Polio is back in Malaysia, and that’s a problem that carries incredibly heavy consequences for the population at large. Many parents may fear for the safety of their children, and are worried about the potential of them contracting diseases that are easily avoidable as a result of this sudden trend of anti-vaccination among certain parental organisations.
Source: Malay Mail
Well, in a report by Malay Mail, you can apparently sue anti-vaxxing parents if their unvaccinated kids wind up getting your own kids sick.
As worries continue to mount over the potential spreading of diseases as a result of parents not vaccinating their kids when they should be doing (especially polio, after three decades of it being eradicated), local lawyers now have suggested that parents may sue anti-vaxxers under the tort of negligence.
“Pursuant to the general principles of the tort of negligence, an individual has a duty of care not to put others in harm’s way, or in this case put other people’s children in harm’s way,” said lawyer Sachpreetraj Singh to the English daily.
In Malaysian courts, as vaccinations are concerned, Sachpreetraj says that it is important to determine whether parents have the duty of care to ensure that their children are actually vaccinated in the first place.
Source: Straits Times
So once the court has come to the agreement that the anti-vaxxer parent does have the responsibility to vaccinate their children but have failed to do so, thus endangering other children, then a case can be made for a breach of duty of care.
Source: FMT
Once all of these elements have been properly fulfilled, a parent whose child contracted a disease from an unvaccinated child can indeed sue the anti-vaxxer parent for damages, under the tort of negligence.
Another lawyer, Ramesh Sivakumar, also added that “If a parent fails to disclose that their child is unvaccinated and at risk of contracting or transmitting a vaccine-preventable disease, and also fails to take steps to avoid putting others at risk of infection, they ought to be held to have breached a duty to those who are infected by the unvaccinated child,”
Source: Al-Jazeera
But of course, it isn’t that straightforward or easy. In order to sue the parent of an unvaccinated child for causing your own child to contract a disease, you must first be able to prove without a shred of doubt, that your child contracted the disease from the unvaccinated child.
“The causation element, for example. You must definitively prove it was a specific unvaccinated child who caused your child to get sick. If there is a possibility that many kids are unvaccinated in this case, then it becomes difficult to prove.
“This may then result in the damage that you have suffered being considered to be too remote — meaning that the damage was not a foreseeable one arising from that specific parents’ decision to not vaccinate,” said Advance Tertiary College’s academic director and senior lecturer Daniel Abishegam.
Source: KP Kesihatan
So, technically, yes you can actually sue an anti-vaxxer if their unvaccinated kids wind up infecting yours. You just need to prove that they did, in a really long-winded case of ‘who dunnit’.
But to avoid all of this legal trouble to begin with, please do keep your children properly vaccinated, for their own well-being as well as that of other children around them. Health is wealth.
Also read: Warning: First Polio Case Confirmed in Malaysia After Nearly 30 Years
