News Archive
Professor Silverman Comments on Bills to Block Mandatory Worker Vaccines
02/25/2021
Lawmakers in at least 23 states, including Indiana, have proposed banning employers from requiring workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19 or other infectious diseases, according to a news story for the Pew Charitable Trust.
Although vaccines protect individuals and communities from disease outbreaks, online disinformation has turbocharged some people’s concerns about vaccine safety and potential mandates in recent years. Some anti-vaccine activists have spread false information about the science and public policy surrounding immunizations, the website story said.
Public health experts say that millions of COVID-19 shots have been given with few ill effects. More than 43 million people have received at least one vaccine dose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We’re seeing very few significant side effects, and the significant side effects that have arisen—it’s like somewhere between three and five cases out of every million shots,” said Ross Silverman, a professor at Indiana University’s Fairbanks School of Public Health and McKinney School of Law.
The best way to keep workplaces safe from COVID-19 and other diseases is to encourage workers to get vaccinated and make it easy for them to do so, such as by hosting vaccine clinics, said Silverman of Indiana University. He said employers should also think holistically about safety, such as by providing protective equipment.
Vaccination mandates, he said, risk a backlash. “That’s really where I think most of the conversations should be leaning, is how can you make workplaces safe as a system,” he said, “rather than trying to create a requirement for vaccination.”
Professor Silverman is Professor Public Health and Law at IU McKinney and Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI. His research interests include legal, ethical and policy issues in public health and medicine, professional school admissions, interdisciplinary curriculum development, medical humanities, human rights, and patient safety.
