Team Outreach Post Deliberation Report

A conversation about inoculation vaccines in an increasingly global world

Apurva Bhogale and Rhea Sullivan

Rhetoric and Civic Life, Engl 138T, Section 26
Andrea Pisani Babich
March 24, 2015

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Introduction
In the United States, 75% of children 19-35 months are vaccinated. This means
that 1 in 4 children are not vaccinated. According to the Human Development Index, the
United States is the 5th most developed country technologically and economically in the
world. With extensive opportunities for health education, why are only 75% of children
vaccinated in America (Kaiser Family Foundation)? What is keeping parents from
vaccinating their children? In our community deliberation, A Conversation about
Inoculation: Vaccine Decisions in an Increasingly Global World, we asked penetrating
questions regarding morals and values on vaccine decisions. Our State College
community responded to the civic duty to participate, in turn increasing a sense of local
democracy.
As members on the Outreach MiniTeam, we made eye-catching flyers promoting
our event, while highlighting each approachs main points. The purpose of doing so was
to inform our community of the open-forum style conversation about a timely issue.
These flyers were put in CVS Pharmacy (College Avenue), University Health Services
Pharmacy, and PSU Honors Housing. In addition, we reached out to two high school
teachers to advertise our community to a younger age group. To reach an audience we
may not be able to physically reach, we created an informative and visually appealing
Facebook Event. Various relevant articles were posted in the event so our audience could
keep interest. Our outreach efforts were extremely successful considering ten students
even those in high school attended. In fact, had there been a higher attendance, our
room at the New Leaf Initiative could not have handled such a volume of people. Either
way, this provided for a large supply of personal stakes to discuss each of our three
approaches, and attempt to reach a consensus on vaccine regulations in America in the
end.
Brief summary of all approaches
To touch on them briefly, each of our approaches addresses who should be
responsible for determining vaccine decisions. Our approaches discussed whether this
decision is in the hands of the government, very directly or indirectly, or the people.
Approach one is titled, Government Policy, where the federal government would have
the power to mandate vaccinations. Under this policy, all children would be required to
follow a pre-determined vaccination plan from the time of infancy. Those unvaccinated
children would also be denied entrance to public schooling. Furthermore, should a citizen
prove to be the cause of death for another individual as a result of failure to be
vaccinated, that citizen could be held accountable for manslaughter. Approach two is
titled, Personal Accountability, where citizens have the choice to become vaccinated,
however there are civil ramifications (as opposed to criminal offenses in approach one)
for not agreeing to be inoculated. Approach three is titled, Personal Choice, where
citizens will have complete control over whether they are vaccinated or not. In addition,
there would be no ramifications for not being vaccinated.

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Post Deliberation Opinions
Our deliberation was productive in that the attendees were open to changing their
opinions. One scholar in attendance, Sheriff Brown, can be quoted saying I like
approach three, I love approach two, and I thought I hated approach one, but I like that
too now. Many people agreed with approach three that there should not be any sort of
restriction by the government. Approach two appears as if there is no government
control, but its hidden agenda actually drove people to favor approach 3. Approach one
considered the governments role in a more totalitarian and utopian way, in that all public
policy is for the well being of the citizens, although there are thousands of mandates.
We brought up George Orwells 1984 in which the citizens do as the government says,
but in reality, the government has so much control it is actually detrimental to the
citizens. Many of our attendees thought a utopian, totalitarian approach to simply one
small vaccine mandate could lead to a whole other problem, which would be completely
abused control, a possibility that Orwell and many others have discussed in literature
(Howe). Once we discussed approach two further, we realized it appears as a perfect
balance, but in reality, we likened it to a sniper. To elaborate, it uses fear of liability
and sickness as a motivator to get vaccinated as opposed to a very straight forward
metaphorical hammer coming down by a government mandate in approach one. It
appears as though the public has a choice, but in reality, there are so many complications
associated with not being vaccinated, it is more convenient to have it done. However,
many people were terrified by the idea that some citizens of the United States have the
capacity to spread measles to an immunocompromised child (someone with a weak
immune system), and a non responder (someone who does not respond to vaccines).
We all came from a somewhat upper middle class educated pool. I can cite all
attendees having come from stable demographics with working parents, and all in college
or planning on attending college. Everyone agreed that they themselves would want to be
vaccinated, but because no one had succumbed to a disease, or was extremely against the
idea of putting in foreign substances into their body which is often a cited reason for
very religious people to reject vaccines there was no one who was strongly advocating
a mandate. To elaborate, very religious people who follow Western religions understand
disease not to be something fundamentally real, but something that can be dispelled to
reveal Gods creation of human perfection with proper prayer. Eastern religions cite
that no living thing should enter their bodies, but that is a misunderstanding, because
defined by the laws of science, viruses are not living because they do not sexually
reproduce (Grabenstein).

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Conclusion
Our post deliberation questionnaire asked a series of questions. A few had a wide
variety of opinions, but there were three particular questions that proposed contradicting
results. The pie graphs of these results are below. When analyzing these pie graphs, The
government should value personal freedom and Vaccines increase herd immunity both
had a majority of people who agreed. It seems that in our deliberation, those who
valued freedom to be or not to be vaccinated did not want a government mandate, but in
this case, most of our attendees answered that vaccines increase herd immunity. Now if a
herd is what the government is governing, it seems the only assurance for herd immunity
would be a vaccine mandate. Also, there were ninety percent agree or strongly agree
votes for the question The government should ensure public safety which again proves
the previous hypothesis of implementing a mandate. In conclusion, although people felt
one approach of complete freedom was ideal in terms of public freedom, but not ideal in
terms of public safety, our attendees could not agree for a government mandate. We will
see where this issue leads, because as people are becoming more and more educated, we
see that vaccines are necessary for eliminating deadly diseases, but no government
mandate will be efficient in implementing this safety.

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Works Cited
Grabenstein, John D. "What the World's Religions Teach, Applied to Vaccines and Immune
Globulins." Vaccine 31.16 (2013): 2011-023. Children's Healthcare. Web. 12 Mar.
2015.
Howe, Irving. "1984 Utopia Reversed Orwells Penetrating Examination of Totalitarian
Society." Comp. Ted Crawford. New International November-December 16.6
(1950): 360-68. Irving Howe: "1984" Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line, 2005.
Web. 12 Mar. 2015.
"Percent of Children Age 19-35 Months Who Are Immunized." Kaiser Family Foundation.
WordPress, n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2015. <http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/percentwho-are-immunized/>.