The League, a far-right party led by the current Italian deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, proposed an end to mandatory vaccinations for children, as a measure to reduce hospital waiting lists.
The proposal was presented by senator Claudio Borghi as an amendment to a bill with urgent measures to reduce waiting lists in Italian healthcare and which is currently being worked on at parliamentary level.
In Italy, a 2017 decree by the then Minister of Health, the progressive Beatrice Lorenzin, required vaccination against 12 diseases, including tetanus, chickenpox, measles and diphtheria, for children aged 0 to 16 and unaccompanied foreign minors.
These vaccinations are required for admission to nurseries and kindergartens (0-6 years), but not for primary education and other higher education degrees, although young people are offered the possibility to be vaccinated.
The League’s amendment proposes its change, going from an obligation to a recommendation, by arguing that it goes against the Constitution, which, in its article 32, determines that ” No one can be forced to undergo a certain health treatment except by virtue of law”.
Senator Borghi, faced with the controversy generated by the idea, explained this Sunday through social media that the proposal is not “anti-vaccine”, as it does not intend to end vaccines, but only to abolish the obligation.
“There is a vast scientific literature according to which mandatory vaccination leads to vaccine refusal and generates the opposite effect of high coverage. Let’s imagine a parent who has to give their child 12 vaccines at the same time. It is possible that he or she feels rejection”, he said.
And he defended himself: “Whoever defines this idea of mine as anti-scientific madness has a small problem: in Europe, only us and France have this obligation. The others don’t, and they do it better.”
The idea was also received coldly by the League’s government partners: the spokesman for the senators of the conservative Forza Italia party, Maurizio Gasparri, appealed to “not give in to anti-vaccine suggestions”, because “vaccines are or useful”.
From the Brothers of Italy, from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the Minister of Agriculture, Francesco Lollobrigida, avoided commenting on the matter when questioned by journalists and asked them to ask “at least” his colleague responsible for Health .
On the part of the opposition, the Democratic Party (center-left) denounced what it considers to be an attempt to “dramatically retreat from prevention to follow anti-scientific theories”, in the words of the president of the commission of Health of the Senate, Ylenia Zambito.
The leader of More Europe, Riccardo Magi, stressed that this idea also goes against the most vulnerable, because, in his opinion, it would affect group immunity.
