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Bill To Require Vaccination of Children Advances In California
mpicpp sends the latest news on California legislation that would eliminate exemptions for vaccinating school children. A bill that would require nearly all children in California to be vaccinated by eliminating "personal belief" exemptions advanced through the State Legislature on Wednesday, though it still has several hurdles to clear. If approved, California would become one of only three states that require all parents to vaccinate their children as a condition of going to school, unless there is a medical reason not to do so. Under the bill, introduced after a measles outbreak that began at Disneyland, parents who refuse vaccines for philosophical or religious reasons would have to educate their children at home. The legislation prompted a roiling debate in Sacramento, and last week hundreds of people protested at the Capitol, arguing that it infringed on their rights and that it would unfairly shut their children out of schools. Last Wednesday, the legislation stalled in the Senate Education Committee as lawmakers said they were concerned that too many students would be forced into home schooling. This Wednesday, however, the bill passed that committee after its authors tweaked it, adding amendments that would expand the definition of home schooling to allow multiple families to join together to teach their children or participate in independent study programs run by public school systems.
What a bunch of dummies. We require that they send their kids to school in shoes, some sort of shirt type thing, and pants too. Oh noes, we are discriminating against the nudists! Wah! Now we plan to require that be vaccinated against certain preventable diseases and not bring down herd immunity to levels where disease can spread. Oh noes, we are discriminating against the stupid! Wah! Bunch of idiots. If you think your kid is going to "catch autism" from an immunization I guess you have to pass your idiocy on to your kid through home schooling. Seems fair. Oh, BTW, keep them out of sports leagues because they better not get my kids sick...
The legislation prompted a roiling debate in Sacramento, and last week hundreds of people protested at the Capitol, arguing that it infringed on their rights and that it would unfairly shut their children out of schools
For the moment let's set aside fair vs unfair, and just take their claim at face value. This action is unfair for the purpose of argument.
That said... I fail to see what exactly their problem or complaint actually is.
This small group of people are arguing for the legal right to unfairly engage in germ warfare while attempting to murder other school children and even some adults. The argument is this is perfectly acceptable and should be a protected right.
So with that, these people clearly have NO problems with unfair choices being forced on everyone else, as that is the legal right they are demanding.
So why complain when they get their wish, and we "unfairly" shut their children out of school?
If they have no moral or even legal issues with (their) unfair choices being forced on people (us), why do they complain why the court states there is no moral or legal issues with (our) unfair choices being forced on people (them)?
It has already been established that unfairly infecting other children at school is not only acceptable but should be a legal right, so clearly it is also both acceptable and should be a legal right to unfairly kick their children out of school, exactly as these parents are marching at the capitol to demand.
Obviously the correct answer is that the hypocrisy is strong in these people - it just still somehow amazes me to this day such people don't realize that hypocrites are exactly what they are being.
I hate that we have to legislate instead of educate people about vaccinations. Pretty sad that people listen more to Jenny McCarthy than they do medical doctors. I suppose given that, this legislation is a necessary evil.
Because everyone living in California can afford to quit their job and spend all day teaching their children. Oh, and they all understand fractions and have training in how to educate children in such concepts.
Yes, you should be involved in your child's education. No, you don't have to quit your job or be a full time educator to do so.
I'm firmly in the "what the hell is wrong with you anti-vaxxers?!" camp, and almost any of us here could rattle off a laundry list of the ways that these parents are just plain wrong, but this bill would more or less enforce a quarantine for at-risk children, depriving them of access to a state-provided resource (education) that they are entitled to, for reasons that are unrelated to the resource being offered (i.e. the parents don't have a problem with public schooling). I'm tempted to suggest that the "fair" thing to do would be to give the family a refund on the school district's share of their taxes if they've been cut off from that resource, but I also don't like the idea of giving tax breaks for engaging in idiocy.
As I said, I'm conflicted. I agree that steps need to be taken to disincentivize anti-vaxxing. I like that some doctors are refusing to accept patients who aren't vaccinated, but I'd like to see the deterrents get into the public space somewhere. I'm just not convinced that this is the way to do it.
Vaccines are great. I won't dispute that. My children are vaccinated, but I have followed a different schedule than the one recommended and I reserve the right to refuse specific vaccines (Because who really needs Varicella vaccination if you were already infected as a child? It's also hardly ever fatal for that matter).
It is up to parents to decide what is right for their own child with regard to medical decisions. Medical decisions are difficult and not always cut and dry. I refuse to give up the right of anyone deciding what is appropriate for their child in this regard, because medical decisions live with you forever.
So if a parent doesn't want to have their child vaccinated, that's a-okay with me. My children are vaccinated, so I've done everything that I personally can do to protect them. I can't protect them from everything and I don't expect other parents to protect my children either. I can only do what I can, and the rest is up to chance in the end.
