Slashdot Mirror
Time To Remove 'Philosophical' Exemption From Vaccine Requirements?
An anonymous reader writes: Michigan has a problem. Over the past decade, the number of unvaccinated kindergartners has spiked. "Nearly half of the state's population lives in counties with kindergarten vaccination rates below the level needed for "herd immunity," the public health concept that when at least 93 percent of people are vaccinated, their immunity protects the vulnerable and prevents the most contagious diseases from spreading." Surprise, surprise, the state is now in the midst of a whooping cough outbreak. How do these kids get into public schools without being vaccinated? Well, Michigan is among the 19 U.S. states that allow "philosophical" objections to the vaccine requirements for schoolchildren. (And one of the 46 states allowing religious exemption.) A new editorial is now calling for an end to the "philosophical" exemption.
The article says, "Those who choose not to be vaccinated and who choose not to vaccinate their children allow a breeding ground for diseases to grow and spread to others. They put healthy, vaccinated adults at risk because no vaccine is 100 percent effective. They especially put the most vulnerable at risk — infants too young to be vaccinated, the elderly, people with medical conditions that prevent vaccination, and those undergoing cancer treatments or whose immune systems have been weakened." They also encourage tightening the restrictions on religious and medical waivers so that people don't just check a different box on the exemption form to get the same result. "They are free to continue believing vaccines are harmful, even as the entire medical and scientific communities try in vain to tell them otherwise. But they should not be free to endanger the lives of everyone else with their views."
The article says, "Those who choose not to be vaccinated and who choose not to vaccinate their children allow a breeding ground for diseases to grow and spread to others. They put healthy, vaccinated adults at risk because no vaccine is 100 percent effective. They especially put the most vulnerable at risk — infants too young to be vaccinated, the elderly, people with medical conditions that prevent vaccination, and those undergoing cancer treatments or whose immune systems have been weakened." They also encourage tightening the restrictions on religious and medical waivers so that people don't just check a different box on the exemption form to get the same result. "They are free to continue believing vaccines are harmful, even as the entire medical and scientific communities try in vain to tell them otherwise. But they should not be free to endanger the lives of everyone else with their views."
It's not about alternatives. You're not entitled to alternative ways to put other children at risk by exposing them to your un-vaccinated spawn. Frankly, you shouldn't even be entitled to bring them out in public as long as they're a threat to other children or anyone else who couldn't get vaccinated for some other reason outside of their control. Willful ignorance should come this a heavy cost.
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
The child, obviously.
What, you weren't told the risks? No one checked out your child's medical history before injecting them with a dozen different things? You were forced to do this to your child? You want to sue? You have no rights, you can go to "arbitration" and lose because fuck you.
If people don't want to be vaccinated, for any reason or no reason, that's their choice. People don't trust the fucking government. It's not ignorance or religion leading people not to vaccinate, it's people watching what the government has been doing for the past decade and a half and realizing that the government is an active enemy of the people at every fucking level.
If YOU don't want the disease, get the vaccine for YOURSELF. If YOU are too enfeebled to withstand the vaccine, then isolate YOURSELF to avoid the disease.
The line of "logic" people use to try to force others to get vaccinated would have us banning shrimp, peanuts, dogs, hay, and fucking sunshine from all public spaces.
This freedom is absolutely more important than the impact of any disease on the unvaccinated (by choice or not) population. We don't live in magical happy fairy land - people get sick and die, and those people are sometimes children. We cannot save everyone and we should not sacrifice freedoms in a ridiculous attempt to do so.
Forcing or coercing people to get vaccines is not okay. If you want to encourage them to do so you have to earn their trust.