I believe that not vaccinating your child is a form of child abuse and should be criminalized.

[trumad]

After reading this piece http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/01/31/us/vaccine-critics-turn-defensive-over-measles.html?_r= in today's NYT I absolutely think that allowing your kids to suffer because of some quack bullshit new age philosophy is equal to child abuse and should be treated as child abuse.

There's a mention in the piece of a 16 year old girl wanting to go back to school and asking her Mom if she could get the vaccination.... the mother says absolutely not and she would not care if the kid missed the whole semester.

Child Abuse is a crime... Why isn't this?

[hobbit709]

1. Anti-science BS is encouraged by TPTB.

[panfluteman]

34. It's not science so much as it's politics...

There is a lot of sound scientific evidence against the health and safety of vaccines and their toxic ingredients. It's just that, politically, the vaccine manufacturers of Big Pharma, who have our government and legislators in their deep pockets, don't want to take a serious look at the evidence, and to put the health and safety of vaccine recipients above their own greed. But there is a middle ground. Simple blood serum immune globulin screening tests for those who have negative immunological reactions to Thimerosal, or any other of the toxic, controversial ingredients in vaccines can be done, and those who test positive for such reactions should be given the option to not take vaccines. But no, the all consuming greed of Big Pharma doesn't want to relinquish even one potential sale. I thought that progressives like those on DU were into puttting people ahead of profits. Communicable diseases come and go, and there are other ways to treat them besides vaccinations, but neurodevelopmental disorders like autism and Asperger's - they're with you for life.

[zappaman]

47. So much horseshit in your post, you could fill the Super Bowl.

[iandhr]

48. "Progressive" anti-vaxers

Are worse then wacko Christian "faith healers" who don't believe in medicine at all. Those people are just stupid. Many anti vexers had an education and should know better.

[uppityperson]

49. Big Pharma makes a HUGE amount from medicines to treat sick kids, much less from vaccines.

http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/flu-vaccine-myth-big-pharma-profits/

Flu vaccine sales are small portion of worldwide pharmaceutical company revenues, less than 0.3%.
The Big Three flu vaccine manufacturers make less than 4.5% of their total corporate revenues with the vaccine.
Other pharmaceutical products have up to 10% greater gross profits than vaccines. The better strategic choice for Big Pharma companies is in other drugs.
If Big Pharma stopped making vaccines, they would probably make more money at a higher profit percentage.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/504780_3

Bringing a new vaccine to market entails a sequence of high fixed investments in R&D, manufacturing capacity, and batch costs. Although failure rates in clinical trials may be lower for vaccines than for drugs, trial size may be larger to demonstrate absence of very rare events. For example, trials for a rotavirus vaccine have involved 70,000 patients. A vaccine Biologics License Application (BLA) includes review of both clinical data and the manufacturing plant. A full-scale production facility costs millions of dollars.[8] Fixed costs related to quality assurance, administration, depreciation, and other elements are estimated to account for 60 percent of total production costs.[9] In addition, the batch process required for vaccines entails fixed costs per batch. A batch may take six to eighteen months to produce, depending on the type of vaccine. Thus, production is characterized by very high fixed, sunk costs and low marginal cost per unit within each batch. Changing to a technology with larger scale could take years, including new approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Similarly, modifying the production process, if regulatory standards change, is costly and time-consuming. Consequently, innovation costs may be worth incurring only if costs can be recouped over several years of sales.

This structure of high fixed costs and low marginal costs, which reflects both the regulatory requirements and the technology of vaccine production, explains some of the key problems of vaccine supply. First, high regulatory costs of market approval, including many that are country-specific, plausibly contribute to the reluctance of some foreign manufacturers to launch some of their vaccines in the United States and to the absence of generic entrants.[10] Second, required production improvements entail high costs of retrofitting an old plant and have contributed to disruptions of supply and revenue loss for manufacturers. Costly product and plant upgrade requirements appear to have contributed to a number of vaccine exits, including the requirements to remove thimerosal in 1989 and plant-specific problems of the flu vaccine manufacturers Parkedale and Wyeth. The 1972 regulations, which required that vaccines be effective as well as safe, led to the exit of several products that had not demonstrated efficacy. Third, increasing production quickly from a given plant is limited by the batch process; in the longer term, expanding output beyond the capacity of existing plant requires building a new plant, which is extremely costly and takes several years. Consequently, one supplier cannot easily ramp up supply to fill gaps left when another experiences problems or exits the market.

