8 ms·

Relativism is destroying our society. There are things that are not up for debate. They usually involve facts and science. Inoculation is one of them. I think

Relativism is destroying our society. There are things that are not up for debate. They usually involve facts and science. Inoculation is one of them. I think vaccines should be mandatory for all children. If you don't vaccine your kid, CPS should take the kid away after multiple warnings, because you are an unfit parent and a danger to our community otherwise.

ghshephard 16y ago
There is relatively good science that demonstrates, in a well vaccinated population, that you are endangering your child's life by having them vaccinated for some diseases. Vaccinations aren't without risk (though, clearly, autism is not one of those risks)- and, as long as all the other parents get their children vaccinated, your child can take a pass on some vaccines and come out ahead from a mortality perspective. With that said, from a _societal_ perspective, it's imperative that parent's put their child's life at this (minor) risk so that the overall mortality rate goes down. Don't be so quick to judge the parent as "unfit", though your comment about being a danger to the community does, in fact, hold. And, perhaps we should be a little less quick to suggest the solution to other parents not doing what we want them to do is to have "CPS take the kids away after multiple warnings." There is a cost to freedom, and sometimes it means that we have to let parents makes the call on these grey areas, even if it offends our own personal rational models of how the world should work. Vaccines are clearly not as cut and dry as something like a life-saving blood transfusion or surgery for appendicitis, in which I would suggest that there is an imperative to over-rule the parent should they decline treatment of their children.
- fat_tony 16y ago
  I'm new here, but thank your for teaching me a better viewpoint.
- Retric 16y ago
  Unfortunately, we don't currently bring up the parents of children who die from lack of vaccination on negligent homicide charges in large part because of your line of reasoning. Parents are in no way equipped to make informed decisions about vaccination, and giving them the option is a horribly bad idea. Globally there is a huge unvaccinated population http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1272/is_2729_134/ai_n26912296/ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1272/is_2729_134/ai_n... all it takes is one passenger to bring something back and suddenly you end up with a large number of dead children. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129198775&ps=cprs http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1291987... PS: Because it's often local doctors that accept this Anti-Vaccination bullshit small locations often lose their herd immunity. It's one thing to randomly replace 1/100,000 vaccinations with an inert substance it's another for 10+% of the children in a small area to avoid vaccination.
  - ghshephard 16y ago
    I think it's important that you realize I agree with you on the fundamental issues of whether we need to have 100% coverage on vaccinations - that is absolutely my belief, and those who don't think that should be the case, should go visit the third world where there isn't 100% coverage, and see how childhood diseases ravage the population. In the first world, we've gotten uses to a standard of living, sometimes not realizing how it came about (Clean Water, Vaccinations, Public Health Systems) - we take it for granted. I'm just hoping that while you see how we agree on that topic, that we perhaps should have a little bit more consideration or respect for the role of a parent, in determining what is done to their children, from the perspective of vaccination (and by extension, education, religion). I'd rather we ensure that all parents vaccinate their children through enlightened understanding of why it's important, rather than because some third-party believes they aren't equipped to make informed decisions about vaccination and doesn't give them the choice. (Excepting, of course, unusual circumstances where you have a pandemic underway and there is immediate and significant threat to the populace from unvaccinated individuals - in that scenario, Civil Health overrides personal choice and you get vaccinated (adults and children) whether you like it or not) - but that's a rare scenario, usually the one at risk from a missing vaccination is the one missing the vaccination.
  - Opie_taylor 16y ago
    If vaccination really works, then it's only the unvaccinated that will be affected.
    - Retric 16y ago
      People are not vaccinated at birth, so even with 100% effective vaccination really young children are still at risk. However, the reality is vaccinations while effective are not perfect so there is are range protection. AKA, Some poeple while at lower risk of infection can still get sick with prolonged exposure. PS: A fire resistant couch save lives dispute the fact they can still burn in a hot enough fire, the benefit is focused on small ignition sources aka a spark or cigarette not a kiln.
      - 16y ago
- luigi 16y ago
  Can you please post a link to the "good science" that demonstrates your claim?
  - MoreMoschops 16y ago
    Here's a CDC page on it: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00046738.htm http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00046738.htm As you'll see, it discusses various studies and provides links to papers examining various cases in which people have had an adverse side-effect to a vaccine. Please, everyone, no comments about how that may be true but what about this and that and the other; the poster asked for a link, here it is.
  - stonemetal 16y ago
    It is fairly well known that the flu vaccine uses eggs in its production, and that people allergic to eggs shouldn't get a flu vaccine. Is it really so far fetched to think that something similar might happen with the vaccines given to children?
- dhimes 16y ago
  When things evolve along a bit and the pseudo-science hysteria dies down, we may be faced with the following question: Who gets to decide which children shall be saved because the rest of the herd is vaccinated, and which shall be forced to risk vaccination for the good of the herd? Perhaps we should do it by lottery, like when we decide who must go to fight in wars and who gets to stay home.
