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."
The articles cites a list of diseases on the rise, like whooping cough. None of these disease have required vaccinations. There was no increase in deseases related to the vaccinations so this looks like more healthcare industry propaganda.
OH! We could start by putting special shirts or wristbands on those that show no vaccination records. There were these cool shirts with funky looking stars on them that used to do the same thing.
I am vaccinated, and believe it to be the best course of action, but that is hardly the point.
There is no way in hell that any government is going to demand that I stick anything into my body, let alone my child's body. And, if anyone were to try to pierce my skin, or the skin of my loved one, self-defense will cover my tearing them limb from limb.
Make no mistake, these people do not "endanger the lives of everyone else with their views". The virus endangers lives. These people's views merely inhibit everyone else from benefiting from currently-available medical prevention opportunities, which apparently aren't even "100 percent effective".
If you don't support someone else having control over their own blood, and the blood of their children, then you're for slavery, imprisonment, unlawful confinement, the crusade, and forced conversions of all kinds.
If you're upset with the promotion of mis-information, then stop its publication. Let me know how that goes for you.
You don't get to tell me what to put into my blood, and you don't get to tell me what I can say to my friends. Welcome to freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
You want to split public schools into two buildings, that's cool. You want to restrict some children from public school, that's no longer public.
I'm so sorry; but you don't get to solve your problems by piercing someone else's skin. It's just that simple. It doesn't matter if that's what will work. It doesn't matter if that's the only thing that will work. You just don't get to do it. It's physical assault. It's bodily mutilation. You need permission.