High fixed costs of regulation and production are not barriers to entry if these costs can, with reasonable certainty, be recouped over large volume or high margins, or both. But the interaction of high fixed costs with relatively small and concentrated demand is likely to result in a market equilibrium that supports only one or two suppliers in most markets at any point in time. At the limit, if there are multiple firms and each faces constant or decreasing per unit costs, models of independent (noncooperative) pricing imply that price will fall to marginal cost. The intuition is simple: Having incurred the high fixed costs and having limited possibility of storing output for future use, each firm would rationally be willing to supply at marginal cost, since any excess of price above marginal cost contributes to covering the fixed costs. If such pricing is anticipated, all but one firm will eventually exit and new entry will not occur, except by a superior product. This outcome is more likely the higher the fixed costs relative to market size, the more concentrated the market demand, and the more limited the potential for storage.

[uppityperson]

50. "negative immunological reactions to Thimerosal"? WTF does that mean? There are thimerosal free bac

available and except for influenza always given to kids in USA.

"Communicable diseases come and go, and there are other ways to treat them besides vaccinations"? No, there aren't. There are ways to treat the symptoms but still too many die or suffer health issues for the rest of their lives. My hearing loss from measles? It's with me for life.

"neurodevelopmental disorders like autism and Asperger's - they're with you for life"? There have been no valid scientific studies showing any causation of these disorders by vaccines. An ax injury of chopping off your toe, that's with you for life also.

[Aristus]

53. What is it? Opposite Day?

There is no scientific evidence against the health and safety of vaccinations. The one major report that anti-vaxxers pin their delusions to has been discredited, and the researcher lost his license.

It is unethical in the extreme to knowingly pass along dangerous medical misinformation.

[Kablooie]

91. If you have negative reactions to vaccine ingredients you should be offered an alternative.

If there are ingredients that are known to cause adverse reactions from a segment of society I agree there should be checks before administering a vaccine but this shouldn't allow a parent to deny vaccines from children at their whim.

Autism is not always life long also.
Many children are diagnosed as being within the autistic spectrum but grow out of it as they mature.
My son is one of them.

[bobclark86]

96. Vaccines are cheap. Treatment is where the big bucks are...

And then there's this"
"Communicable diseases come and go, and there are other ways to treat them besides vaccinations, but neurodevelopmental disorders like autism and Asperger's - they're with you for life."

Because smallpox, measles, polio and tetanus are new things

Treatment for smallpox: Give vaccine within 4 days of exposure to lessen effect. Wait out.

Treatment for measles: Symptom management. Wait out.

Treatment for polio: Hyperbaric chambers and respirators. Wait out. Grab a wheelchair.

Treatment for hepatitis B: Get a new liver.

As far as Asperger's, this debacle was based on one discredited study. They guy who wrote it lost his medical license 5 years ago. It's dead.

[NCTraveler]

95. TPTB promote immunization at every turn.

Are you saying TPTB are lying about the importance of vaccinations?

"Anti-science BS is encouraged by TPTB."

By any way you view TPTB they support immunization.

Edit: You were taking a poke at anti-vaxxers. My bad for not getting the "humor."

[chrisa]

2. There's an annoying smugness and exceptionalism in the anti-vaccine crowd.

"My son is healthier than all of the other kids." Yeah, for now. Part of the reason for that is that other kids are vaccinated against different diseases, so they don't spread as much. I wonder if she knows why her son has no chance of getting polio?

There's no excuse for such ignorance.

[Chemisse]

3. I disagree. I was afraid this would come up.

People should do the right thing because it is the right thing, not because a law tells them to do it.

And if they don't? Then oh well. We're not talking ebola here. The chances of a child suffering permanent injury or death from measles or chicken pox are pretty slim. I would certainly choose to vaccinate if I was a parent of young children now, because the possibility of a bad outcome does exist, and it is higher in probability than the risks of side effects from the vaccines.

But for those who don't, be patient with them. This is a fad, of sorts. And it will pass. The best way to tighten down and facilitate the passing of this trend, is for schools - and perhaps places like Disney World - to refuse to accept children who are unvaccinated. Sure they can homeschool, but that is not as appealing as it may sound. Most parents (it seems, unless they are doing this for religious reasons) peter out on homeschooling after a while. And then they will comply.

Legislating parenting can be a slippery slope. One day it's vaccines, the next it may be social workers coming to take your kids away for letting them go sliding in the winter!

[HappyMe]

7. I have a big problem with the anti-vaxers.

People with messed up immune systems due to chemo really shouldn't have to 'be patient'. No we aren't talking ebola, but the anti-vaxers ignorance doesn't involve only their own kids and other children. I am also wondering if people over the age of 50 should now consider a booster shot for MMR, TB and polio because of this. These people are selfish, woo asshats.

[jwirr]

24. When it comes to the results of not vaccinating there is another very serious one that most seem

to have forgotten. In the early 50s there was no vaccine for measles. When a pregnant woman got measles her child was very often born with a developmental disability and both parent and child suffered throughout that child's life.

