We can debate the morality of the use of vaccines all day, but something that's been widely ignored is the morality of the creation of vaccines. In the U.S., for example, the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur manufactures most of the vaccines distributed in the United States, receives a large portion of the $1.61 billion dollars generated in revenue in the U.S. alone -- part of a $4 billion dollar market worldwide.
Is it moral for us to allow for-profit organizations to create vaccines which governments distribute to large quantities of the population? If a cure for the flu were developed, why would there be any motive whatsoever for a company like Sanofi Pasteur to release it? Wouldn't it be better for them to continue profiting off the potential illnesses of the world?
Monopolization of Vaccination is one of the extremely few cases where it's almost inevitable. I would like to echo the claims made in this discussion—vaccination is not a matter of improvement for better quality and competition, but rather a matter of change and modification when viruses adapt to current surroundings and allow mutated, stronger strains to grow and reproduce. What becomes unequivocal then, is that massive companies that produce vaccines must not cut through any of the ethical lines. Understanding its monopolization, companies must make vaccines affordable to all groups of people that need it, and must have their effects proven and publicized to vaxxers. An incident like the one that Jay said above is an example of a monopolized vaccination company that dismissed all ethical boundaries. Profit should be the last of the last concern or even priority, as vaccination is ultimately for a humanitarian cause.
The situation gets murky when interest and money are tangled with public health. Once people's greed consumes their conscientiousness, they start seeing a potential black hole in the health care system and make money off people's need for vaccines. For instance, such an event has aroused a national outburst in the past Summer (2018). It was discovered that one of the greatest vaccine suppliers in Northern China, Changchun Biotech Inc., has been producing large quantities of unqualified DPT vaccines. The company used expired ingredients or lied about the vaccine's production date, and it created an upheaval throughout the entire country. After a thorough investigation, it was reported that at least 113,000 doses of rabies vaccines and 253,338 doses of DPT vaccines were found to be defective. The corporation was driven by greed, and this horrific incident clearly illustrates the corrupted humanity when people value money as the most important thing. In summary, I think it is okay for health companies to profit. However, public health should still be the top priority, and those companies should not divert their attention thinking about how much money they are making.
I think when it comes down to vaccines, what really matters is that they save lives and prevent disease, no matter whether for-profit organizations profit from those ventures. In fact, gaining profit from innovating new and more effective vaccines incentivizes companies and organizations to create better vaccines, at least for the profit. Vaccines are one of the most important health care innovations ever invented; thanks to the creation of vaccines, smallpox, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, and other diseases that used to be so common are incredibly rare today.