Giving up freedom because of fear is not the answer. Mandating the "correct" decision is often wrong. Better instead to push education and appropriate information rather than to force others to make the decision you want them to.
I'm one of those who is allergic to eggs and have to be very careful about vaccines, so you may be putting me at danger too.
Many vaccines have egg protein in them, and so do flu shots. Over the years I have managed to get most vaccines, but it's hard. On paper there are egg-free vaccines and it's easy to google up an article announcing the exciting new development of an egg-free vaccine for xxx. But in real life they are expensive, have short shelf lives, a very limited market, and nobody keeps records about where I might find some. Which means they're pretty much not available outside of a major metropolis, and even then it takes luck and a lot of phone calls.
Real programmers use "copy con program.exe"
> Last Wednesday, the legislation stalled in the Senate Education Committee as lawmakers said they were concerned that too many students would be forced into home schooling.
Or even worse, that they found that they liked it. The problem with making something a condition of participating in a government institution is the risk that significant numbers will discover they do fine without it.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
If you don't like it, fucking leave California then. I don't want your retarded ass around me.
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
The issue isn't whether or not you risk your kid's life, it's whether or not you risk the lives of other people's kids, and others who can't be vaccinated, and whether or not the taxpayer is going to foot the bill when you kid's sick.
That's total BS. There's always some small portion of the population who can't handle the vaccine (like the egg-allergic guy above), or for whom the vaccine just plain doesn't work. They do just fine in school. Being allergic to eggs is not a major problem for a schoolkid, and doesn't make them more susceptible to other diseases. None of this was a problem in years past, thanks to herd immunity: with ~97% of the kids immunized, the disease just never popped up in civilized society, and everything was great. We almost forgot about measles until recently because of the effectiveness of these immunizations, even though not 100% of kids were immunized. But now, with all the idiotic anti-vaxxers, measles is back.
No, that's not really the way it is. There are many reasons why someone can't be vaccinated. Being immunosuppressed is only one of them. Egg allergies are rather more common, and school represents little danger to a kid who is allergic to eggs.
Plus, the number of kids who can't safely be vaccinated is small enough to not break herd immunity. The number of kids whose parents are idiots is much, much larger. As the recent measles (and whooping cough) outbreaks have shown.
If an unvaccinated child dies, can the parent who has denied their child a vaccination be prosecuted for child endangerment?
Maybe that's what it'll take to end this virus of ignorance.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Jesus christ. How can supposedly technical people be (a) so anti science, (b) so gorssly and intentionally uninformed and (c) so fucking stupid.
The information is out there in spades. If you're uninformed at this point you're being willfully ignorant.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Just a reminder about constitution and the rights that provide for citizens, the catch here, ALL CITIZENS, including the wee ones. Children are not pets and most certainly are not the possessions of parents. Children are citizens with the full right of protection of all other citizens (just not all of the responsibilities), including protection from those people recognised as the guardians of those children. So yeah, just like all other citizens expect to be protected from the bad decisions of others so children are entitled to that same right.
If you personally want to decide whether some one else gets an inoculation or not based upon beliefs, get a pet and not a child. As it stands the whole community decides for the benefit of not only the community but the individuals within that community who gets inoculated, when those individuals have the right of protection but not the mature responsibility to decide for themselves.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
The same thing that has always gone on. Kids have sex, and the HPV vaccine means that they are protected from a pretty nasty cancer.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
multiple families to join together to teach their [unvaccinated] children or participate in independent study programs
a.k.a. "agar dishes for childhood diseases".
Bravo, California! This state led the way in recognizing the second hand harm of cigarette smoke. Hope they do the same with antivaxer idiots.
...last week hundreds of people protested at the Capitol, arguing that it infringed on their rights and that it would unfairly shut their children out of schools.
Cry me a river, you morons. Your stupidity in unfairly infringing on the rights of others to not die of completely preventable diseases.
Did you not read my post? It isn't just anti-vaxxers, there's other people who are susceptible to these diseases: people who can't take the vaccine (allergic or immune-compromised), and also the unlucky 1-2% who *did* get the vaccine, and it simply didn't work for them.
Also, we're talking about kids here; the anti-vaxxers' kids don't deserve to catch diseases. If it were just anti-vax parents catching diseases themselves because of their stupid choice to not vaccinate, then yeah, who cares? Hoist by their own petard and all that. But this isn't the case; it's innocent people, mainly kids (both theirs and other peoples'), who are suffering because of these idiots.
You have to be very careful with Penn and Teller, they have a strong libertarian bent and they seem to frequently fail when researching issues that involve their politics. I wouldn't trust them on issues like second hand smoke that they are likely to view as "government interference". It tends to make them derp out and present a weak one-sided case as if there were no valid counter-arguments. Personally, I stopped watching "Bullshit" after a few too many political shows where they left me disappointed with their half-assed, one-sided, "facts".
Fanatically anti-fanatical