- JoeAltmaier 16y ago
  That is probably true, but also a selfish viewpoint. There's something called "enlightened self-interest" where you do something risky to yourself to help the community. If vaccination were only about your own health, then your conclusion is valid. But its also about those you will infect should you get the disease. I understand a parent making selfish decisions about their child - in fact that's a defining characteristic of a parent. Just understand that its not always morally defensible. Or scientifically. Or logically.
- davidw 16y ago
  > in a well vaccinated population, that you are endangering your child's life by having them vaccinated for some diseases. I wonder what those risks are like compared to, say, driving your child around town on a somewhat regular basis.
- nlogn 16y ago
  "as long as all the other parents get their children vaccinated, your child can take a pass on some vaccines and come out ahead from a mortality perspective." This is true, of course, but who decides which kids should get the benefit of reduced risk? If it's not ok for everyone to skip out on vaccines, it should be ok for noone (unless we can figure out ahead of time which kids are vulnerable).
- logjam 16y ago
  To be taken seriously, you are going to have to provide a citation to support your claim that "there is relatively good science that....you are endangering your child's life by having them vaccinated for some diseases." If you are talking about events with a probability of getting hit by lightning, then please say that happens to be the level of "danger" you are talking about. (The risk for an adverse allergic event like anaphylaxis after a hep B injection...regardless of whether the anaphylaxis is causally linked to the vaccination or not...is about the same risk as being struck by lightning, 1:700,000). Someone posted a link below to a CDC summary of adverse effects from vaccinations. They describe other rare events which are orders of magnitude less likely than your child being killed in traffic on the way to school in the morning. If you want to argue that sending children to school endangers their lives, you can certainly find statistical evidence for children being killed on school buses...and by lightning strikes on the way to school, choking on hot dogs, etc. In every instance I am aware of, the risks of a serious adverse event from a vaccine is orders of magnitude lower than these other dangers to which parents routinely (and unthinkingly) expose their children. Please tell us exactly at what level this "good science" you've found somewhere <b>quantifies</b> this "endangering of" our children's lives, and the causal link(s) of this mortality to the vaccine. At that point, we can compare them to lightning strikes etc, and most importantly, compare them against the well known and demonstrably associated common mortality and morbidity that has accompanied failure to vaccinate. There may be much longer-term benefits to vaccination. Children vaccinated against polio and hep B, for example, appear to have a lower incidence leukemia (ALL), as well as all cancers combined. http://www.pediatricsupersite.com/view.aspx?rid=80272 http://www.pediatricsupersite.com/view.aspx?rid=80272
- anthonyb 16y ago
  Yep, that's the kicker - as long as everyone else gets their kids vaccinated. Does the "endangering your child's life" part count the risk of a major epidemic due to other parents making the same decision? If everyone else is refusing to vaccinate, that's exactly when you should vaccinate, because your child is much more likely to catch chickenpox or the measles with a whole bunch of unvaccinated kids running around.
_delirium 16y ago
Whether vaccines do or don't have certain effects is definitely science, and not a matter of subjective opinion, so I agree on that. But the proposal "vaccines should be mandatory for all children" depends on non-scientific views as well, such as your views on when state compulsion is justifiable. I'm not sure if that's "relativism", but it seems hard to escape having philosophical argument somewhere in there.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
nika 16y ago
The rejection of science, in favor of an ideological agenda, is literally destroying our economy, and may well destroy our society. One of the key enablers of this is that people like you-- who soundly reject science-- believe they have "facts and science" on their side. The idea that "things...are not up for debate" is the most profoundly anti-science (and anti-intellectual) thing that can be said. I have yet to meet a pro-vaccination person who was willing to talk about the actual science. Please, also realize when you say "mandatory" you are saying that you endorse the use of violence on people who-- for whatever reasons-- choose to make a different choice about the healthcare of their children. It is one thing to incarcerate, or kill if they resist, someone who has committed a crime like murder or rape. It is quite another for you to endorse the use of violence for the "Crime" of not being politically correct. Your ideology posits that whatever you deem to be "good for society" gives you the justification of using violence to enforce. First I'd like to point out that there hasn't been a tyrant known to the face of the earth who didn't use such rationalizations. But secondly, it is worth noting that implicit in this claim is the presumption that everyone is your slave, and everyone's life is to be lived according to your (or your creed's) edicts. That is the opposite of liberty, and contrary to the entire history of common law, and specifically the US constitution which recognizes people as having inalienable rights. One of these rights recognized in the declaration of independence is the pursuit of "life". Quite literally, that means the right and power to make their own health care choices, based on their best understanding of the state of knowledge at the time. In my experience, those who are wary of vaccines are pretty well aware of the state of the science on the issue, while those are pro-vaccines are generally after an ideological agenda of mandatory vaccination, and only invoke the word "science" to put forth the idea that their opposition rejects it. Well, I see thru your claim. You reject science, the scientific method and the entirety of intellectualism. You are being dogmatic. Edit: Everyone who votes me down without responding to my issues, proves my claim. I made an argument here that substantially contributes to the discussion. You vote me down and you vote to make HN a popularity contest where posts are ranked by adherence to The Party Line, rather than contributing to discussion. By doing so you just prove that the claim about being influenced by "facts and science" is false and the reality is political ideology over all.