What I see of anti-vaxera is how very selfish they are. And yes, I have a friend who is a Jehovah's Witness and they do it because of religious reasons. I think they should rethink their reasons because their church also teaches that you are to help others. In this case your cannot have it both ways.

[YarnAddict]

58. I guess I thought

cancer patients who had not been vaccinated received their vaccines before starting treatment. I know that I got a pneumovax before my splenectomy for Hodgkins.

[kcr]

12. Well, the chances of your child suffering injury or death are slim

But these diseasing were eradicated, meaning no one was suffering them. I'm not sure that charges of child abuse are the answer, but it's the attitude that it's no big deal is the reason anti-vaxxers get the traction they do.

[DebJ]

14. A one in twenty chance of pneumonia or encephalitis doesn't sound like good odds to me.

I wouldn't take a medicine with a one in 20 odds side effect as per the below. Those are really high odds.
And then, there is the issue that although YOUR child might not be the 1 in 20, your brother or sister's child might,
or your neighbors, or even someone else's child in the grocery store or school...someone whose child was simply
too young to get vaccinated, or who has an immunity issue.


http://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/complications.html

Severe Complications

Some people may suffer from severe complications, such as pneumonia (infection of the lungs) and encephalitis (swelling of the brain). They may need to be hospitalized and could die.

As many as one out of every 20 children with measles gets pneumonia, the most common cause of death from measles in young children.
About one child out of every 1,000 who get measles will develop encephalitis (swelling of the brain) that can lead to convulsions and can leave the child deaf or mentally retarded.
For every 1,000 children who get measles, one or two will die from it.

Measles may cause pregnant woman to give birth prematurely, or have a low-birth-weight baby.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs286/en/

Measles

Fact sheet N°286
Updated November 2014
Key facts

Measles is one of the leading causes of death among young children even though a safe and cost-effective vaccine is available.
In 2013, there were 145 700 measles deaths globally – about 400 deaths every day or 16 deaths every hour.
Measles vaccination resulted in a 75% drop in measles deaths between 2000 and 2013 worldwide.
In 2013, about 84% of the world's children received one dose of measles vaccine by their first birthday through routine health services – up from 73% in 2000.
During 2000-2013, measles vaccination prevented an estimated 15.6 million deaths making measles vaccine one of the best buys in public health.

[pipi_k]

29. Yep, or not even a kid

I know a handful of adults who have autoimmune disorders and are on medication to suppress their immune systems.

One of them is my son.

I try not to worry myself into a frenzy over some self-righteous asshat not vaccinating his/her kid, and the kid ends up spreading something nasty to him.

[YarnAddict]

62. According to your own statistics,

the chances of developing encephalitis from measles is not 1 in 20; it is .1%. That is point one percent.

Same stats your stats about death from measles.

Meanwhile, your chance of not getting lifelong immunity from the vaccine is 5%. Or--1 in 20.

Hmmmmmm.

[Chemisse]

87. I expect that is worldwide data; I think patients fare better in developed countries

Measles is still common in many developing countries – particularly in parts of Africa and Asia. The overwhelming majority (more than 95%) of measles deaths occur in countries with low per capita incomes and weak health infrastructures.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs286/en/


And I don't mean to minimize the disease (other than to say it's not ebola). Even if just one baby or toddler dies from this outbreak, it is tragic.

[DebJ]

93. It's from the CDC, not WHO; they don't list the database of stats.

[DebJ]

16. If ONLY that person or his children were impacted, that would be different.

We need laws to protect ourselves from others who don't care about anyone but themselves.
The issue isn't forcing their child to be protected; the issue is not allowing them to force serious
risks on everyone ELSE.

For example, if you could drive 110 mph and only kill YOURSELF doing so, that's one thing.
But when you mow down others who just happen to be near you, that's a different thing altogether.

Manslaughter.

[SoapBox]

17. Just wait until polio gets started.

[Kablooie]

92. Smallpox! Let's give smallpox a chance. It's been dormant for so long it must be lonely.

[cpamomfromtexas]

18. You are correct! For people to want Gov't out of their bedrooms and uteri

This post is ridiculous!

I don't want gov't legislating jack.

I got my kids vaccines, but not sure I'd do the same today.

And F those of you who want Fascists vaccinating everyone by gunpoint, because that's what you are talking about.

[trumad]

35. so you are a libertarian and an anit-vaxxer..

I think you took a wrong turn.

[Mister Ed]

42. I agree. Those tots should not be vaccinated at gunpoint.

It's totally uncalled for, and frightens them needlessly. Just give 'em their shot and a lollipop, and send 'em on their way.

[NYC Liberal]

64. Having an abortion doesn't threaten public health, nor does how you have sex.

I don't want gov't legislating jack.

Then you don't want any government at all.

