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Non-consensual experimentation, child experimentation or animal mistreatment
Some people may feel that vaccines are contrary to their moral stance. Vaccines may be perceived as promoting immoral behaviour or as having been developed using immoral means.
Moral concerns differ from religious concerns because even though morality may stem from religious beliefs, faith is not a necessary condition for developing certain moral positions. For example, people may oppose abortion for moral reasons without appealing to religious beliefs.
Moral concerns about vaccines often arise in the context of sexuality. For example the vaccine against human papilloma virus (HPV) which is sexually transmitted may be seen to encourage sexual activity.
Moral concerns may also arise around the use of foetal cell lines in vaccine production or the alleged mistreatment of animals during vaccine development processes.
This theme rejects vaccines and vaccine development as unethical. This may be for a number of reasons including:
The ethics of vaccination need to be considered very carefully. It is good to be critical and demand high ethical standards when developing medical treatments. There are very strict international guidelines for clinical trials involving people, but these have not always been adhered to as they should. For example, marginalised groups have been subjected to abuses in the past, such as during the second world war and in the Tuskagee experiment. Although cases like these are increasingly rare and quickly become notorious, it can be difficult to trust healthcare systems that have mistreated in the past. It is important to acknowledge that such mistreatment did occur and it is therefore understandable why an individual would be concerned about the ethics of clinical vaccine trials.
Dialogue between patients and healthcare professionals is most productive if it is guided by empathy, and an opportunity for the patient to affirm the reasons underlying their attitudes and to express understanding for that. That’s why it is important to understand the attitude roots behind people’s overt opinions. To affirm a person’s underlying attitude root does not mean we need to agree with the specifics of their argument. For example, we can acknowledge that:
The ethics of vaccination need to be considered very carefully. It is good to be critical and demand high ethical standards when developing medical treatments. There are very strict international guidelines for clinical trials involving people, but these have not always been adhered to as they should. For example, marginalised groups have been subjected to abuses in the past, such as during the second world war and in the Tuskagee experiment. Although cases like these are increasingly rare and quickly become notorious, it can be difficult to trust healthcare systems that have mistreated in the past. It is important to acknowledge that such mistreatment did occur and it is therefore understandable why an individual would be concerned about the ethics of clinical vaccine trials.
Today we have ethical standards that were developed to protect individuals from abuse such as those that occurred during the second world war and in the Tuskagee experiment. These are designed to guard against unethical experimentation.
Scientific research with human participants is now tightly governed by the Helsinki declaration. Independent ethics committees review all proposed studies to ensure that the research is being carried out properly. All participants go through a consent process to ensure that they understand what the research involves and potential risks before taking part, and all must be free to withdraw from the research at any time.
There are also very strict rules governing the use of animals in medical research. Animal studies are also tightly regulated and assessed by independent ethics committees. Animals are only involved in productive and meaningful studies where there is no practical alternative, and their health and wellbeing is tightly monitored.
Vaccines licensed for use in the UK and EU must all follow these ethical procedures.
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