- lmkg 16y ago
michaeldhopkins 16y ago
I would never trust you to make decisions for my children. That is essentially what you are proposing, since you do not say "CPS should decide whether parents may keep their children" but rather say that CPS should follow your policy. I consider people like you a menace to a free and healthy society.
dedward 16y ago
Things should always be up for debate.... because sometimes we get it WRONG. New science replaces old. Personally? I think it's not up for debate. The exact age and type of vaccine used might be if there are various options and risks to weigh, and as a parent I might want to choose those, but vaccinating our children against incurable diseases they are likely to be exposed to isn't up for debate in my mind. Why, as a society, would we not want to wipe out said disease? Now, I think of my own vaccination history (hypothetically). When I was a kid, they didn't vaccinate us against Hep-B. They didn't. It wasn't part of the program. Then a few decades later when I had a Hep-B scare and read up on it, I said, WTF, how on earth are we not vaccinating our society against one of the most virulent diseases on the planet? (The answer would be cost, and chances of someone from my country contracting it short of travel to other locations or IV drug use) We stopped vaccinating against smallpox before I was born. IF smallpox shows up again, that will change. Handling this a society requires trusting your health organisations - and that's where the problem comes in - people these days don't trust the established authorities. A single unvaccinated child in a vaccinated society is not a risk to the entire society. A small number of unvaccinated children spread around a vaccinated society is not a risk to the entire society. At a certain number, i imagine, things suddenly go from "safe" to "deadly" with no middle ground.... so this is the type of problem that can probably be dealt with through education rather than force.
- nika 16y ago
  Thank you for a fair response. I think the salient point of yours to address is contained in this phrase: "Why, as a society, would we not want to wipe out said disease?" When you say "as a society", you're talking about the collective- the whole society. This is the intrinsic basis of collectivism. Inherent in this phrase, and the ideology that it implies, is the assumption that the needs of society are more important than the needs of the individual. (the opposite view is individualism.) Later you endorsed the use of education to persuade rather than force to, er, force, and so I am not making a moral criticism of your position. What I am arguing is that those who are constantly attacking people who question the dangers of vaccines are doing so to futher an agenda of collectivism. I don't really think they care about vaccination at all. They have bought into an ideology that believes the "needs of society" (inevitably represented by a small number of elites, it seems) outweigh the needs of the individual. For sake of argument, I can grant that a society that forced vaccination would be healthier in terms of these vaccindated diseases than one that did not. I posit that not only is this not a morally superior position (because some number of kids will be killed by the vaccinations, who wouldn't otherwise) even if more kids are saved on balance because there is a very distinct moral difference between taking a risk and being compelled. If a parent takes a risk and their child dies that is unfortunate. But this is the nature of life. If a parent is compelled to vaccinate the child and that child dies, then compelling them is a moral crime, it is quite literally murder. While some parents in the first case might be found negligent, in the second case it is always murder. Secondly, and more importantly, if you allow the ideology of collectivism to gain power (and the horses are out of the barn on that one in the USA, both parties are collectivist) then the negative effects of centralized control, inherent in the nature of economics, will wreck massive havoc on society. Example: our current economic crisis caused by the central bank and the clinton era laws forcing lending to people who couldn't afford to repay because otherwise was (racist- a previous witch hunt similar to this one.) The reason people don't trust the established authorities is because they are not authorities. Remember, these people were, only a few years ago, trying to sell us on a fabricated swine-flu epidemic. They hyped that to the stratosphere when there really was very little (scientific) risk. Clearly these "health organizations" are operating based on political desire, not on a scientific basis. This is one of the aspects of centralizing power under collectivism. Decentralization, that is, individualism where people make their own choices, actually works well, and results in better over all choices being made. The reason most people vaccinate their children is because they are given the choice and analyzed the science. Forcing those whose kids are high risk to get vaccinated, will also discredit those health organizations and may well end up in much lower ultimate rates of vaccination (depending on how draconian they are.)
iamelgringo 16y ago
I think vaccines should be mandatory for all children. If you don't vaccine your kid, CPS should take the kid away after multiple warnings, because you are an unfit parent and a danger to our community otherwise They are in some places, and that is what happens unless you object on moral or religious grounds. I worked at a pediatric clinic, and on several occasions, we called CPS on parents that did not bring in their children for routine physicals and vaccinations. Also, it's very difficult to get a child into the school system unless the child has been vaccinated. /I moonlight as ER nurse, and I've done contract work at Chicago Children's, University of Chicago Children's, Fresno Children's and a satellite of Boston Children's.

