the goal is solidarity rather than conformity, the parents must be free to decide what they think is right, because that is what moral responsibility is all about. Solidarity, however, could never be accepted as an argument without parents trusting the messages from the health institutions and availability of reasonable societal support for those who claim an association between vaccinations and possible side effects.

Key Words: autonomy • ethics • justice • measles • public health • solidarity • vaccination.

Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, Vol. 32, No. 3, 172-178 (2004)
DOI: 10.1080/14034940310018192
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?




Advertisement