One of government's fundamental responsibilities is to protect the common welfare. Vaccinations fall under that. Allowing people to threaten society at large by refusing to vaccinate is not okay.

It's the anti-vaxxers holding the guns here, and they're pointing them at every member of civilized society.

[DebJ]

94. If they choose to not live in a manner that doesn't threaten others in society,

then they need to choose to not live in society. Go live in them thar hills with ur big guns
and hunt your food, stay the hell away from my grandchildren!

[shraby]

20. If you think the chances of a child suffering permanent injury or death from measles or

chicken pox are slim, check the old death records and note the thousands of children who died from those diseases. It's not a pretty figure.
I have had a cousin who is profoundly deaf from the measles. She got them when she was 2 years old, before the measles vax came out.

[tblue37]

56. 400 children A DAY (!) die from measles around the world. nt

[NuclearDem]

22. No, but we're talking about measles.

A disease that can cause brain inflammation, encephalitis, corneal scarring, and pneumonia.

[enlightenment]

23. This isn't about legislating parenthood.

It is about ensuring public health.

The saying is "your liberty to swing your fist ends just where my nose begins". It isn't about what these moronic parents want, it's about the potential impact of their decisions on others who have had no input into that decision process.

To say that these diseases "are not ebola" ignores completely the potential harm. It may not be high, but no one has the right to put another at risk because they are, themselves, unconcerned about the disease.

You are suggesting that people should be patient with people who are willfully putting the public health at risk. What they are doing is no different than a group that advocates throwing handfuls of spikes into the path of fast-moving traffic on the highway; maybe it will only cause a few flat tires - but maybe it will cause a multi-car accident with attendant horrible injuries and fatalities.

Would you advise being patient with them? To make it harder to buy spikes, because then they will more quickly tire of their little game?

[CAG]

33. tell that to the children with weakened immune systems

that may have significant morbidity or die just because some selfish ignorant ja*&^ss can't be bothered by the guv'ment.

[jeff47]

46. Except you are training these people to believe crap on the Internet

over their own doctors. You're teaching people to rely on what sounds good instead of what reality is.

Sit back and let them kill enough people to figure it out just means they will latch on to the next fraud, happily handing over their money for "the truth".

[Scootaloo]

52. Skorts and leg warmers are fads

Tomagachi digital pets were fads. POGS were a fad. Vampire romance is a fad. Most diets are fads

Not immunizing your child against potentially lethal diseases - like measles, fuck your "low risk" it helped wiped out MILLIONS - is not a 'fad." It's a public health risk and a danger to your child.

[YarnAddict]

55. I agree with you.

And posted my reasons in my post far below.

I hate "compulsory" anything. My children were my own to raise. I didn't want anyone telling me I _had_ to do anything.

The only point you made with which I disagree is homeschooling. I have known LOTS of homeschoolers, and on the whole, they are a committed, driven bunch. I don't think their commitment peters out so much as circumstances change. Maybe a child is having a problem with a particular teacher or bullies, and is temporarily homeschooled to avoid that particular person, or situation.

[uppityperson]

59. Do you make your kids wear seat belts?

[YarnAddict]

61. Yes, of course

Although my kids are now adults, I always did. The reason was that not wearing seatbelts had a high probablility of serious, maybe even deadly, consequences, and there was no upside.

The probability of serious consequences of not getting vaccines is very, very low, and the possible benefit of actually having a mild case of the measles is lifelong immunity. (Not guaranteed with vaccines, BTW.)

That said, my kids did get all the vaccines available at the time. I'm just saying that not vaccinating is not criminal, and it is not child abuse.

[uppityperson]

63. 16 deaths an hour from measles. You can't predict if it will be a "mild case".

In 2013, there were 145 700 measles deaths globally – about 400 deaths every day or 16 deaths every hour.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs286/en/

You would risk a child dying or becoming deaf rather than having them get a booster, if needed, later in life? Not having to get a booster is not a good excuse to avoid a dangerous disease.

Exposing your child to an easily preventable potentially deadly disease is neglect at the minimum.

And those seat belts? "I didn't want anyone telling me I _had_ to do anything", except there are laws mandating seat belt usage. And ust like vaccines, there are serious consequences not using with minimal risk using.

[YarnAddict]

66. I didn't comply with the seatbelt law

so much as I complied with my own common sense.

My kids were vaccinated.

I am just stating that it is a parental choice; not abuse or neglect. Vaccinating is the socially responsible thing to do, but Not. Abuse. Or. Neglect.

[shraby]

88. You bet you can't predict!! I had the chicken pox and had about 5 or 6 spots. My brother

caught it from me and was peppered. My daughter got it when she was small and didn't sleep for a couple of days..needless to say, neither did I. She didn't have a fever, but did have hallucinations from lack of sleep. Got some meds from the doctor and it finally kicked in and she got some badly needed rest.
You never know how those diseases are going to manifest. Each child is different.
This was all before vaccinations.

