Medexpress: What legal tools do we have to enforce mandatory vaccination of children?
Katarzyna Czyzewska: First of all, we have an obligation to vaccinate - those that are in the mandatory vaccination calendar. On the other hand, the enforcement of this obligation is at a fairly low level in Poland. This is due to the fact that the sanctions that are possible to impose are quite poorly enforced. These sanctions are primarily a fine for coercion. This consists in the fact that if a person does not submit to an obligation under the law, which only he can perform, that is, for example, does not submit to vaccination or does not have his child vaccinated, then the sanitary inspector can impose a fine on him. These fines can be repeated until the obligation is fulfilled. In theory, the fines can be very high - a single fine can be up to 10 thousand zlotys and several fines can add up to 50 thousand zlotys. This is the case in theory. In practice, it is quite different. Fines are imposed quite rarely and they are low, of the order of a few hundred zlotys. It seems that from the perspective of, for example, a parent who does not vaccinate his child, this is an inconvenience that can be endured in order to be able to persist in his conviction or his doubts.
Medexpress: So basically, the Polish state has the tools to enforce this, but does not use them effectively.
Katarzyna Czyzewska: It does not use effectively, or it does not use effectively enough. On the other hand, there are other solutions that do not apply in Poland, but which are successfully used in other countries. In a number of European countries, for example, there are laws that prohibit the admission of unvaccinated children to state kindergartens and nurseries. And this is, it seems, a very effective tool, because a parent who does not want to vaccinate his or her child is confronted with the fact that he or she has to provide care and education on an individual basis. Interestingly, this type of solution is legal, as the European Court of Human Rights recently ruled, stating that such sanctions can be applied in the legal orders of European countries and do not violate human rights.
Medexpress: What about fake news, which appears in the media and public space quite a lot? How do you fight them effectively?
Katarzyna Czyzewska: This is an extremely difficult question, just as it is extremely difficult to combat fake news. The problem is that the Internet, including social media, acts as a de facto loudspeaker pole, that is, a place where various people can express their views, for which, in fact, only those who publish those views are responsible. So it's hard to use the tools of the press law, for example, and effectively demand a correction from a publisher who is not a publisher, but is just that - a speaker pole. What's more, many of the social media outlets are entities run by entrepreneurs from countries outside Poland, such as the United States, where different regulations apply. De facto, the tools we have at our disposal stem from the rules and regulations of all these social media entities, for example, Facebook's rules and regulations, where you can report violations to the Facebook owner, and after a number of reports or after reports that are serious enough, there is a chance that the post or its author will be blocked. But these are ad hoc solutions to straighten things out in small steps, but they certainly don't constitute a dam against the whole mass of false information that is on the Internet.
Medexpress: That is, we must protect ourselves and be vigilant against any disinformation.
Katarzyna Czyzewska: We have to be vigilant and watch what we open and what we click on, at what content we express liking a given post, because then there is an algorithm at work, which sends us further false information. And, above all, we need to seek information from verified sources, from doctors, from general practitioners, but also from doctors who are active online.
