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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.
How dare you tell me that I have to actually take care of my kid! It's my kid, and my choice not to feed it!
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.
> they were concerned that too many students would be forced into home schooling.
With the piss poor job schools have been doing lately, that might not be a bad thing for parents to bond and spend more time with their chilldren's investment success for their future.
Nah, it's easier to pass the job off to someone else who doesn't give a crap about your child's future and is only doing it for the money.
I hate to say it, but maybe this is for the best. Unfortunately, what may be needed to kill the anti-vaxxer mindset once and for all is for a whole classroom of unvaccinated children to come down with measles or polio or smallpox or whooping cough, and for several of them to die.
Horrible? Yes, but the parents who have bought into this insanity are endangering everyone, not just their own children. Some of these people are quite literally proclaiming that vaccines have never worked, and that it is only improvements in hygiene that have resulted in the elimination of most deadly childhood diseases. A good cold dash of reality is the only cure. It is just a damned shame that some innocent kids will have to pay the price.
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.
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.
I suggest you actually read the constitution. It does not say what you think it does.
Europe and Japan has big problem understanding what's going on in the USA? Lack of vaccination is considered horrendous, many kinds of vaccines are even mandated by law in many countries (i.e. police round up people who don't take their kids for vaccination and put the kids into care homes). On the other hand, antibiotics for human and livestock use are strictly controlled on physician / veterinary subscription, for fear of reducing their effectiveness by careless American-style overuse.
Btw, I think Hungary, in Central Europe has the strictest mandatory vaccination law in the whole world, about 12-14 different shots total. Until about 15 years ago, they even mandated yearly chest X-rays for all 14 to 65, due to extreme high historic prevalence of TB epidemic (and filterless smoking) in the region. That is, they bussed mobile X-rays to even the smallest villages and whoever wouldn't come on one's own, got brough up by the police.
If I had a dime for every time I'd had to listen to someone rant about the 1st without having a fucking clue what it means I would have better things to do than read /.
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"
They'll keep at it at least as long as the incubation period.
You shouldn't release it to the public like that.
You should infect one of the organisers of these protests. They'll then infect all those they come in to contact with over the next few days.
> 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.
Surely quarantine laws must still be on the books.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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.
As far as I know, you have a right to education in California, and you have a right to medical informed consent in California. And before anybody says I'm anti-vax, I'm not. What I'm saying is, there could be unintended consequences of passing a law forcing people to undergo medical treatment or procedures before they can avail themselves of state services to which it is said all residents have a right to access to.
I'm sure the SWAT team will find you an amusing training exercise.
(Because who really needs Varicella vaccination if you were already infected as a child? It's also hardly ever fatal for that matter).
Your logic is as flawed as, "Who needs a polio vaccination anyway? Hardly anyone ever gets it for that matter."
It isn't fear, it's science and reason. Vaccinations prevent horrible things. They do not cause autism, crystal children, indigo whatsits or whatever other batshit insanity you subscribe to. They prevent fucking horrible things from laying waste to the populace. And that hardly fatal thing? Congrats, you're a potential reason some kid for whom it will be fatal will get it.
Your prize is a shut the fuck up about freedom cruise for four, to a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific, where you can live in blissful harmony away from those terrible men in white lab coats who are stealing' err freedoms.
(Post full of bile because seriously, just no.)
Humankind is devolving! We need to stop enabling stupid people and stop letting them live. Babysitting them like this is only spreading their sub-100 IQ genes to future generations.
You really shouldn't need any law. Religious exemptions are unconstitutional... under the free exercise clause.
The depth of your misunderstanding of the constitution is breathtaking.... Do you *really* go for all this fascist interpretations of our founding documents? Dang I hope not.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
If I had a dime for every time I'd had to listen to someone say "you don't understand the constitution" and then fail to explain what it really means I'd be much richer than you would ever get with your rule.
There is no such thing as a free education. The parents of these children pay for the school with their property taxes. You are confusing servants and masters. Citizens are masters, government employees are servants. Since *you* have little say in how *I* raise my kids, neither do *our* hired servants in government. This is how things are in these United States.
"establishment" and "restriction" are actually both very real issues with a good amount of caselaw behind them. The situation is neither simple nor trivial.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
At public school, they also have a chance of causing an outbreak and killing a bunch of innocent kids.
Say hello to my firearms when they come to try and take my children.
