Libertarian presidential candidate and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson is newly in favor of mandatory vaccination, he says, after learning more about the science of immunization.
In 2011, Johnson tweeted “No to mandatory vaccines,” but asked in an interview with VPR Wednesday about his position, Johnson said he now believes that vaccinations should be mandatory.
“You know, since I’ve said that … I’ve come to find out that without mandatory vaccines, the vaccines that would in fact be issued would not be effective,” he said. “So … it’s dependent that you have mandatory vaccines so that every child is immune. Otherwise, not all children will be immune even though they receive a vaccine.”
Johnson said he believes vaccination policy should be handled at the local level.
“In my opinion, this is a local issue
. If it ends up to be a federal issue, I would come down on the side of science and I would probably require that vaccine,” he said.
Johnson said his position changed recently.
“It’s an evolution actually just in the last few months, just in the last month or so,” he said. “I was under the belief that … ‘Why require a vaccine? If I don’t want my child to have a vaccine and you want yours to, let yours have the vaccine and they’ll be immune.’ Well, it turns out that that’s not the case, and it may sound terribly uninformed on my part, but I didn’t realize that.”
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