My law professor friend Dorit argues yes. I am not a lawyer but some of these vaccine preventable diseases are incredibly dangerous and highly contagious. To court them by non-vaccination seems as deliberate a threat to public health as pooping in the water supply.
Can’t sue for a hypothetical threat.
As for somebody actually catching a disease from someone who isn’t vaccinated, that’s a great way to set a precedent for suing every time someone sneezes.
I don’t think it would do much to deter people from forgoing vaccinations. The chances of any one kid, even an unvaccinated one, starting an epidemic are too small. Most parents determined not to vaccinate would just play the odds (which is more or less what they’re doing even without the threat of a lawsuit).
And from a practical standpoint, the amount of money you’d be able to recover from the average young parent is probably pretty negligible, especially divided amongst all the people affected by an epidemic. So from the damage mitigation standpoint, it also seems a poor strategy.
Education and requiring vaccinations to attend schools and other institutions that receive public moneys seems a much more effective method.
Forcing medical procedures on people against their will is also a human rights violation.
You can get vaccinated against sneezing?
You can stay home.
I would instead argue for the ability to sue schools, day care centers and other public and private facilities that allow attendance by unvaccinated children whose parents do not have justifiable health or religious exemptions for vaccination.
Sweet. This would mean I can probably make a pretty penny suing the third world.
O.K. so a kid who didn’t get vaccinated comes down with chicken pox and who does he infect? Another kid who didn’t get vaccinated, so am I missing something? Who does the suing? And what are their grounds?
Except in this case, children obviously aren’t consenting or not consenting to vaccinations but rather their parents or guardians.
That does happen, but there is also the risk of infecting children who aren’t yet of age to receive the vaccine or that have only received a partial series (i.e.- one shot out of a three shot series).
You’re missing the concept of herd immunity and the actual effectiveness percentage of vaccines which is not 100%.
What about these parents? A single child triggered a measles epidemic in San Diego a few years ago that cost thousands to contain. His parents deliberately left him unvaccinated and then traveled abroad.
I don’t know about suing, but it should definitely be a criminal matter. Vaccines should absolutely be mandatory, required by law, etc. I guess this implies that civil damages should be awarded to those who break the law and spread diseases.
Medicine is a matter for doctors and patients- no need to get the government involved.
If your spreading a virulent disease to other people, its pretty clearly an issue that no longer involves just you and your doctor.
Nobody is talking about that. The topic of this thread is vaccination.
Doctors can advise, but not enforce. Doctors cannot force vaccinations on anyone, and can’t even confine a dangerously contagious person. The Typhoid Marys of the world get confined by governments, not doctors.
Vaccination prevents the kid from spreading the virulent disease. What do you propose when he does? Care to respond to the evidence that it does happen?
Here is an article blaming unimmunized adults for the spread of whooping cough in California, which killed 9 infants in 2010.
Err…are you confused about the meaning of the word “virulent” or “vaccination”?