How ironic! The law isn't saying that they're going to take away your children if you don't vaccinate, it's saying they can't attend public school. It's the exact same thing as how they don't allow your kid to bring a gun to school, so that other kids aren't forced to be exposed to deadly things. If you want your child to have access to guns while learning, you can still homeschool them. If you want your child to be unvaccinated, you can still homeschool them.
Even when "cut off" from the roads, you still benefit from their presence in other ways, such as public transit, postal service, or produce getting delivered to your grocer. Moreover, driving is considered a privilege, not a right. That's why you need training, testing, and a license, rather than being able to just grab a car and get on the road.
Incarceration is a special case, but it does bear some similarity to the case at hand, since in both cases we're talking about removing from the general population people who are a danger to society. The big difference is, however, is that criminals are responsible for the danger that they themselves present, whereas these children are not. Yet regardless of that, we're talking about stripping them of their rights all the same.
You can see why I'm conflicted.
What a delightful little oxymoron.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You are really stupid.
rational anti-vaxxers
Assuming you don't mean people with autoimmune disorders or legitimate allergies, I'm really curious to know what exactly falls into this category.
Unfortunately, for you, it will mean exactly what the parent poster said... SWAT will come and drag you away, alive or dead depending on how you behave. Since you have "endangered your children", they will be taken away and given to foster care. Under foster care they will be given medical examinations, which will include any vaccinations they've missed. You'll lose, possibly both your life AND your children.
Which vaccines must parents accept? Measles? Sure, that makes sense. Don't want to spread Measles. Flu? Flu vaccine is really hit or miss and the damage from not getting it is minimal. Requiring that would be less reasonable. HPV Vaccine? Just what is going on at these schools anyway...
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
No tax refund for you if you don't buy a government-approved insurance policy.
Yeah, because no-one every dies from measels. The person who dies every 4 minutes from measels doesn't count.
Source:
http://www.who.int/mediacentre...
145,700 deaths from measels in 2013, one every 3 minutes and 45 seconds.
in 1980, before mass vaccinations it was killing 2.6 million per year
Well, if it's up to me, then swallow this cyanide pill.
You clearly have no idea how crazy the California legislature is.
"caselaw" is not law. Law is law. And the Constitution (including its amendments) is the highest law in the land.
I can't be vaccinated, so I need to rely on herd immunity instead. So at what point does your right to avoid vaccinations end, and my right to avoid the unvaccinated begin?
It ends at the point that you force someone else to have a medical procedure for your benefit. Anti-vaxxers are ignorant idiots but you do not cure ignorance or stupidity by making it illegal (tempting though that is)...you cure it through education. However the ironic thing about this law is that it encourages these idiots to home school their kids where they will be able to propagate their ignorance to the next generation.
The moment you force people to have medical procedure you are on a very slippery slope. Vaccines are incredibly safe but there is no zero risk medical procedure: one in every N million vaccines will produce severe complications and sometimes even death. So, to flip the argument around, how many people's lives is it fair to risk to reduce the risk to yourself? Now I realize that this is not entirely fair since, by not having the vaccine the risk if they catch the disease it prevents is far higher but the fact that either way there is some risk means that the proper solution is to educate people about the risks and then let them make their own decision which, will hopefully be to get vaccinated. If not then why stop at forcing vaccinations? Think how many lives could be saved by forced live kidney and liver donation!
Your logic works well on paper.
Problem is, you are trusting psychopaths to do the right thing. They don't. They can't. If you figure into your equations that all of your data is twisted, spun, poorly representative of the actual facts, or just plain old made up, then it stops looking good on paper.
Real life is full of liars, profiteers, professional peer pressure, overburdened doctors, well-funded public relations experts without ethics, and scientists fully aware that speaking out against the popular trends is professional suicide. -And it is also full of authoritarian zealots who are too afraid to consider the possibility that something might be wrong, or if they do consider, they use every cognitive trick available to downplay the problem and brush it away in favor of some make-believe utopian ideal which does not and cannot exist; zealots so committed to their sacred cows that they threaten to actually BOMB people who do not submit to their beliefs.
Those are the facts, Jack.
If you really wanted to know what was going on, you'd explore, dig and learn. And you'd discover that you're currently living in dream where all the authority figures are nice people with no selfish, cowardly agendas and that the science is vetted, safe and effective.
Nice dream. Looks good on paper. But it's just that. A dream.
And I am sorry. I really am. The most rabid pro-vaxxers really are terrified; they go white in the face and lose sleep when they consider the horrifying truth.
