Module B2: Keeping Healthy

The module explores how new drugs are developed, including the stages of testing for safety and efficiency. In the contexts of vaccination policy and the study of clinical trials, candidates explore ideas of correlation and cause, and how peer review by the scientific community strengthens the reliability of scientific claims. They also consider particular ethical issues arising in modern medicine, for example, the right of individual choice versus social policy, illustrated through vaccination policy.

Issues for citizens: Why are we encouraged to have vaccinations?

Questions that science may help to answer: What are vaccines, and how do they work?

Module B2.2: What are Vaccines and how do they work?

4. Understand that vaccination can never be completely safe, since individuals have varying degrees of side-effects from a vaccine;

5. Understand why, to prevent epidemics of infectious diseases, it is necessary to vaccinate a high percentage of a population;

6. Understand that there is a conflict between a person's right to decide about vaccination for themselves or their children, and what is of benefit to society as a whole;

9. With respect to vaccination policy can:

• say clearly what the issue is;
• summarise different views that may be held;
• distinguish what can be done (technical feasibility) from what should be done (values);
• explain why different courses of action may be taken in different social and economic contexts;
• identify, and develop, arguments based on the ideas that:
  • the right decision is the one which leads to the best outcome for the majority of people involved;
  • certain actions are never justified because they are unnatural or wrong.