Individual Liberty
Further information: Vaccination policyCompulsory vaccination policies have provoked opposition at various times from people who say that governments should not infringe on the freedom of an individual to choose medications, even if the choice increases the risk of disease to themselves and others. If a vaccination program successfully reduces the disease threat, it may reduce the perceived risk of disease enough so that an individual's optimal strategy is to refuse vaccination at coverage levels below those optimal for the community. Exempting some people from mandatory vaccination results in a free rider problem, in which a few individuals gain the advantage of herd immunity without paying the cost; too many exemptions may cause loss of herd immunity, substantially increasing risks even to vaccinated individuals.
Read more about this topic: Vaccine Controversies
Famous quotes containing the words individual and/or liberty:
“A personality is an indefinite quantum of traits which is subject to constant flux, change, and growth from the birth of the individual in the world to his death. A character, on the other hand, is a fixed and definite quantum of traits which, though it may be interpreted with slight differences from age to age and actor to actor, is nevertheless in its essentials forever fixed.”
—Hubert C. Heffner (1901–1985)
“I am glad I made the late race. It gave me a hearing on the great and durable question of the age, which I could have had in no other way; and though I now sink out of view, and shall be forgotten, I believe I have made some marks which will tell for the cause of civil liberty long after I am gone.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)