REFORM: Today the vaccination requirement applies only to three vaccines for children …
Immunization visits are rarely much fun for children. And now it will not be three but eleven vaccines they should have. In any case this is the will of the new health minister, Agnès Buzyn . She is said to be thinking “to make it mandatory for a limited time, eleven vaccines for children”, in an interview in Paris on Friday .
For a limited period of five to ten years
Today only three childhood vaccines are mandatory: diphtheria, tetanus and polio, and eight others, including whooping cough, hepatitis B and measles are only recommended, said the minister. “This dual system is a French exception. This poses a real public health problem,” she says, recalling that “measles reappeared” and has “killed 10 children since 2008.” The coverage rate is 75% while it should be 95%. We are considering mandating eleven vaccines (polio, tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B, Haemophilus influenzae bacteria, pneumococcus, meningococcus C) for a limited time, which could be five to ten years”, said the minister.
The major pharmaceutical companies winners?
“When we talk about mandatory vaccination that triggered controversy,” warns in the daily newspaper Professor Alain Fischer, president of the citizen consultation on vaccinations. “Unfortunately there are no other solutions to fight against the resurgence of childhood diseases.” For Jacques Bessin, president of the National Union of Health civic associations (UNACS), “It would be a heresy,” he told him in the newspaper.
According to him, “Vaccines have neurological side effects, which are poorly measured and sometimes irreversible.” Faced with this hostility, the minister replied that “to do teaching work.” Faced with critics arguing that this decision would be heavily loaded in favor of the pharmaceutical laboratories, Agnès Buzyn “refuses it (him) to glue that label.” Adding, “Yes, manufacturers are making money but you can not reduce the issue of vaccination to the interest of the laboratories.”
