Persuasive Essay Topic Proposal

For the persuasive essay, I’d like to look into the topic of vaccination mandates and regulation, but more specifically how the power to mandate and regulate vaccines should be in the hands of the federal government, rather than in the states hands, as is the status quo. The topic of vaccinations has a wide range of facets, and there are plenty of debates over whether or not vaccines should be mandated or not; but I’d like to focus on how these mandates should be implemented.

A big idea going around in relation to the vaccination debate is herd immunity, which says that there is a fraction of the population that must be vaccinated to protect those who are unable to be vaccinated. How is this possible if each state has its own laws regarding which vaccines are required, when, and for whom? Giving this power to the federal government would set a standard across the country, so we can hope to protect the individual as well as the public.