State-mandated administration of childhood vaccines is justified.

Introduction:The utilitarian framework of this debate (as implied by the definition of "justified" in R1) means that the resolution is primarily an empirical question: does state-mandated vaccination improve human welfare? The next logical question is always, "As compared to what?" The alternative to a state controlled system is a private market in vaccines. My thesis is that the benefits that Pro proposes are still present when the state does not control the vaccine market, and that there are significant disadvantages associated with the switch.Analysis of the Resolution:The resolution is not clear on the details of how mandatory vaccination will be carried out. For instance, is the state or the consumer paying for it? I'll try to abstract away from these and other questions that the resolution leaves open.Rebuttals:CA1: SolvencyI agree that vaccines help prevent diseases and that they are not dangerous. This is uncontroversial. However, it is an argument for vaccination in general, not an argument for mandatory vaccination. Without mandatory vaccination, large numbers of people will still voluntarily choose to vaccinate themselves. If anything, the demand for vaccinations against diseases like the flu is so high that it often cannot be met (though this may be due to under pricing)[1][2]. A huge majority of parents choose to vaccinate their children even when it is optional: 98% of parents who think vaccines are safe and even 86% of those who do not give their children full vaccination [3]. Getting the government out of vaccination will reduce these people's irrational worries, and focusing on education will improve vaccination rates better than simply resorting to force.CA2: CommunityCross-apply the argument above that this point supports vaccination generally, not mandatory vaccination. This advantage is obtained just as well by voluntary means because so many people voluntarily vaccinate.I also turn this argument against Pro. Herd immunity is a more complex concept than simply "if we immunize everybody nobody will get sick." Depending on the cost of vaccination, how individual people weigh risk, the damage of disease, etc. there is an optimal percentage of the population that needs to be vaccinated. It is not 100%: having just one un-vaccinated person will clearly not have a negative effect because there will be no one to catch the disease from. [4]People choose to vaccinate themselves according to their perceived risk, the costs of the vaccination and the disease, their personal feelings, the behavior of others in the community (the more others vaccinate themselves the less you need to, and vice versa). They also alter their behavior depending on the prevalence of disease (the H1N1 outbreak prompted mass voluntary vaccination)[5]. A market for vaccines will allocate them to people according to the impact of the vaccines on each person. Mandatory vaccination just crudely allocates vaccines to everyone, resulting in inefficient overproduction. People are forced to spend money on vaccines when something like food, rent, or their electric bill might be a higher priority.It's true that there is human error involved: many people in the United States foolishly choose not the vaccinate. This is a public relations failure. Imposing vaccines by force on people who fear them will only lead to more resentment and distrust. A better long-term strategy is to make vaccination optional and teach people to voluntarily adopt it.CA3: MoneyCross-apply the CA1 argument again: this money is saved through vaccination whether it is mandatory or not. The large majority of people will vaccinate anyway so almost all this benefit is lost by Pro.Giving the disadvantaged access to vaccines does not require mandatory vaccination. The government and/or charities can provide money to the poor, women, and other people who might not be able to afford vaccines. The aid would simply be optional. This advantage is lost entirely.Turn this point on Pro: Mandatory vaccination creates unnecessary costs. Cf. CA2: it results in over-production of vaccines. There are also administration, enforcement, and judicial costs, which as with any government program are notoriously high. If mandatory vaccinations (very optimistically) account for 10% of savings due to vaccination (based on the CA1 data), that's about $2 billion dollars per year. In order to stay in the black Pro's program would have to cost about $5 per person-year in the US, which clearly seems impossibly low (assuming about 350 million people live in the US). It is very likely that we would lose money on such a program simply due to the costs of checking that everyone is indeed vaccinated. As Pro says, unless we successfully vaccinate everyone, there's no advantage over the voluntary system that only gets nearly everyone.CA4: AuthorityThis is all irrelevant because justice is defined as what "does more good than harm to the people." Whether the state has the authority is unrelated, and Pro's argument is silly anyway because she just says that the state has the authority because they say they do.Affirmative Arguments:I don't have as much space for these as I would like because I have a full 8k of Pro's arguments to respond to, so I may expand somewhat in the next round.C1: Economic CalculationShould we build more bicycles or more iPods? This is an overwhelmingly complex question that concerns more variables than we could ever consciously account for. A government could never rationally decide the answer. The price system on the free market is able to solve this problem because the price of goods and the profit rate from their industries is determined indirectly by the supply and demand not just of the good itself, but by every other good. The price of a bicycle is determined by the price of building materials, factory machines, labor, alternate forms of transportation and exercise, and unrelated but more urgently needed goods. The same is true of the price of vaccines. Mandating that everyone be vaccinated would have the same effect as mandating everyone own a bike: too many vaccines will be produced, and worse other things that would have been produced won't be. Pro's policy must bear the hidden, unknown cost of diverting law enforcement, medical production and labor, and government administration away from other uses that the open market would deem more valuable. It's simply impossible for Pro to take as much information into account as is required to justify this trade-off; she focuses only on what is seen and ignores the unseen. See: [6][7]C2: BiopoliticsThe "liberal" (broadly speaking) view of government that arose out of the Enlightenment views the relationship between the state and the citizen as political: there is a legal relationship based on mutually acknowledged rights, responsibilities, and privileges. The power of the state is not directly foisted upon the citizen's bare biological life. By contrast, under totalitarianism the relationship between the state and the citizen is biological: the citizen's body is an instrument of the state which can be used directly without political interface. The foisting of the state's power on the citizen's bare life has a profound impact on the community's philosophy. If this practice is accepted, we move into a world where anything goes. This change in the fundamental nature of political life, from a relationship between the citizen's mind and the state to a relationship between the citizen's body and the state, has had horrific consequences in history [8][9]. Even the slightest transgression of this type cannot be risked at all and should fill any reasonable person with grave dread.Conclusion:The advantages of mandatory vaccination are not much greater than those of voluntary vaccination. Mandatory vaccination involves unnecessary costs, is inefficient, and sets a terrible philosophical precedent that has lead to brutal expansion of state power.SOURCES IN COMMENTS