The Economics Vaccine

The Economics Vaccine by Kelley Manbeck

For decades it has been an obvious choice to vaccinate children, it gives them immunity against diseases and stops them from spreading it to others. There are diseases that have almost been eliminated from our society due to successful vaccines making us more resistant. As shown in the chart, there is a clear link between vaccines and people not getting sick. Vaccines have been proven to work in the majority of patients. However, its a new trend to not vaccinate your kids to protect them from side effects that have been rumored to come from the vaccines. While its a huge debate over the social effects of the unvaccinated people in society, there is no debate between economists. Not vaccinating your children is indisputably bad for the economy due to the ripple effect that comes from many children acquiring all kinds of  diseases that we have grown less resistant to due to their longtime absence, which was originally caused by the introduction of vaccines.

With less demand for the Vaccines, as much as 10% of children going unvaccinated in some areas, the economy already suffers just based on physical nominal amount of money spent on vaccines. However, lack of vaccinated people cause the “Ripple effect.” Because the trend of anti vaccination happens in pockets and is not spread out across places where most people are vaccinated, these pockets get hit hard when an outbreak of disease happens. The ripple effect explains how an outbreak of measles among unvaccinated kids can lead to schools closing down, causing more people to relocate or take off work to accommodate their kids, which in turn causes a decrease in the labor. This is like a miniature recession happening to the area, all because a few kids missed their immunizations.

In what (http://www.cnbc.com/id/102421130#) calls Anti-Vaccine Elitism, people with higher incomes are the most likely culprits for being against vaccines. A theory they pose is because this group of people, the more educated and more entitled, are the ones who have other medical opinions because they feel they know something on the subject. However, these more educated few usually are not experts on diseases and how to cure them the way developers of vaccines are. this loosely fits to the idea of specialization, meaning people would be much more efficient if they stuck to what they were good at doing. The parents are not the vaccine doctor, even if they feel they are all around smarter than the many professions that go into vaccine development combined.

Vaccines do a lot more for the economy than affect kids schools. “The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says that among children born during 1994-2013, vaccinations prevented 322m illnesses, 21m hospitalisations and 730,000 deaths.” (http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2015/02/politics-and-vaccinations?zid=318&ah=ac379c09c1c3fb67e0e8fd1964d5247f).  Because so many people are not dying and getting sick, the supply of labor increases not only because of the people not dying but also allows the previous doctors who would have to help these sick people now get the chance to specialize and work in other areas, as they would not need to “Clean up” after the choices of the anti-Vaxxers, choices that made the kids sick.  The Washington Post wrote an article on the subject, and looked at benifits of health on overall society.

“The CDC researchers also weighed the benefits of the vaccinations ("savings in direct and indirect costs that accrued from averting illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths") against costs ("program costs included vaccine, administration, vaccine adverse events, and parent travel and work time lost"). In 2009 alone, the researchers determined, each $1 spent on vaccines and their administration yielded $10 in benefits to society.” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/05/05/how-the-anti-vaccine-movement-is-endangering-lives/). This is an application of the idea of the Spending Multiplier, which states that as more money in the economy is spent, it will be multiplied so even more money than what was spent will be available to the next spenders of the money. If people aren't spending huge amounts of money to not die of measles, they can spend it other places that might prove better for the economy.

How could people be encouraged to vaccinate their kids? The government already supports vaccination, and shows this by subsidizing the manufacturers enough money to continue to produce. This helps to encourage consumers to use the product because a subsidy makes the final product cheaper. The government has issued laws stating that in order for a child to be in public school, they must have all the mandatory vaccinations. With all the push towards vaccinations, there is not much more that can be done economically that would persuade people to vaccinate. While “natural selection” is probably not the right answer when it comes to dealing with the Anti-Vaxxers, there really are not that many other options.

Works Cited:

"The Case of the 'anti-vaccine Elitism'" CNBC. N.p., 12 Feb. 2015. Web. 09 Mar. 2015.

"Clinical Infectious Diseases." Financing Immunizations in the United States. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2015.

"How Anti-vaxxers Could Weaken the Seattle-area Economy - Puget Sound Business Journal." Puget Sound Business Journal. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2015.

"How the Anti-vaccine Movement Is Endangering Lives." Washington Post. The Washington Post, n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2015.

"Tracing the Origins of the Anti-vaccine Movement." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2015.

"What Experts Say, and What People Hear." The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 05 Feb. 2015. Web. 09 Mar. 2015.