Should vaccinations be compulsory?

Published: May 9, 2019, 7:30 p.m.

With measles infections on the rise in the UK, should vaccinations be made compulsory?

Measles is an \u2018entirely preventable\u2019 disease, says the UN \u2013 and for a while the UK and other developed countries had prevented it.

But during the first three months of this year, the World Health Organisation reported 112,000 cases of measles. Over the same time last year it was 28,000

In the UK we once again have outbreaks of measles and a falling vaccination rate.

David Aaronovitch asks how much this matters and whether, as the Health Secretary has said recently, we should rule nothing out, even including compulsory vaccination.

CONTRIBUTORS

Gareth Williams, Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the University of Bristol and author of Angel of Death: The Story of Smallpox

Professor Heidi Larson, director of The Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Hugh Whittall, director of The Nuffield Council on Bioethics

Dr Stephen John, Hatton Lecturer in the Philosophy of Public Health at the University of Cambridge

Producers: Richard Fenton-Smith & Serena Tarling\nResearcher: Kirsteen Knight\nEditor: Jasper Corbett