Many lives might be saved if inoculations against cow flu were routinely administered to all people in areas where the disease is detected. However, since there is a small possibility that a person will die as a result of the inoculations, we cannot permi

As vaccinations come under closer scrutiny, arguments regarding their usage creep up more and more. One such given argument states that routine inoculations against cow flu should not be administered under the threat of death due to the vaccination, even if the vaccinations may have a tendency to save many lives. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the argument, it must be determined how likely someone is to die from an inoculation versus their likeliness to die from the disease itself, as well as the reasons for the risk behind the inoculations. Additionally, the argument should consider whether the benefits outweigh the risks for inoculating people in regions where the disease is not detected, compared to regions where it is.

While the argument states that the risk of death due to inoculation is not worth routine inoculation, it fails to compare these risks to the potential benefits of saving lives from cow flu. It is possible that the number of lives saved by routine inoculation against cow flu would drastically outweight the number of deaths incurred inadvertantly due to the inoculation. In such a situation, conventional wisdom suggests to save more lives through routinely inonculating, even at the expense of a few lives, few and far between, lost due to the inoculations. Such a plan has been followed numerously in the past for eradicating other diseases, most notably smallpox. While smallpox used to be one of the most feared and deadliest maladies, it was virtually eradicated by the 20th century due to routine administration of inoculation. Even if a number of early patients died due to an unexpected response to the vaccine, this number (in the low hundreds at most) could not even begin to match the tens of thousands who had died, or who would have died in the future, had not the vaccine been routinely administered in the U.S. Hence, while it is important to guarantee that the vaccine is as safe as possible in order to reduce deaths due to inoculations, if the threat of death from inoculation is much lower than the threat of death from the disease, then the argument falls short and the vaccines should be routinely administered. If, on the other hand, the administration of vaccines is still in a very experimental stage where the possibility of death due to the vaccine actually outweighs death due to the disease, then the argument is given credence and it makes sense, at least for the moment, to prohibit routine administration of the inoculations.

Additionally, further research should be conducted on the exact nature of the death due to the vaccinations, as this may also play a role in evaluating the argument. Since there is a small possibility that someone will die from being inoculated, it is implied that some patients or experimental test subjects (including mice) in the past may have died or come close to death by use of the vaccine. However, we cannot assume that the risk is due to the inoculation formula itself, as the previous instances of death could have something to do with the circumstances that they were carried out under, such as a contaminated needle. In such a situation, the argument should be revised to advocate for a strong regulation of inoculations to prevent against endangering situations such as these, while the actually inoculation formula itself should still be advocated for routine usage. If, on the other hand, the instances of death were in fact due to the chemicals in the inoculation formula, it would lend credence to the argument in that routine administration of the vaccine should not be embraced too strongly. Even then, the costs would still have to be weighed with the benefits, as one should compare the potential lives saved through vaccinating with the potential lives lost due to dangerous reactions to the vaccine.

Finally, an additional point that the argument could consider is the potential of vaccinating only in areas where the disease is detected. If the disease is found in a small area of only a hundred square miles, in a vast country the size of the U.S., then this would lend support for the argument: routine administration of the vaccine to everyone in the country is a poor solution when in fact the disease is narrowly confined to a small geographic area. However, if the disease is pervasive to a very large portion of the country, then it may make sense to routinely vaccinate all members of the country if the benefits indeed outweigh the cost, as discussed earlier.

Altogether, the argument makes critical assumptions where additional evidence may either advance or detract from the stated opinion. A further comparison of the costs of inoculating versus the benefits of inoculating is in order, in order to ascertain whether the conclusion to not vaccinate is logically founded. Furthermore, additional research should be spent on the exact reasons for the dangers of vaccinating, in order to determine whether it is the vaccine itself that is dangerous, as proposed by the argument, or a distinctly different factor that can be addressed separately apart from prohibiting vaccinations. The true geographic extent of the disease should also be considered to determine whether the vaccinations should be routine throughout the country or only in localized areas. Answering these questions is paramount to human health.