Should child vaccinations for preventable diseases be made mandatory?
A parent or guardian faces 18 years of decision making about a wide range of issues on behalf of their child. Many of those decisions can have broad ramifications and since accurate assessment of risk is challenging for the vast majority of people we need a framework to support our decision making. We rely on experts gathering, analysing and presenting the conclusions from vast amounts of data to provide guidance on topics ranging from education to nutrition. But, how do we decide who is an expert and how do we react to the variety of ways guidance is proposed or imposed? For example, why does the law in the UK mandate your child must wear a seatbelt but only recommends they must be vaccinated?
