[carlrice]

How about those who can't afford it? It's also truly a personal and private choice. I don't judge you because you are insane about getting shot up, thats your choice. Mine is to question face value headlines, see what's happening and make an educated choice.

Furthermore vaccinating the most of the world is not going to happen until they are made strictly for all people and not for profit. Patenting medicine and vaccines and distributing it to only those who are "deserving" sound a bit off no?

[_delirium]

I'm sympathetic to poor people not paying for expensive vaccines, and if that were the only problem, it'd be at least partly the fault of our public policy for not doing something about it (a lot of the benefit of vaccination goes to society as a whole rather than solely to the person being vaccinated, making it a fairly classic case for public subsidy). And that probably is a pretty big part of the story in the developing world.

In the U.S., though, we do actually have quite a lot of free vaccination clinics, and many people have health insurance that covers vaccinations. It's possible there aren't enough free clinics, and if studies show that a large % of people not being vaccinated are skipping it due to the expense, then that's something we should work on. But I don't believe that's currently the case--- a large proportion of the people skipping vaccinations could have had them completely paid for, either by their health-insurance plan, or via free vaccination clinics, but deliberately chose not to get them.

edit: Actually, are there good studies on the primary causes of non-vaccination? It'd be interesting to see estimates of the numbers of people who fall into categories like: 1) fear of autism/etc.; 2) fear of allergic reactions; 3) religious objections; 4) too expensive; 5) too inconvenient / never got around to it.

[frossie]

Childhood immunization uptake exceeds 95% in many countries. So vaccinating "most of the world" is clearly do-able. In the situation where uptake is low, the issues revolve around supply, access and parental ignorance, and not the cost of the vaccine.

Eg.

http://www.scielosp.org/scielo.php?pid=S0042-968620080006000...

[gte910h]

>How about those who can't afford it?

I honestly feel as a matter of public health it should be free. If it was someone I saw every day who alleged this reason, I'd take them to the doctor right then for the shots, paying for it.