It is, (or should be) obvious that every aspect of our world is corrupt and broken, from banking to food and energy production, to education, to law enforcement, to news and media, to the core democratic and bureaucratic processes upon which the country is based. To think that the pharmaceutical industry is exempt from this is evidence of an almost sublime level of denial and/or ignorance. Self-calming.
And sadly, the problems when you begin to explore and dig, are a *lot* worse than you or most people can even begin to guess. Right back at the very beginning, Edward Jenner was a worthless, lazy, manipulative worm of a sociopath who conned a respected doctor into advancing his career, a little shit who learned how to play the legal system and the base hungers and emotions of the similarly pathological political world into enforcing the sale and application of his snake oil on the population. His legacy lives on today.
We're living in a world run by pathological leaders and corrupt corporations which is seriously talking about using force to inject people with drugs. Think about that. If you blow off everything else, then at least give a few seconds to that thought please, because yes, you recognize it. It is a plot right out of a sci-fi dystopian novel, and you are supporting it while calling everybody else's judgement into question.
Since when did not letting the government discriminate on the basis of one's religion become fascist?
Wonder what the public key field is for?
I don't claim the measles vaccines do not work, only that anyone claiming to know is lying to themselves.
If the measles vaccine does not work then why is the rate of cases so much lower than before the vaccine? At this point the vaccine has been given to so many people the evidence that it works is because nobody worries about their child dying or going blind from measles any more... unless there is some reason why this was due to some other factor?
You might want to read about what the FDA says about the mercury concentration in vaccines. I suspect kids may get more mercury in their fish sticks (fish fingers) than in their vaccines.
It ends at the point that you force someone else to have a medical procedure for your benefit.
They aren't forced to have a medical procedure. They just are forced to stay the hell away from the people they put at risk by electing not to have the procedure. They retain their choice but that choice absolutely should have consequences because it can literally have life and death stakes. If they want to elect to live life as a hermit then they should retain that choice.
Anti-vaxxers are ignorant idiots but you do not cure ignorance or stupidity by making it illegal (tempting though that is)...you cure it through education.
You cure ignorance by education if and only if the other party is willing to learn. You cannot cure stupidity through any amount of education.
However the ironic thing about this law is that it encourages these idiots to home school their kids where they will be able to propagate their ignorance to the next generation.
I think the horse is already gone from that barn and has run a long way down the road.
The moment you force people to have medical procedure you are on a very slippery slope.
Spare me. There is no slippery slope here. We are talking about extraordinarily safe vaccines which are 100% optional. They can choose not to vaccinate their children, just not without consequence. They do not get the right to endanger others needlessly because they want to hold a ridiculous opinion not supported by scientific fact.
That is fine, then give me the money that would otherwise be given to the school so I can pay for another option.
No. Your choice, your problem. You don't get special treatment on taxes because you want to engage in demonstrably dangerous behavior.
So should it be illegal to go out in public if you have a cold?
It's not illegal to go out in public with measles. It's just a really dumb idea. Every physician I know will instruct someone with the measles to stay home in most cases because it is ludicrously infectious. Furthermore "a cold" describes a huge number of pathogens whereas measles is one specific germ. If there were a safe and effective vaccine for more serious strains of "colds" then I would support requiring a vaccine if our medical community determined it to be a good idea.
A better law to fix this problem would be to allow kids to consent to having vaccinations without parental knowledge.
Children are not considered mentally competent to make such decisions. How many toddlers do you know who would volunteer to get a shot?
As it is this law will encourage anti-vaxxers to home school and spread their ignorance to the next generation.
They are already doing that AND endangering others in the process.
It also means that there is no need to force anyone to undergo a medical procedure which they do not want.
Nobody is being forced to get any vaccine. They can choose not to participate and there should be consequences for that. I have freedom of speech as a guaranteed right but that right has limits and it does not mean I will not suffer consequences for something I say. Same with the right to choose not to vaccinate. They can do it but that doesn't mean they should be able to endanger others without consequence.
Have you been to a school lately? Since growing up, that is?
Have you noticed how children interact with each other?
they're germ incubators. Everything gets shared. And shared. And shared.
If you don't want to vaccinate your kids, fine, but at least have the decency not to bring them to the public schools. That's all this bill is asking.
rational anti-vaxxers
Assuming you don't mean people with autoimmune disorders or legitimate allergies, I'm really curious to know what exactly falls into this category.
Just to be clear, people in those groupings you mentioned aren't actually "anti-vaxers" they're just people who cannot take (some/all) vaccinations.
