The issue regarding vaccines is far more complex than the media presents it as being. Let's start with the belief that human rights are the most defining values of our diverse society in America.

Human rights are individual and by definition limit what government can and can't do regarding individuals. The courts have determined, that "the state" cannot force people to do what they don't want to do, even if it is in their best interest.

Otherwise, government would begin to mandate against any and all unsafe behaviors ranging from the food we eat, what we can drink, sexual behavior, what we smoke, what sports we play, what cars we drive, to places we live... all for "our benefit". Every human activity has a risk profile. You simply cannot carve out "vaccines" as unique.

However, when individual actions potentially threaten others, then government has a role to play balancing your individual rights to the threats your behavior has on the rights of others, especially their right to life.

So, you have a right to own a gun for self-defense and sport. But you do not have a right to discharge it in crowded places for entertainment.

Vaccine mandates (which states) can impose (and in rare cases) the federal government can impose must be situational and there must be an element of protecting others from an individual's behavior, rather than forcing someone to do something for their own good.

So, states and the federal government can mandate a vaccine, if they can show that someone that is unvaccinated poses a significant threat to others and that the vaccine does not pose a significant threat to the individual being vaccinated.

There is no vaccine that has a "zero" risk profile.

However, while vaccines confer both an individual and societal benefit. In some cases, the individual risk can be outweighed by the individual benefit.

For example, a study of young children in Singapore receiving the Covid vaccine, showed the vaccine resulted in more hospitalizations than the unvaccinated control group. The good news is no one died in either group from Covid or the vaccine. But based on that study, the Covid vaccine has to show significant transmission reduction to justify a mandate.

The CDC recommends that people that have moderate to severe comprised immune systems do not get the vaccine... for them the benefit risk profile does not support vaccination.

Subsequent studies showed the vaccine does little to reduce transmission, but rather largely functions to reduce disease severity. This argues the vaccine is vitally important for individuals that are at risk but poses little benefit to those that are not. So, spending billions on vaccines, so young healthy children can be vaccinated is a waste of money, in a word where those same dollars could go toward making a much better improvement in public health.

The point is there is a huge gap between vaccine mandates and anti-vax ideology. Yet many citizens believe those are the only two options. I am focusing on the Covid vaccine, but all vaccines are subject to a similar analysis.

I have had five vaccines, I am at risk with several comorbidities, but after my young daughter got Covid and stayed home asymptomatically for five days, it made no sense for her to continue to get boosters (she had to get the first two shots to attend classes in college... even when studies showed that people who had already been infected with Covid had greater immunity than those who got vaccinated.

So, what was the point, you generated a small risk from the vaccine with almost zero benefit. Clearly vaccination had moved from being a health issue to a political one.

Bullying people to get vaccines is not the answer. Ideally, we educate people through their doctors to understand the risk and benefits of getting vaccines for someone in their specific situation. Then those people decide whether they want or do not want to get vaccinated. Again, the exception is when the government can show a significant benefit to society (not just the individual). That generally translates to whether there is clear evidence that a vaccine can dramatically reduce the rate of transmission.

One reason we don't mandate flu vaccines is there is little evidence, that they work to protect the public at large.

Likewise, there is no evidence, we can stop Covid with a vaccine. Both viruses mutate too fast, and we are always trying to guess what the latest variant will behave like. So, the vaccines are largely for the benefit of the individual and not society as a whole and the individual is the one who can decide how they want to respond to the risk benefit profile of a vaccine versus the virus. You and I may think they are making the wrong decision, but that does not entitle us to make it for them.

Updated studies:

Now that ivermectin is moving out of the political arena... studies confirming some of the benefits of the drug with regard to Covid are being published.

Several studies in 2024 have confirmed that Ivermectin did lower the viral load in patients in a statistically significant way. So, saying it does "nothing" is misleading. The good news is we have better therapies today and so compared to ivermectin there are better alternatives. But many poor countries don't.

https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-024-09563-y

https://www.biznews.com/health/2023/01/23/ivermectin-efficacy

The drug is also being looked at for anti-cancer properties. It is important that we keep an open mind, rather than letting politics drive science or even vaccine mandates.

At the end of the day, vaccines play an important role in our health care system when used appropriately. However, as a society, we have to also be careful, of not bulldozing human rights under the mantle of "it's for your own good". And lastly, we should constantly be studying all negative outcomes from vaccines to determine how to minimize their risks so we can promote their use to the population most likely to benefit from them.