Regulation of collective vaccination

From 2001 to 2015 I was member of the Vaccinations committee of the Health Council of the Netherlands. Roland Pierik, my successor as philosopher in the committee, and I are now working on a book on the ethics and regulation of collective vaccination. In this book we explore what the responsibility of government is for vaccination and whether there are ethical limits to voluntary participation.

This topic is of particular interest given currently declining immunisation rates in many countries and concurrent rise of outbreaks of measles, whooping cough and other infectious diseases. Roland Pierik and I have been contributing to the public and political debate on immunisation in the Netherlands throughout the past few years. See our various contributions at the Public Debate section of this website.

In 2024, finally our book was published: Inducing Immunity? Justifying Immunization Policies in Times of Vaccine Hesitancy (MITpress, 2024).