[hack89]

86. Measles is a killer

before vaccines it was one of the top killers of young children in the world.

[shenmue]

4. I agree

[Cooley Hurd]

5. This quack, in particular, should STFU:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/01/30/amid-measles-outbreak-anti-vaccine-doctor-revels-in-his-notoriety/



It’s 6:30 p.m. in eastern Arizona, and an energetic doctor who has gained notice due to his disdain for vaccinations has just gotten home. It’s been a busy day. He’s already spoken to USA Today. He just did a segment on CNN. And he’s closely monitored his Facebook page, which has collected 4,000 “likes” in the span of 48 hours. But Jack Wolfson always has time to discuss vaccinations — his hatred of them and his abhorrence of the parents who defend them.

“Don’t be mad at me for speaking the truth about vaccines,” Wolfson said in a telephone interview with The Washington Post. “Be mad at yourself, because you’re, frankly, a bad mother. You didn’t ask once about those vaccines. You didn’t ask about the chemicals in them. You didn’t ask about all the harmful things in those vaccines…. People need to learn the facts.”

But whose facts is he talking about? Every respectable expert totally disagrees with him and his anti-vaccine movement and, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, urges parents to get their kids vaccinated. And Wolfson himself, who has quickly become something of a spokesman for the anti-vaxxers, is in no way an expert on vaccines or infectious diseases. He’s cardiologist who now does holistic medicine.

What the experts say: “The measles vaccine is one of the most highly effective vaccines that we have against any virus or any microbe, and it is safe, number one,” Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CBS. “Number two, measles is one of the top two most contagious infectious viruses that we know of…. So you have a highly infectious virus and you have an extraordinarily effective vaccine.”
</snip>

He's a "natural cardiologist", meaning he's probably killed people with his quackery. Here's the goofus's website:

http://wolfsonintegrativecardiology.com/

[octoberlib]

9. Fuck this quack!

[Brickbat]

6. This woman would rather have her child dead than autistic.

Even though vaccines don't cause autism. Jesus Christ.

Kelly McMenimen, a Lagunitas parent, said she “meditated on it a lot” before deciding not to vaccinate her son Tobias, 8, against even “deadly or deforming diseases.” She said she did not want “so many toxins” entering the slender body of a bright-eyed boy who loves math and geography.

The follow-up question here is "which toxins are those?"

“It’s good to explore alternatives rather than go with the panic of everyone around you,” she said. “Vaccines don’t feel right for me and my family.”

"Feel right." God, these people are a piece of work.

[fredamae]

8. I say let the anti-vaxers

make these personal decisions for themselves and their children.
However in order to keep the rest of US safe? Quarantine them and forbid their access to the rest of us.

No need to criminalize.......just isolate.
Their choice. Live at home, isolation Or Vax your Kids!

[Hari Seldon]

10. Internment camps?

places where people can develop their concentration skills?

We could call them concentration camps!

[fredamae]

15. Nah...just make

them stay home...work, home school, all goods/foods etc delivered to their homes.

At least give them a choice and a chance before we fine/incarcerate them...

[jwirr]

27. Where I live the children cannot go to public schools if they are not up to date on their vax. We do

not have any concentration camps and we also do not have measles. Most of the anti-vaxers are too young to remember the consequences of not have any vaccines at all and they do not know what they are talking about. One of the posts here talks about how a woman decided her son did not need a vax. Meditation and feelings were mentioned. Nothing about open-minded investigation into why one should have the shots. Nothing about considering the effects on others. All pure self-centeredness. I did not feel.....

[Bluenorthwest]

11. Of course the bulk of the world's and North America's outbreaks due to under vaccination stems from

religious groups. So that's the big hurdle. Look it up. Check out the Netherlands and Canada, with measles and polio outbreaks. Get rid of all the 'new age' stuff and you are still left with all the Medieval religious stuff and lots of people refusing vaccines.

I'd make vaccination compulsory barring medical reason to refuse. But I would not agree that it should be compulsory for everyone but 'people of faith'.

[McCamy Taylor]

75. I thought it stemmed from people being so poor in the third world.

[Android3.14]

13. Anti-vaxxers are idiots, but

No, criminalizing the parent's decision to refuse vaccinations for their children is fascist infringement on personal freedom.

[HappyMe]

37. Not vaccinating the kids could be

a death sentence for somebody with a compromised immune system. A bit of fascist infringement on personal freedom right there, I would say.

[Android3.14]

38. Bullshit

That's as stupid as the ticking bomb scenario to justify torture. One might as well jail people who refuse to put access ramps in their homes because a crippled child might visit.

Your false equivalence is ludicrous.