ghshephard 16y ago

There is relatively good science that demonstrates, in a well vaccinated population, that you are endangering your child's life by having them vaccinated for some diseases. Vaccinations aren't without risk (though, clearly, autism is not one of those risks)- and, as long as all the other parents get their children vaccinated, your child can take a pass on some vaccines and come out ahead from a mortality perspective. With that said, from a _societal_ perspective, it's imperative that parent's put their child's life at this (minor) risk so that the overall mortality rate goes down. Don't be so quick to judge the parent as "unfit", though your comment about being a danger to the community does, in fact, hold. And, perhaps we should be a little less quick to suggest the solution to other parents not doing what we want them to do is to have "CPS take the kids away after multiple warnings." There is a cost to freedom, and sometimes it means that we have to let parents makes the call on these grey areas, even if it offends our own personal rational models of how the world should work. Vaccines are clearly not as cut and dry as something like a life-saving blood transfusion or surgery for appendicitis, in which I would suggest that there is an imperative to over-rule the parent should they decline treatment of their children.

fat_tony 16y ago
I'm new here, but thank your for teaching me a better viewpoint.
Retric 16y ago
Unfortunately, we don't currently bring up the parents of children who die from lack of vaccination on negligent homicide charges in large part because of your line of reasoning. Parents are in no way equipped to make informed decisions about vaccination, and giving them the option is a horribly bad idea. Globally there is a huge unvaccinated population http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1272/is_2729_134/ai_n26912296/ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1272/is_2729_134/ai_n... all it takes is one passenger to bring something back and suddenly you end up with a large number of dead children. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129198775&ps=cprs http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1291987... PS: Because it's often local doctors that accept this Anti-Vaccination bullshit small locations often lose their herd immunity. It's one thing to randomly replace 1/100,000 vaccinations with an inert substance it's another for 10+% of the children in a small area to avoid vaccination.
- ghshephard 16y ago
  I think it's important that you realize I agree with you on the fundamental issues of whether we need to have 100% coverage on vaccinations - that is absolutely my belief, and those who don't think that should be the case, should go visit the third world where there isn't 100% coverage, and see how childhood diseases ravage the population. In the first world, we've gotten uses to a standard of living, sometimes not realizing how it came about (Clean Water, Vaccinations, Public Health Systems) - we take it for granted. I'm just hoping that while you see how we agree on that topic, that we perhaps should have a little bit more consideration or respect for the role of a parent, in determining what is done to their children, from the perspective of vaccination (and by extension, education, religion). I'd rather we ensure that all parents vaccinate their children through enlightened understanding of why it's important, rather than because some third-party believes they aren't equipped to make informed decisions about vaccination and doesn't give them the choice. (Excepting, of course, unusual circumstances where you have a pandemic underway and there is immediate and significant threat to the populace from unvaccinated individuals - in that scenario, Civil Health overrides personal choice and you get vaccinated (adults and children) whether you like it or not) - but that's a rare scenario, usually the one at risk from a missing vaccination is the one missing the vaccination.
- Opie_taylor 16y ago
  If vaccination really works, then it's only the unvaccinated that will be affected.
  - Retric 16y ago
    People are not vaccinated at birth, so even with 100% effective vaccination really young children are still at risk. However, the reality is vaccinations while effective are not perfect so there is are range protection. AKA, Some poeple while at lower risk of infection can still get sick with prolonged exposure. PS: A fire resistant couch save lives dispute the fact they can still burn in a hot enough fire, the benefit is focused on small ignition sources aka a spark or cigarette not a kiln.
    - 16y ago
luigi 16y ago
Can you please post a link to the "good science" that demonstrates your claim?
- MoreMoschops 16y ago
