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New Jersey Gov. Christie: Parents Should Have Choice In Vaccinations

kwyjibo87 writes: New Jersey Governor and self-appointed public health expert Chris Christie weighed in on the public debate over whether or not parents should have a choice in vaccinating their children, telling reporters in the U.K., "I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well, so that's the balance that the government has to decide." He added, "Not every vaccine is created equal and not every disease type is as great a public health threat as others." These statements from Gov. Christie follow President Obama commenting in an interview with NBC: "There is every reason to get vaccinated — there aren't reasons to not."

Gov. Christie quickly backpedaled on his "vaccine choice" comments, with the Governor's office stating, "The Governor believes vaccines are an important public health protection and with a disease like measles there is no question kids should be vaccinated," but amending: "At the same time different states require different degrees of vaccination, which is why he was calling for balance in which ones government should mandate."

5 of 740 comments (clear)

  1. But Rand Paul says by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Rand Paul says vaccines cause mental illnesses! I guess that explains libertarianism.

  2. Re:Citation needed. by Squiddie · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://abcnews.go.com/Politics... I searched your italicized quote there. First result.

  3. Re:Backpedalled? by kogut · · Score: 5, Informative

    How can an unvaccinated kid infect and kill your child if your child was vaccinated?

    No vaccine is 100% effective. So "herd immunity" still marginally benefits the vaccinated.

  4. Re:Only if they pay for infections this causes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Vaccinations do not prevent you from being infected; They significantly reduce the likelihood of you being infected from any given exposure to the disease. If everyone is vaccinated this results in the disease dying back due to the infection rate being too low to sustain the disease, meaning everyone is less likely to be exposed. However, if there are many who are not vaccinated the dieback doesn't happen because there are enough easily-infected people around to keep the disease alive. Even though you might be vaccinated and more resistant to infection than if you weren't, if you come into contact with infected people over and over you stand a chance of being infected yourself.

  5. Re:Backpedalled? by mjwx · · Score: 5, Informative

    Don't vaccinate your kids, and they are not allowed in a school, daycare, public park or anywhere else where they may come into contact with other children who cannot be vaccinated due to medical reasons and rely on herd immunity for their safety, or infants who are to young to be vaccinated..

    Fixed it a little bit for you, but I agree with you so much. Choose not to vaccinate your kids and face the consequences: I don't want unvaccinated kids in my child's daycare, preschool or school. The government mandates that I take my child to school, and I have every right to expect that her safety is taken care of. That includes the threat of unvaccinated children.

    No vaccine is 100% effective. Even vaccinated kids can contract a disease they've been vaccinated against. The risk is much lower (vaccines are over 99.9% effective) but its still a risk. In the recent measles outbreak at Disney that had 95 confirmed cases, at least 6 were confirmed to be vaccinated against measles.

    This is one reason I'm glad that in my country, Australia, an MMR vaccination (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) is mandatory unless you have a damn good reason not to get one (and being an idiot isn't good enough).

    --
    Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.