[HappyMe]

39. BULLSHIT!

When I was on chemotherapy, my immune system was way, way down. I had special instructions if I even caught a common cold. I can't imagine the misery I would have been in had I caught the measles from some special woo snowflake. People have to learn to think beyond their own kid to the rest of us out here.

I am not saying the parents should be put into jail. What I am saying is that they are responsible for the rise in diseases that had been erradicated. Had I sickened and died from measles when on chemotherapy, those same asshats would have been responsible for my death. Unvaccinated kids are a danger to a whole lot of people out there.

[YarnAddict]

65. Did you have measles

or the vaccine as a child? If so, your chances of contracting measles during treatment were none, or so small as to be insignificant.

I also had chemotherapy (for Hodgkins Disease) and prior to my staging laparotomy, which included a splenectomy, I got pneumovax.

I think that if I hadn't had the childhood diseases, I would have been offered the vaccines.

[NuclearDem]

40. Bad analogy.

The ticking time bomb scenario as a justification for torture fails because torture doesn't elicit truthful information and wastes time hunting down false leads.

People who refuse to vaccinate either themselves or their kids detract from herd immunity, and thus mandatory vaccination would absolutely be an effective means of preventing outbreaks.

[LeftishBrit]

19. Not sure - I think criminalization would only drive the anti-vaccinators underground; and there is

also the issue of 'where does it end?' - if everything that might be considered as bad parenting is criminalized, then there is a danger to civil liberties. Should it be a crime to feed a child too many sweets, or too few vegetables, for example?

In any case, it is at worst child neglect, not abuse.

Having said this, vaccinations should be free, easily obtained and strongly encouraged. And the dangers of non-vaccination should be publicized.

Moreover, other people should have the right to protect themselves from the company of potential Typhoid Marys. Schools should have the right to accept only children who have a certificate of vaccination, or a valid medical reason for non-vaccination. Travel companies should be able to ban travellers without vaccination certificates. Etc.

[mopinko]

21. abuse, no. but neglect? heck yeah.

better fit legally, imho.

[Barack_America]

51. This. Especially now that herd immunity has broken down.

[BlueMTexpat]

25. I believe that it is also a form

of serious negligence towards the community at large.

From the CDC website:

Remember, vaccines are continually monitored for safety, and like any medication, vaccines can cause side effects. However, a decision not to immunize a child also involves risk and could put the child and others who come into contact with him or her at risk of contracting a potentially deadly disease.

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/side-effects.htm

And this:

Kathryn Riffenburg decided on a closed casket for her baby's funeral.

She didn't want her family to see what whooping cough, her son's first illness, had done to 9-week-old Brady Alcaide. The nearly forgotten disease, which has in recent years afflicted thousands of Americans, left Brady's tiny body swollen and unrecognizable.

So his mother dressed him in a white baptismal suit and hat and tucked him into a tiny white casket. Brady's burial came just four weeks after his first laugh — inspired by her version of I'm a Little Teapot — and two weeks after his family learned that he had contracted a vaccine-preventable illness.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/06/anti-vaccine-movement-is-giving-diseases-a-2nd-life/7007955/

If there is a genuine medical reason why vaccination is contra-indicated, that is one thing. But those who do not vaccinate their own children for any other reason should be held accountable not only for deliberately risking the health of those children but for deliberately wreaking havoc with the health, potentially even the lives of all others, those children come into contact with.

This is an extremely serious issue and should not be treated lightly. While some may argue that these diseases are not ebole (which is certainly true), the fact is that more lives in the US have been lost to them than have been lost to ebole here.

[Greybnk48]

26. I agree 100%

I wasn't vaccinated because it wasn't available and I had German measles in my sophomore year of high school (1964). I was completely out of it for a couple of days with a sky high fever which scared the heck out of my mom. The county health officials posted a pink warning slip on our door and I was quarantined for about a week or a little more. It was not a little thing.

[jwirr]

28. Especially when one considers how many of us had to go through that for a number of diseases. The

attitude back when we finally found ways to prevent some of these diseases was one of profound relief. I hope we do not have to go through this again.

[pipi_k]

32. So true!

I guess many of these parents nowadays never had some of those diseases themselves.

I was born in 1952 and had just about everything that went around, including Measles, Mumps, Chicken Pox, Hepatitis A.

No way would I want to subject any child of mine to the same suffering I had back then.


Even after having all of those, my biggest fear was still of Polio. Seeing the kids in those iron lung machines. Holy shit, the nightmares I used to have! When the vaccine came out, my mom had us kids right there in line to get it.

[HappyMe]

36. Just wait until polio comes back because of these fools.

[SunSeeker]

30. K & R

[OldRedneck]

31. Dress codes, peanuts, and fracking

My son, daughter-in-law, and two grandsons (7 & 4) moved into another county last summer and the 7-yr-old is at a new school. Very good school, attentive and competent staff, principal is engaged . . . we are very happy with the school and look forward to his little brother joining him there in a couple of years.

