Risk, Racism and the HPV Vaccine

Thanks to columnist Courtland Milloy for his courageous defense of the informed-consent ethic, which includes allowing parents to make informed, voluntary vaccination decisions for their children ["Force Is Not the Only Way to Administer a Vaccine," Metro, Jan 24]. Mr. Milloy makes the point that if the governed are to respect and have confidence in those who govern them, state officials must treat citizens with respect rather than using coercion and intimidation to implement health policies.

In addition to the human papillomavirus vaccine, many vaccines are being developed for diseases that depart from the smallpox and polio model and are not transmissible in public settings.

Vaccines have benefits as well as risks that are higher for some people because of genetic and other biological differences, as has been demonstrated by the more than $1 billion awarded to vaccine casualties under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.

Mr. Milloy has reminded us that the people of New Hampshire embrace a liberal informed-consent policy for vaccines that emphasizes education rather than prosecution because they are serious about "Live Free or Die," their state motto, "while too many of us are content to live and die as slaves."

His warning also challenges us to think about an important moral question: Should citizens be injected against their will with biological agents that can injure and kill for what the state has defined as the common good?

How we answer that question may well determine how we define freedom in America in the 21st century.

BARBARA LOE FISHER

President

National Vaccine Information Center