  Here's a CDC page on it: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00046738.htm http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00046738.htm As you'll see, it discusses various studies and provides links to papers examining various cases in which people have had an adverse side-effect to a vaccine. Please, everyone, no comments about how that may be true but what about this and that and the other; the poster asked for a link, here it is.
- stonemetal 16y ago
  It is fairly well known that the flu vaccine uses eggs in its production, and that people allergic to eggs shouldn't get a flu vaccine. Is it really so far fetched to think that something similar might happen with the vaccines given to children?
dhimes 16y ago
When things evolve along a bit and the pseudo-science hysteria dies down, we may be faced with the following question: Who gets to decide which children shall be saved because the rest of the herd is vaccinated, and which shall be forced to risk vaccination for the good of the herd? Perhaps we should do it by lottery, like when we decide who must go to fight in wars and who gets to stay home.
JoeAltmaier 16y ago
That is probably true, but also a selfish viewpoint. There's something called "enlightened self-interest" where you do something risky to yourself to help the community. If vaccination were only about your own health, then your conclusion is valid. But its also about those you will infect should you get the disease. I understand a parent making selfish decisions about their child - in fact that's a defining characteristic of a parent. Just understand that its not always morally defensible. Or scientifically. Or logically.
davidw 16y ago
> in a well vaccinated population, that you are endangering your child's life by having them vaccinated for some diseases. I wonder what those risks are like compared to, say, driving your child around town on a somewhat regular basis.
nlogn 16y ago
"as long as all the other parents get their children vaccinated, your child can take a pass on some vaccines and come out ahead from a mortality perspective." This is true, of course, but who decides which kids should get the benefit of reduced risk? If it's not ok for everyone to skip out on vaccines, it should be ok for noone (unless we can figure out ahead of time which kids are vulnerable).
logjam 16y ago
To be taken seriously, you are going to have to provide a citation to support your claim that "there is relatively good science that....you are endangering your child's life by having them vaccinated for some diseases." If you are talking about events with a probability of getting hit by lightning, then please say that happens to be the level of "danger" you are talking about. (The risk for an adverse allergic event like anaphylaxis after a hep B injection...regardless of whether the anaphylaxis is causally linked to the vaccination or not...is about the same risk as being struck by lightning, 1:700,000). Someone posted a link below to a CDC summary of adverse effects from vaccinations. They describe other rare events which are orders of magnitude less likely than your child being killed in traffic on the way to school in the morning. If you want to argue that sending children to school endangers their lives, you can certainly find statistical evidence for children being killed on school buses...and by lightning strikes on the way to school, choking on hot dogs, etc. In every instance I am aware of, the risks of a serious adverse event from a vaccine is orders of magnitude lower than these other dangers to which parents routinely (and unthinkingly) expose their children. Please tell us exactly at what level this "good science" you've found somewhere <b>quantifies</b> this "endangering of" our children's lives, and the causal link(s) of this mortality to the vaccine. At that point, we can compare them to lightning strikes etc, and most importantly, compare them against the well known and demonstrably associated common mortality and morbidity that has accompanied failure to vaccinate. There may be much longer-term benefits to vaccination. Children vaccinated against polio and hep B, for example, appear to have a lower incidence leukemia (ALL), as well as all cancers combined. http://www.pediatricsupersite.com/view.aspx?rid=80272 http://www.pediatricsupersite.com/view.aspx?rid=80272
anthonyb 16y ago
Yep, that's the kicker - as long as everyone else gets their kids vaccinated. Does the "endangering your child's life" part count the risk of a major epidemic due to other parents making the same decision? If everyone else is refusing to vaccinate, that's exactly when you should vaccinate, because your child is much more likely to catch chickenpox or the measles with a whole bunch of unvaccinated kids running around.

