General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMeasles is deadly. Vaccines are not. We need our laws to reflect this reality
By WENDY ORENT FEB 10, 2019 | 3:05 AM
Take my recent conversation with Becky Johnson, a left-of-center, 65-year-old mother of three in California, who attributes her chronic health issues, including migraines and the skin condition vitiligo, to the vaccines she received as a child.
When she and her husband had children, I felt bullied by our pediatrician to vaccinate, she said. But she resisted.
The recent measles outbreak doesnt bother Johnson. Im not afraid of measles, she says.
What she and many of her fellow anti-vaxxers in California fear is state-enforced vaccination because of SB 277, a California bill jointly written by state Sens. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), a pediatrician, and Benjamin Allen (D-Santa Monica). The bill, signed into law in 2015, abolished personal choice exemptions from vaccination requirements for children in public schools, although medical exemptions remain. The law has so far withstood court challenges.
I see that as medical fascism, says Johnson. Im the one who is going to make medical decisions for my kids.
And then theres Philippe Lecoin of Georgia, a Ted Cruz supporter with a degree in engineering. He might not agree with Johnson on a range of political issues, but shares her belief that vaccines are being pushed by greedy pharmaceutical companies and physicians. He told me he trusts in natural immunity; his daughter was vaccinated until age 3, but not after that because of his evolving beliefs.
Its strange that Lecoin and Johnson fear vaccines, but not measles. The disease is both deadly and the most contagious virus known. When measles-infected foreign sailors landed on Fiji in 1875, they sparked an epidemic that killed a third of the population the same mortality rate as the plague Black Death in 14th century Europe.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-orent-measles-vaccinations-20190210-story.html
beachbum bob
(10,437 posts)care if they endanger other people's kids.
Ferrets are Cool
(21,106 posts)And are they being applied?
hlthe2b
(102,278 posts)and THEN there may well be civil litigation available to victims to hold irresponsible parents (i.e., those who refused to vaccinate their child sans any MEDICAL contraindication) accountable.
Just sayin... it is likely coming...
KitSileya
(4,035 posts)and there's no medical indication the child should not receive vaccinations, the parents should lose medical power of attorney for their child, and the state should step in and have the kids vaccinated.
With one close family member who cannot get vaccinations because of a severe allergic reaction to their first immunization, and another who is being treated for cancer and who regularly ends up in hospital because their immune system goes down to zero, as in non-existent, I have lost any and all respect for parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids as a personal choice. Vaccines should be free and offered everywhere, and mandatory.