The greater good and the protection of the immunocompromised is often cited as the primary rationale for mandatory vaccination. It is currently being used as motivation to remove NJ’s Religious Exemption. This idea is untenable. The first issue with this statement is that a number of vaccines do not even claim to protect the greater good/immunocompromised via herd immunity for a variety of reason listed below. Hence the unvaccinated pose no greater risk than the vaccinated to the public for the following vaccines/infections, according to the CDC:

• Tetanus: (https://www.cdc.gov/tetanus/about/index.html) The CDC states“tetanus is different from other vaccine-preventable diseases because it does not spread from person to person.”

• Hepatitis B: (https://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/hbv/hbvfaq.htm#ref15) The Hep B virus is not spread in the community setting as the CDC states “HBV is not spread through food or water, sharing eating utensils, breastfeeding, hugging, kissing, hand holding, coughing, or sneezing.”  Furthermore the Department of Health and Human Services has acknowledged they have no records of “any case(s) of transmission of Hepatitis B in an elementary, middle, or high school setting.”
• The CDC further states that groups at risk for HBV infection are “infants born to infected mothers, sex partners of infected persons, men who have sex with men, injection-drug users, household contacts or sexual partners of known persons with chronic HBV infection, health care and public safety workers at risk for occupational exposure to blood or blood-contaminated body fluids, and hemodialysis patients.”
• For this reason students with the actual Hep B virus are allowed in schools as they are no risk to the student population.

• Pertussis: (https://www.cdc.gov/pertussis/about/faqs.html) According to the CDC “acellular pertussis vaccines may not prevent colonization (carrying the bacteria in your body without getting sick) or spread of the bacteria” hence the vaccinated can carry and spread pertussis without displaying any symptoms.
• The CDC goes further to state that “children who haven’t received DTaP vaccines … are not the driving force behind the large scale outbreaks or epidemics” and this was the case during the 2019 California outbreaks (https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-ln-whooping-cough-vaccine-20190316-story.html)
• The CDC states “Public health experts cannot rely on herd immunity to protect people from pertussis since: Pertussis spreads so easily, vaccine protection decreases over time , acellular pertussis vaccines may not prevent colonization (carrying the bacteria in your body without getting sick) or spread of the bacteria.” ( https://www.cdc.gov/pertussis/about/faqs.html )
• Finally, the CDC states “the epidemiology of pertussis has changed in recent years, with an increasing burden of disease among fully-vaccinated children and adolescents.” (https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/pert.html)

•  Diphtheria: (https://www.cdc.gov/diphtheria/clinicians.html) Similar to pertussis, the CDC states “circulation of the bacteria appears to continue in some settings, even in populations with more than 80% childhood vaccination rates. An asymptomatic carrier state can exist even among immune individuals.”   

• Polio (https://www.cdc.gov/cpr/polioviruscontainment/diseaseandvirus.htm) “Inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) protects people against all three types of poliovirus. IPV does not contain live virus, so people who receive this vaccine do not shed the virus and cannot infect others, and the vaccine cannot cause disease. IPV does not stop transmission of the virus.”

• Hib: (https://www.cdc.gov/diphtheria/clinicians.html) The CDC states “vaccines are available that can help prevent Haemophilus influenzae type b or Hib disease. These vaccines do not provide protection against other types of Haemophilus influenzae disease.” Unfortunately, CDC states “now, nontypeable H. influenzae causes the majority of invasive H. influenzae disease among all age groups in the United States.” (https://www.cdc.gov/hi-disease/clinicians.html)

Read Part II here.