_delirium 16y ago

Whether vaccines do or don't have certain effects is definitely science, and not a matter of subjective opinion, so I agree on that. But the proposal "vaccines should be mandatory for all children" depends on non-scientific views as well, such as your views on when state compulsion is justifiable. I'm not sure if that's "relativism", but it seems hard to escape having philosophical argument somewhere in there.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

nika 16y ago

The rejection of science, in favor of an ideological agenda, is literally destroying our economy, and may well destroy our society. One of the key enablers of this is that people like you-- who soundly reject science-- believe they have "facts and science" on their side. The idea that "things...are not up for debate" is the most profoundly anti-science (and anti-intellectual) thing that can be said. I have yet to meet a pro-vaccination person who was willing to talk about the actual science. Please, also realize when you say "mandatory" you are saying that you endorse the use of violence on people who-- for whatever reasons-- choose to make a different choice about the healthcare of their children. It is one thing to incarcerate, or kill if they resist, someone who has committed a crime like murder or rape. It is quite another for you to endorse the use of violence for the "Crime" of not being politically correct. Your ideology posits that whatever you deem to be "good for society" gives you the justification of using violence to enforce. First I'd like to point out that there hasn't been a tyrant known to the face of the earth who didn't use such rationalizations. But secondly, it is worth noting that implicit in this claim is the presumption that everyone is your slave, and everyone's life is to be lived according to your (or your creed's) edicts. That is the opposite of liberty, and contrary to the entire history of common law, and specifically the US constitution which recognizes people as having inalienable rights. One of these rights recognized in the declaration of independence is the pursuit of "life". Quite literally, that means the right and power to make their own health care choices, based on their best understanding of the state of knowledge at the time. In my experience, those who are wary of vaccines are pretty well aware of the state of the science on the issue, while those are pro-vaccines are generally after an ideological agenda of mandatory vaccination, and only invoke the word "science" to put forth the idea that their opposition rejects it. Well, I see thru your claim. You reject science, the scientific method and the entirety of intellectualism. You are being dogmatic. Edit: Everyone who votes me down without responding to my issues, proves my claim. I made an argument here that substantially contributes to the discussion. You vote me down and you vote to make HN a popularity contest where posts are ranked by adherence to The Party Line, rather than contributing to discussion. By doing so you just prove that the claim about being influenced by "facts and science" is false and the reality is political ideology over all.

lmkg 16y ago

michaeldhopkins 16y ago

I would never trust you to make decisions for my children. That is essentially what you are proposing, since you do not say "CPS should decide whether parents may keep their children" but rather say that CPS should follow your policy. I consider people like you a menace to a free and healthy society.