They have rules:
-- Cannot wear caps inside the building -- might hide a weapon under a cap.
-- Can bring peanut butter on sandwiches but must alert the teacher that you have peanut butter. No peanuts allowed.
-- No sharing of lunches brought from home -- eat it yourself or toss it.
-- No knives or other objects that could become weapons.

We are okay with the rules.

But you can send an unvaccinated child to school with a waiver. We are organizing a group to descend on the school and the school board members (as a board and as individuals) with the goal of banning unvaccinated kids.

Interesting sidelight: 4,000 acres of our county (in Virginia) are now under lease by a Texas hydraulic fracturing company. There's a huge opposition to fracking that is beginning to take effect. One of the leading county anti-vaxxers is all in favor of fracking: Don't put chemicals into my child but I'm just fine with a zillion gallons or so of chemically-polluted water being pumped undergound -- and we all are on wells.

[BlueJazz]

41. Good Post !!

[Ykcutnek]

43. This is what happens when you have a nation full of people

who want freedom for freedom's sake, regardless how disastrous being able to make their own choices turns out to be.

[moondust]

44. Public health menace.

Maybe some legal precedents found in other dangers to public health. Haven't some people been prosecuted for infecting others with AIDS? I doubt the military would ever allow any unvaccinated troops due to the close quarters often involved in military duty.

[Brigid]

67. You get shots in boot camp. That means everybody.

Doesn't matter if you had the disease as a kid or got vaccinated, you got the needle. Of course, I went through boot camp in 1980, but I very much doubt that has changed.

[moondust]

83. Yep.

And another round of shots before deploying overseas. And some miscellaneous flu shots along the way.

[3catwoman3]

45. If Ms. McMenimen thinks that having a "healthy immune system"...

...will be sufficient to protect her son against tetanus, she is in for a rude surprise. The immune system cannot/does not make antibodies against antigens it has never been exposed to, never "seen." The tetanus organism is an anaerobe and lives in the soil - it cannot survive in oxygen, therefore it isn't passed from person to person thru the air, so, AFAIK, there is no way her son's body could have any defenses against it.

His dad manipulating his spine won't help either, should he contract this illness.

[YarnAddict]

54. I'm not an anti-vaxxer

My kids were fully vaccinated, but I had a friend whose children weren't. This was back in the '80's/early '90's, so it was long before that fraudulent article linking the MMR with autism. She got her info from "Mothering" magazine, and much of it made a lot of sense. Her main objection was that they didn't know that vaccination provided lifelong immunity, and the claim in the articles she read was that immunity could diminish or disappear when people were in their prime childbearing years, at which point the "childhood illnesses" would be most dangerous for a young adult, and much worse for a developing fetus.

This article states that the MMR is 95% effective, and I have a feeling that the chances of death or serious complications from measles is much less than 5%. IOW, compulsory vaxxers are more confident in the 95% chance of full immunity than they are in the much greater chance of surviving the disease with no ill effects.

There was a rubella outbreak in the early '60's and I got it, as did my younger sister and most of the kids I knew. I remember being quite sick for several days, but I didn't suffer any longterm consequences, and neither did anyone else I knew. And I now have lifelong immunity.

I have a friend whose d-i-l is anti-vax. The kids are homeschooled, and the only kids they have contact with are their homeschooled cousins. In other words, very limited exposure to other kids. There is a pretty good chance that they won't get measles--and, if they do, chances are very good that they will recover just fine.

My biggest concern is that sick children could infect immuno-compromised kids, or pregnant women. For that reason alone, vaccination is probably a socially responsible thing to do.

Foregoing vaccinations isn't the wisest choice for a parent to make, but not criminal, by any means, and certainly not child abuse.

[trumad]

57. If the kid is suffering from a disease that could have been prevented...

By being vaccinated. ....why would that be a form of child abuse Or child neglect?

[YarnAddict]

60. Because it really isn't

"suffering." Haven't we all had the flu? We feel crappy for a short time, then we get better. Illness is a part of life. Just like skinned knees, broken bones, broken hearts, etc. You can't prevent all illness, and there are far worse things than being sick for a week.

Personally, I would much rather have lifelong immunity from a broken heart.

[uppityperson]

69. No, we don't all "get better". A 20 yr old cousin of mine died from the flu. Death is part of life

why bother preventing what we can?

"You can't prevent all illness" is a strawman. Prevent what you can.

"there are far worse things than being sick for a week". Like dying from an easily preventable disease. Or losing my hearing from measles.

[Brigid]

70. You do know that people die from the flu, right?

I just read that the death toll in this state is 108 so far this flu season. And what about permanent disabilities from diseases like polio? I would definitely call that "suffering".

