Description
Book SynopsisBioethicist Mark Navin and policy scholar Katie Attwell explore the evolution of American childhood vaccination policy through the prism of political history, contemporary parenthood, and diverse governance strategies. America''s New Vaccine Wars focuses on the origins and the outcomes of America''s recent efforts to eliminate nonmedical exemptions to school and daycare vaccine mandates. These policy developments have increased immunization rates, but they have also ignited polarizing, nationwide debates about parents'' rights, democracy, and the authority of the government to use coercion to promote health. This book explores the meaning of these battles for parents, doctors, the politics of public health, and the future of bioethics.Navin and Attwell ground the book with a case study of California''s efforts to exclude unvaccinated children from school and daycare following the Disneyland Measles Outbreak of 2014. The authors use original interviews with key policymakers and activist
Trade ReviewAmerica's New Vaccine Wars is a timely and important addition to the literature on vaccination policy. Navin and Attwell provide a comprehensive overview of the events leading up to California's elimination of non-medical exemptions to school vaccination requirements and what has happened since that time, along with a nuanced discussion of the legal and ethical issues surrounding vaccination requirements and vaccine policy. The interdisciplinary approach- history, law, ethics, philosophy, psychology, politics- enhances our understanding of the complex issues related to vaccine policy. This book should be required reading for those interested in and involved with the ethical and policy issues surrounding vaccination. * Douglas S. Diekema, University of Washington School of Medicine *
Meticulously researched and carefully argued, America's New Vaccine Wars grapples with some of the most complex and urgent public policy issues of our time: the relationship between the people and their government, trust in medical and scientific authority, and what we all owe to each other in the name of public health. Navin and Attwell's nuanced account resists easy explanations and provides clear guidance for policy makers. This is a superb case study of the political, legal, and ethical dimensions of public health. * James Colgrove, Columbia Mailman School of Public Health *
This book nicely blends sociological, historical, and philosophical considerations in an overarching account of vaccine mandates in California. However, the issues raised here are relevant to political and sociological reflection on vaccine mandates more broadly. Discussing vaccination policy after the COVID-19 pandemic will require the kind of interdisciplinarity and depth of analysis of which this book is a perfect example. * Alberto Giubilini, University of Oxford *
Table of ContentsKey Dates Preface Chapter One: Introduction Chapter Two: The Mandates & Exemptions Regime Chapter Three: Last Tweaks Chapter Four: Mobilizing for the Nonmedical Exemptions Bill Chapter Five: Social Meaning and Political Conflict Chapter Six: Drawing the Wrong Lessons from the History Of Mandates Chapter Seven: Powerful Doctors and Underfunded Public Health Chapter Eight: The Ethics and Public Acceptability of Mandates Chapter Nine: Policy Limitations and America's Institutions Chapter Ten: Conclusion: Confronting Dystopia Acknowledgments Bibliography Index