dedward 16y ago

Things should always be up for debate.... because sometimes we get it WRONG. New science replaces old. Personally? I think it's not up for debate. The exact age and type of vaccine used might be if there are various options and risks to weigh, and as a parent I might want to choose those, but vaccinating our children against incurable diseases they are likely to be exposed to isn't up for debate in my mind. Why, as a society, would we not want to wipe out said disease? Now, I think of my own vaccination history (hypothetically). When I was a kid, they didn't vaccinate us against Hep-B. They didn't. It wasn't part of the program. Then a few decades later when I had a Hep-B scare and read up on it, I said, WTF, how on earth are we not vaccinating our society against one of the most virulent diseases on the planet? (The answer would be cost, and chances of someone from my country contracting it short of travel to other locations or IV drug use) We stopped vaccinating against smallpox before I was born. IF smallpox shows up again, that will change. Handling this a society requires trusting your health organisations - and that's where the problem comes in - people these days don't trust the established authorities. A single unvaccinated child in a vaccinated society is not a risk to the entire society. A small number of unvaccinated children spread around a vaccinated society is not a risk to the entire society. At a certain number, i imagine, things suddenly go from "safe" to "deadly" with no middle ground.... so this is the type of problem that can probably be dealt with through education rather than force.

nika 16y ago
Thank you for a fair response. I think the salient point of yours to address is contained in this phrase: "Why, as a society, would we not want to wipe out said disease?" When you say "as a society", you're talking about the collective- the whole society. This is the intrinsic basis of collectivism. Inherent in this phrase, and the ideology that it implies, is the assumption that the needs of society are more important than the needs of the individual. (the opposite view is individualism.) Later you endorsed the use of education to persuade rather than force to, er, force, and so I am not making a moral criticism of your position. What I am arguing is that those who are constantly attacking people who question the dangers of vaccines are doing so to futher an agenda of collectivism. I don't really think they care about vaccination at all. They have bought into an ideology that believes the "needs of society" (inevitably represented by a small number of elites, it seems) outweigh the needs of the individual. For sake of argument, I can grant that a society that forced vaccination would be healthier in terms of these vaccindated diseases than one that did not. I posit that not only is this not a morally superior position (because some number of kids will be killed by the vaccinations, who wouldn't otherwise) even if more kids are saved on balance because there is a very distinct moral difference between taking a risk and being compelled. If a parent takes a risk and their child dies that is unfortunate. But this is the nature of life. If a parent is compelled to vaccinate the child and that child dies, then compelling them is a moral crime, it is quite literally murder. While some parents in the first case might be found negligent, in the second case it is always murder. Secondly, and more importantly, if you allow the ideology of collectivism to gain power (and the horses are out of the barn on that one in the USA, both parties are collectivist) then the negative effects of centralized control, inherent in the nature of economics, will wreck massive havoc on society. Example: our current economic crisis caused by the central bank and the clinton era laws forcing lending to people who couldn't afford to repay because otherwise was (racist- a previous witch hunt similar to this one.) The reason people don't trust the established authorities is because they are not authorities. Remember, these people were, only a few years ago, trying to sell us on a fabricated swine-flu epidemic. They hyped that to the stratosphere when there really was very little (scientific) risk. Clearly these "health organizations" are operating based on political desire, not on a scientific basis. This is one of the aspects of centralizing power under collectivism. Decentralization, that is, individualism where people make their own choices, actually works well, and results in better over all choices being made. The reason most people vaccinate their children is because they are given the choice and analyzed the science. Forcing those whose kids are high risk to get vaccinated, will also discredit those health organizations and may well end up in much lower ultimate rates of vaccination (depending on how draconian they are.)

iamelgringo 16y ago

I think vaccines should be mandatory for all children. If you don't vaccine your kid, CPS should take the kid away after multiple warnings, because you are an unfit parent and a danger to our community otherwise They are in some places, and that is what happens unless you object on moral or religious grounds. I worked at a pediatric clinic, and on several occasions, we called CPS on parents that did not bring in their children for routine physicals and vaccinations. Also, it's very difficult to get a child into the school system unless the child has been vaccinated. /I moonlight as ER nurse, and I've done contract work at Chicago Children's, University of Chicago Children's, Fresno Children's and a satellite of Boston Children's.