“Who am I…to Tell You What You Should Put in Your Body?” Harvard’s Flu Vaccine Mandate in Question 

On Sept. 22, Harvard students received an email titled “Immunization holds start Sep. 26” from the Harvard Registrar’s office, notifying University affiliates that students who have not received the seasonal influenza vaccine will face holds on their academic accounts. While the vaccine requirement has been standard practice since 2021, this year, such a policy comes amidst political controversy over changing vaccine safety protocols and recommendations. 

Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo recently vowed to rid Florida of its vaccine mandates completely. While this move received much backlash, including from President Donald Trump, and ultimately failed, it demonstrated how much the discourse has shifted to the question of bodily autonomy. 

“People have a right to make their own decisions,” declared Ladapo in a September speech. “Who am I, as a man standing here now, to tell you what you should put in your body?”

“The main reason why debates arise on the ethics of vaccination is because of the ‘paradox of public health,’” Harvard College Professor of Ethics and Population Health Daniel Wikler said in an interview with the Harvard Independent. Effective public health often goes unnoticed, since its goal is to prevent disease. “If public health becomes too effective, the threat goes away. And then people are saying, ‘Why are we putting up all this stuff?’”

“To say it’s a question of civil liberties doesn’t mean that vaccine is illegitimate to pressure people to be vaccinated, but it is a question of civil liberties for sure,” Wilker continued. “The problem with vaccines is that you’re injecting a farm substance into somebody who is healthy.” However, if an institution has a strong enough reason, then it justifies this action. “We do require seat belt laws, for example…and it’s by requiring them that we’ve saved untold numbers of lives.” 

“Just look at the number of people who would be dead today or maimed for life if we hadn’t required this of each person. It’s a public health tool you use with overwhelming success, and to fight against that is a little hard to understand,” Wilker explained.

With the winter season approaching, dialogue has shifted from general vaccine mandates to the influenza vaccine. Currently, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommends that persons over the age of six months receive an influenza vaccine every year, which protects against three strains of the virus. 

Harvard’s vaccine policy adopts the framework of federal suggestions, which are formalized on several levels. The Department of Health and Human Services oversees both the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control—and thus plays a central role in health regulations. The FDA must approve vaccines before they are legally administered. Once a vaccine is approved, the CDC, guided by the ACIP, issues recommendations on how the vaccines should be used. Everything is ultimately overseen by the HHS secretary, who has the power to overrule decisions and recommendations made by the FDA commissioners and the CDC director. 

This year, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has cast doubts about vaccine safety, voicing opposition to youth vaccine requirements. In June, Kennedy fired the entire 17-member Advisory Panel on Immunization Practices and chose new members, many of whom had a personal history of being critical of vaccines. 

It is within this climate that discussions at Harvard turn to a more immediate question of how undergraduates perceive the College’s flu shot mandate and growing tensions on the balance of personal choice and general public health. 

Students must meet Harvard’s and Massachusetts’s immunization requirements to register for courses. In December 2022, Harvard sent a University-wide announcement reminding students to comply with vaccination requirements and sign up for appointments offered for the annual flu shot as well as the bivalent Omicron-specific COVID-19 booster shot. Harvard had chosen to mandate flu vaccines and open flu clinics in 2021 due to a potential flu season amidst the already threatened healthcare system under COVID-19. 

There are some benefits to this mandate, according to recent studies and College students. Since the effects of the flu are often underestimated, people are less likely to receive the vaccine; only 50.5% of the American population was vaccinated in 2022-2023. Last year, Harvard undergraduate Jupiter MacAvoy ’29 was hospitalized with a strain of Influenza B, unaware of the potential risk and thus unvaccinated. While recovering, MacAvoy saw countless others similarly incapacitated by the flu.

“All of those people hadn’t received their flu vaccinations, probably out of personal negligence [like me],” MacAvoy said. “So I really support the administration’s policy on getting people vaccinated, just because I think it’s a very low-risk vaccine…and even then, the severity of those health complications is probably much lower risk than that of actually getting the flu.”

While Harvard broadly requires students to receive the vaccine, in certain circumstances, students are still able to petition for religious exemptions. Therefore, even if individuals feel that their liberties are being infringed, they may opt out. “I think this is enough of a public concern,” Wren O’Looney ’29 said. “[But] if you’re willing, if you’re that passionate about not getting vaccinated, you can.”

Institutions must balance creating exemptions for people with strong beliefs and putting enough pressure that a community reaches herd immunity, Wilker explained. 

“All these policies insisting that every last person get vaccinated is almost always a bad idea,” he said. “The problem is when you establish a pressure valve, and you say it’s a religious exemption, and then there are people who say the gate is open. ‘Yahoo! Let’s all go.’” 

Apart from the annual flu vaccine, Harvard has no further vaccine mandates for students who already fulfill the immunization requirements, with the COVID-19 requirement recently removed, according to the Harvard University Department of Health Services website. However, they continue following data and recommendations on the state and federal levels, and the lack of compliance with any further requirements will result in an immediate registration hold. 

In the end, even though the flu vaccine is important for individual safety, it is necessary to create an environment where students and professors alike feel safe. “If you’ve decided that the flu shot is not necessary for you, because you’re probably not going to die from it, you’re probably right,” Wilker said. “But I might, so if you want me to show up and teach you, damn it, get shot.”

Julia Bouchut ’29 (julia_bouchut@college.harvard.edu) is afraid of needles. Abby Li ’29 (abbyli@college.harvard.edu) holds her hand.