[YarnAddict]

71. Yes, people die from the flu

Many, many more than die from measles.

And measles ain't polio.

Apples and oranges.

I have stated SEVERAL TIMES on this thread that I had my kids vaccinated. Just would hate to see parents in jail, or fined, for not vaccinating. And they certainly aren't child abusers.

[YarnAddict]

68. Hey, anyone here

remember a few months ago the FUN we had laughing at the RWNJs who were freaking out about Ebola? Ebola panic, ebola panic, ebola PANIC!!!!!

Ebola and measles are both contagious, but Ebola has a 70% rate of death, compared to measles, which has a .1% death rate.

People here call parents who don't vaccinate their children against measles "criminals," and "child abusers," while they considered quarantining people who had been exposed to Ebola a violation of their civil rights.

Wonder if the RWNJs are having a good laugh over this??

[Brigid]

72. Measles is a lot more common --

and more contagious -- than ebola.

[YarnAddict]

73. And a LOT less deadly

Just sayin'.

[Brigid]

78. Then why . . .

Did the WHO estimate that in 2011 there were about 158,000 deaths worldwide from measles? No need for that.

[zappaman]

76. Measles is waaaay more contagious than Ebola.

You can get it just sitting next to someone that has it.

[McCamy Taylor]

77. Ebola is very hard to catch. You can catch measles from being in the same room for a minute.

So, your risk of getting Ebola if the herd is not immune is much less than your risk of getting measles if the herd is not immune.

[YarnAddict]

80. Granted.

And if you get measles you will get a rash, puke for a few days, and more than likely recover.

If you get Ebola, you will much more than likely die a horrible death.

Which would you rather get?

[trumad]

81. Please stop....

You're making yourself look really silly.

[uppityperson]

84. 16 deaths an hour from measles.

In 2013, there were 145 700 measles deaths globally – about 400 deaths every day or 16 deaths every hour.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs286/en/

[NuclearDem]

85. And Ebola turned out to not be a very big deal in the US...

...because the people infected with it were quarantined and treated.

If people were walking around at Disneyland with Ebola and it was spreading because people had refused to get a potential Ebola vaccine, people would be freaking out, as they should.

So why is measles, something that cause severe brain damage and hearing and vision loss getting a pass here?

[McCamy Taylor]

74. Like most things in health care, it depends

What about an egg allergic child? Does his right to not risk an allergic reaction trump that of the herd? What if there is no egg free vaccine alternative available? What about the kid who touched the meerkats and got bitten and her parents refused to give her rabies vaccine so they had to kill all the meerkats in the exhibit and examine their brains? Should her parents have gone to jail? How about a child on chemo? An immune suppressed child? Should the parents be required to stop the chemo or the immune suppression to get the kid immunized? Be careful how you answer because the next question might be "Should we be required to keep all brain dead people on life support (until their insurance runs out) in order to spare strangers the mental anguish of knowing that they have been allowed to die?" I.e. Terry Shavio.

[Brigid]

79. People who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons . . .

Are why "herd immunity" is important. It protects them.

[BrotherIvan]

82. I just looked up the meerkat story

And now I want to puke. Those parents are beyond selfish and their child is obviously not well supervised. Ugh.

[flvegan]

89. Ignoring science in the name of want or desire might well be served as criminalized offenses

when it comes to children, when we know better, and can do better, based on what modern medicine has told us.

Welcome to veganism, trumad and everyone!!

Fuck, that's probably inconvenient. Nevermind. Bacon tastes good, so fuck everything else. LOL, I love DU.

[cherokeeprogressive]

90. This post... "Ignoring science... might be well served as criminal offenses" is a bit scary.

Of late I'm hearing more and more often "The consensus is..." as if consensus is the most important criteria for acceptance of or more importantly PROOF of theory.

"Welcome to veganism! 97% of the world's scientists agree that animal protein is NOT important to life, health, development, or happiness."

Kill and cook an animal after 97% of "peer reviewed" papers (wanna succeed? gotta be published!) say it's not necessary? GO TO JAIL. The problem with this, as I see it, is that if your paper DOESN'T agree with the 97% it ain't gettin' published and MIGHT even subject someone to criminal charges.

Paul Krugman has never been asked to submit a budget for any kind of entity whatsoever yet his views are considered to be above rebuke. Who are Paul Krugman's "peers"? Fellow Professors of Economics who've never participated in the private economy, and who by the way STILL HAVEN'T solved the problems our economy faces?

The Science of Consensus will likely be the end of reason and the end of life as we know it on this planet.

This post elevates "consensus" to the point where if you disagree with the majority (of peer reviewed "scientists&quot , you're open to criminal charges.

That's fucking scary.