America's New Vaccine Wars

Bioethicist Mark Navin and policy scholar Katie Attwell explore the evolution of American childhood vaccination policy through the prism of political history, contemporary parenthood, and diverse governance strategies. Americas New Vaccine Wars focuses on the origins and the outcomes of Americas recent efforts to eliminate nonmedical exemptions to school and daycare vaccine mandates. These policy developments have increased immunization rates, but they have also ignitedpolarizing, nationwide debates about parents rights, democracy, and the authority of the government to use coercion to promote health. This book explores the meaning of these battles for parents, doctors, the politics of public health, and the future of bioethics.Navin and Attwell ground the book with a case study of Californias efforts to exclude unvaccinated children from school and daycare following the Disneyland Measles Outbreak of 2014. The authors use original interviews with key policymakers and activists to explain the development and execution of Californias new vaccination policies, and they connect Californias immunization policy developments to similar efforts across America and in other countries. Americas New Vaccine Wars is a story about how political and community actors fought to exclude unvaccinated children from school in the face of significant opposition and failing public health institutions. The book unpacks the meaning and impact of these efforts for broader debates about Americas immunization governance, including conflicts about coercive public health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.