By this I mean they're not against the principle of vaccination, and they most likely DESPERATELY WISH THEY COULD.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
No tax refund for you if you don't buy a government-approved insurance policy.
Not even vaguely anything like the same thing.
An Insurance Policy is to protect you, this proposition is to protect EVERYONE ELSE AS WELL.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
If I, and other males, can be made to go fight and die at high risk, against my wishes, why can't EVERYONE be made to take a low risk shot?
The benefit of the shots to society is arguably FAR higher and the risk FAR lower than military service.
And by the way, I'm in favor of compulsory military service, for myself and everyone else. Just as I'm in favor of compulsory vaccination, for myself and everyone else (medical exceptions allowed for both.)
--PM
Hello,
While I'm in favor of compulsory vaccination for everyone except medical exceptions, I'm not so sure we can lay whooping cough epidemics at the door of the anti-vaxxers. It seems that the vaccine is not completely effective against currently circulating strains of whooping cough.
I'm in favor of research dollars being dedicated forthwith to improve the vaccine. I have a friend whose child, too young to be vaccinated, was killed by whooping cough.
--PeterM
Males in USA have to register for the draft. They can be made to fight and die to defend this country whether they want to or not, often at great risk of life and limb.
Yet I'm supposed to get upset because, to defend this country against disease, people have to get very low risk shots? What's your position on military service?
--PM
People would do well to remember Buck v. Bell:
No matter how well intentioned, forcing people by law to undergo medical procedures is questionable. Furthermore, for vaccinations, there is very little need for such a heavy-handed approach.
Those deaths are from people who don't have vaccinations available to them, who are weakened by malnutrition, and who lack adequate supportive care.
In the US, vaccinations are available to everybody and general health and supportive care is so good that your risk of dying from measles is negligible even if you don't get vaccinated.
I've never understood this and I've never had anyone be able to explain it to me. What the heck could the difference between "personal beliefs" (or "philosophical") and "religion" possibly be? To me that means exactly the same thing. What would stop people from saying "Okay, fine, my religion is to not vaccinate my kids"?
Do you *really* go for all this fascist interpretations of our founding documents? .
That's the trendy thing to do these days. Can't run a sporting club without a pile of people getting killed as a side effect of mismanagement and lobbying for stupid exemptions? Then claim it's the fault of a founding document and that every single adult male in the country is automatically part of a well regulated militia.
Getting autism from vaccinations is Grade A pure bullshit, so sure.
They can choose not to do it and the consequence is not being able to send their kids to a government school - no jail, no fine so not forced.
Personally I think these anti-vaxxer idiots should sit down with someone old enough to be their grandparents and ask them about polio.
Because being rendered deaf or blind is no big deal as long as you don't die? How about the anti-vax trolls piss up a rope instead.
I'm guessing no vaccine is ever completely effective. But if everyone is vaccinated then the people whose vaccination didn't work are a lot less likely to ever be exposed to the disease.
Deafness or blindness is even rarer than death from measles. Even in unvaccinated individuals, the risk of disability or death from measles is negligible compared to risks from other diseases that we can't vaccinate against, and other risks parents routinely expose their children to.
If you think such tiny risks justify imposing unwanted medical procedures on people, we have to impose a lot more safety regulations and medical procedures on people and we can kiss all our liberties good bye. And if you only limit your fear mongering to measles and ignore the other risks you are as irrational and anti-science as the anti-vax trolls. So how about you just piss up a rope instead?
Take it as you will, but second hand smoke might not be the best example. I'm not a huge fan of Penn Gillette, but at the least I thought this was interesting if the facts are accurate - Penn & Teller - Bullshit :: Second Hand Smoke. It feels to have at least a touch of truthiness to it if you can handle Penn for 15 straight minutes (while I appreciate some of the things he has to say, he's not my cup of tea personality wise).
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
While I may not agree with your reasoning, the fact is vaccines kill and seriously injure people thats the nature of things. The CDC's own paperwork is clear pick any vaccine and has a change of serious injury and death. The MMRV is rated at fewer than 4 per million, deafness, long term seizures/coma, and brain damage, do the math 300m people or about 1200 people in the us with those issues. That is balanced against a 1-2 in 1k chance of death from getting measles (hard to get exposure rate numbers). In effect yes some people will have there lives adversely affected by these vaccines, the gamble is less people have bad outcomes not that nobody gets hurt.
No sir I dont like it.
And to build on your excellent response, there hasn't been mercury in vaccines for over a decade. That straw man is dead.
He's not asking for special tax treatment. He'll still pay the same amount of taxes. He's asking that the government spend the same amount of money on his kids' educations.
