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Vaccine Mandates | Munk Debates

SEASON TWO - EPISODE #43

Vaccine Mandates

Be it resolved, to promote public health, governments should mandate use of COVID-19 vaccines broadly in society.

Guests
Paul Offit
Martin Kulldorff
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About this episode

What began as early summer optimism about the end of the pandemic has turned into frustration, anger, and worry over a steep rise in COVID cases and hospitalizations. Many are pointing the finger at the unvaccinated, accusing them of selfish and risky behaviour that puts everyone else’s lives, and livelihoods, at risk. Hospital ICUs are filling up again, health care workers are being forced back to the frontline, and taxpayers are expected to foot the bill for those who refused the shot. Some schools are being required to go online again, and many businesses will not be able to recover. With only 61% of US adults fully vaccinated, the virus will be able to circulate, and we run the risk of developing a new breed of vaccine-resistant strains. Some medical practitioners are calling on the government to step in: if individuals refuse to do their part and get the shot, mandates must be introduced to force them to do so. Others argue that draconian edicts such as vaccine mandates harm public health. Not only will they erode trust and increase vaccine hesitancy, but they could also court unnecessary risks for youth and children. Young people are far less likely to develop serious health complications from COVID and therefore should not be required to take vaccines whose potential effects have not been studied over the longer term. And finally, mandating shots in wealthy countries indirectly denies protection for older, more vulnerable populations in the developing world. Everyone should be given the ability to choose what they put in their body, else we become a nation where our basic freedoms play second fiddle to public health.

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Guests

Paul Offit

“This is a contagious disease, and it is not your right to spread this disease to others and cause harm... we have to compel people to do the right thing because they seem not to want to do the right thing on their own.”

Paul Offit

“This is a contagious disease, and it is not your right to spread this disease to others and cause harm... we have to compel people to do the right thing because they seem not to want to do the right thing on their own.”

Paul A. Offit, MD, is Director of the Vaccine Education Center and professor of pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He is the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Offit is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of virology and immunology, and was a member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is a member of the Food and Drug Administration Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, and a founding advisory board member of the Autism Science Foundation and the Foundation for Vaccine Research, a member of the Institute of Medicine and co-editor of the foremost vaccine text, Vaccines.

Dr. Offit has published more than 150 papers in medical and scientific journals in the areas of rotavirus-specific immune responses and vaccine safety. He is also the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, RotaTeq®, recommended for universal use in infants by the CDC. For this achievement, Dr. Offit received the Luigi Mastroianni and William Osler Awards from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, the Charles Mérieux Award from the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, and was honored by Bill and Melinda Gates during the launch of their Foundation’s Living Proof Project for global health.

Martin Kulldorff

“If we want to have long-term trust in public health, we cannot use coercion and mandates. We have to use education and mutual trust.”

Martin Kulldorff

“If we want to have long-term trust in public health, we cannot use coercion and mandates. We have to use education and mutual trust.”

Martin Kulldorff is a biostatistician, an epidemiologist and a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His research centers on the development and application of new methods for the early detection and monitoring of infectious disease outbreaks and for post-market drug and vaccine safety surveillance.

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