Again, no. I don't have children and I don't get special treatment so why should he just because he chose to reproduce? Not my problem. Plenty of people don't have children but still pay taxes to support their local schools because it is a public good. An educated populace benefits us all. My education is long since finished and my parents still have to pay taxes to their local school district. In fact I actually went to a private school for good parts of my education and I can assure you that my parents did not get a tax break.
You just love stating opinions as facts, don't you?
Sounds like you do too.
You will find a great deal of resistance to your views, because a great many people don't want the government telling them what they can and cannot do with kids.
I don't really give a shit about how people raise their kids until it starts to affect others, myself included. Don't want to vaccinate your kids? Fine. Go live in a shack in Montana and home school so you don't endanger the lives of others because you are squeamish about getting a very safe and effective vaccine against a serious and highly contagious pathogen.
You're probably one of those idiots who supports the one-child policy of China, aren't you?
I don't care much what China's government does and it's not really clear what they have to do with this discussion. That said if China want to make birth rates fall the best thing they can do is to improve their standard of living. High GDP per capita almost inevitably leads to falling birth rates. Don't take my word for it, the data is easily available to back me up.
Why don't you go live there if you love heavy handed government so much?
Tell you what. You explain to me how and why measles cares about a form of government and I'll concede the point. Last I checked, pathogens don't really pay much attention to governments.
Yes, but in this particular case the some of the strains of whooping cough that are circulating now appear to have mutated away from those that the vaccine in common use protects against. As such the vaccine has work as described it just provides little to no protection against the circulating strains of whooping cough and out breaks have started occurring.
To put it another way vaccine resistant strains of whooping cough have developed/appeared.
The solution is to reformulate the whooping cough vaccine against the strains that are now circulating. Just upping the vaccination rate with the existing vaccine is an exercise in futility and a waste of resources and money.
They're only "completely effective" when so thoroughly and effectively used that the bacteria or virus is completely eliminated. That's why smallpox is believed eradicated, there haven't been any new cases since 1978. Polio has repeatedly been close to eradication, but has failed in countries like Nigeria and Pakistan.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
The vaccine was tied in local political and religious leader's speeches to harassment of Islam, with claims that the vaccine was designed to sterilize them. By the time the vaccine supply could be examined and verified as untainted by local leaders, it was expired and no longer safe to use. This is why polio remains an infectious disease: according to the "Global Polio Eradication Initiative", Nigeria and Pakistan have the last major reservoirs of existing polio cases, and until it's cleared out of those nations, all other nations are at risk and have to spend their limited medical and educational resources on annual vaccination drives to prevent a resurgence, much like that from Pakistan in 2013. And immunization is _banned_ by Islamic militants in parts of Pakistan. And innocent refugees from the fighting there remain a dangerous vector for polio to be brought to other communities.
Politically, I'd be hard pressed to invent a more dangerous mix of medical issues, religion, and politics if Israel hadn't already been caught forcing refugee women to accept birth control shots, and some of the women injected hadn't thought they were flue vaccines.
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
Note especially that it was the government of _Israel_ doing this, and Israel is an icon of Western civilization and religious strife for Muslim countries. It lent credence to the most paranoid concerns of the Islamic who've been banning immunization. I admit that it quite incensed me at the time because it discredited the genuine immunization efforts of WHO and helped waste the polio eradication effort in Nigeria.
You're not really helping your Libertarian cause by spouting a bunch of nonsense while proudly claiming to be a Libertarian. Either you're a terrible example of a Libertarian, or all Libertarians are idiots. Pick one, please :)
I haz the herd immunity!
That insurance policy is to protect the insurance companies, not you.
In fact I actually went to a private school for good parts of my education and I can assure you that my parents did not get a tax break.
I'm all for school choice vounchers. I my ideal world your parents wouldn't have gotten a tax break; they would have been given a voucher for purchasing an education, and that voucher would have only been used at places that don't charge a penny more (i.e. schools couldn't charge the voucher prices +$1000 per semester).
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
My children are vaccinated for almost everything except for chicken pox and one other vaccine. I believe that parents should have that choice and not the government. Regardless of reasons, be it religious or some other reason. But that said all of this is just another political game to polarize the population, those for and those against. The politicians are hoping that this will drive people to the polls.
When the government tries to make someone do something even though they have a religious objection.
Fascists believe that the government is entitled to (and should) govern personal behavior, including deciding what a valid religious objection can be. This idea that the government can force people to vaccinate their children over their religious objections is clearly a fascist idea.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I'm surprised that there have not yet (to my knowledge) been any school lawsuits from pro-vax families. I know many schools have peanut-free areas. Could a family (or group of families) sue to have the school keep all the unvaccinated kids in a separate part of the school, eating at separate lunch areas, playing at separate playgrounds; in order to reduce the risk to the rest of the school?
I'd guess that the "tweaking" of the bill was to find a way for the students to provide money to the education system while being "home-schooled". Multiple-family home school and independent study may both be a way for the system not to lose money from those who defect over the vaccination issue. I think one of the most significant things about this debate is how it has changed views and compliance rates, and likely continues to do so. Vaccination has always been required in order to attend public school, and relatively few have opted out. I think we will see greater numbers of opt-outs because of the tyrannical, offensive nature of those who do not simply support - but insist by force, adherence to their science. It's beyond assault in a supposedly free country. And though I've read to the contrary and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. aside, I think it is the liberals that much more fully support vaccines and lack of choice in the matter of vaccines for self or one's children. Wonder if this will be an issue of interest at election time? Big enough to push people to the Republicans? The horror! (I am not a Repub and voted twice for Obama)
I'm pretty sure he's in on the whole 'Obama is actually a lizardman' secret cabal too.
my coporation' religious beliefs don't let me pay for employees' vaccinations
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Who is Bill and why is he requiring me to get vaccinated? It's not Clinton, is it?
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
I am not an expert in communicable diseases or genetics, so maybe I am wrong about this, but another issue that I haven't seen brought up much is that anti-vaccination groups endanger not just the small number of people who rely on herd immunity due to medical issues that prevent them from getting vaccinations, but also those of us who already have vaccinations. If nearly eradicated diseases spread through groups of unvaccinated people, it provides more opportunities for the disease to mutate into a form from which our current vaccinations do not protect. Should a person who happens to be immune to the effects of Ebola yet is still contagious be allowed to walk around New York as they please because it is their right not to get it treated?
I think we have a misunderstanding. I never said anything about forcing people to do anything.
And if you're going to use the term, at least use it correctly.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
One of the issues that isn't addressed in these debates is the poor data about truly unvaccinated children. One thing to be aware of is that some of the "personal belief exemption" data may have some flaws related to poorly-interpreted data. In some cases, it may overstate the presence of anti-vaccination communities. That is, some of those listed as PBE are still vaccinated but nevertheless chose the "PBE exemption."
I know of at least a dozen fully-vaccinated children in public school in an affluent school district in California, whose parents are scientists, engineers, and medical researchers, who have moved to California for work. Enrolling a child in a California public school is a often morass of paperwork. In particular, there needs to be documentation of vaccination or you need to select the "PBE" exemption. (Or other exemptions, including the genuine medical exemptions for compromised immune system, etc.) The requirements of documentation are onerous, particularly for people who are busy getting settled with new housing, new jobs, and many other issues. Vaccination records from an out-of-state doctor are generally not considered sufficient. It is possible, upon moving to CA, to get new primary care physicians for your children, make appointments, and get the proper certification. However, that takes a good deal of time (months in many communities) and is considered by many people a waste of resources. A number of school administrators recommend to arriving parents that rather than deal with the documentation (and keep their children at home until the paperwork is all sorted out), they merely check the "PBE" box on the form, which takes one second and no money. The "personal belief" was simply that the documentation was overly onerous for people who had better things to do than waste time satisfying unusually specific documentation requirements.
The media reports of "anti-vaccination communities are common in affluent school districts" may instead be merely that a number of affluent school districts have clued in the new arrivals that they can avoid trouble by claiming the PBE. A school district where the enrollment staff informs people about the PBE option as a way to avoid paperwork appears, when looking at the data, to be a school district filled with anti-vaccination morons.
There is much more reliable data about incoming kindergartners- these children, sometimes new to school of any type, are generally already California residents with California doctors, and the chance that a PBE exemption for them does indicate that their parents are nutballs is much higher. But the overall data needs to be viewed with a more critical eye.
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
I should've included the sarcasm tag.
I'm not sure if forcing those nut jobs that defy every decent scientific finding to home-school their children ...
Why is it children are supposed to be protected are allowed to remain with parents that put their children's life and health in danger? And that based on fear of sicknesses that are genetic and not caused by vaccination?
""Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible. Even if all are miserable, all will believe themselves happy, because the government will tell them that they are so." Russell, Bertrand. The Impact of Science on Society. 1951