Ontario Parents Refusing To Vaccinate Their Children Could Be Forced to Take Science Class (qz.com)

Ontario is considering making parents who choose to not vaccinate their children for non-medical reasons take a science class. The health ministry of Canada's most populous province has proposed a bill which would force those parents sit through the education session before applying for a vaccine exemption. In the class, they will be taught about the importance of vaccination for their children. Quartz offers more context: Ontario was the first province in Canada to introduce immunization laws (PDF) in 1982, which required children attending school be vaccinated against certain diseases -- including diphtheria, tetanus, polio, and measles -- unless they have a signed exemption. After routine immunization was introduced, cases of those diseases dramatically reduced. Parents who apply for an exemption (PDF) for non-medical reasons risk having their child pulled from school if there's an outbreak, or the immediate risk of an outbreak, of a designated disease.

Comments

It's a matter of social contract.

[mmell]

You want to live in our borders, protected by our military, using our infrastructure, functioning in our economy? You want all of the benefits society has to offer? Then you have to pay by behaving the way society says you should. You have to accept limitations on your freedom in return for protections we can afford. You can still enjoy a great many freedoms along with plumbing, electricity and consumer goods - but you have to obey certain rules in return. Good societies maximize the return while minimizing the price tag (i.e. - your kids will be educated, but they have to be immunized against certain diseases so that they won't cause harm to their fellow students. In return, society asserts that their fellow students will not give your kids these diseases and you will end up with reasonably well educated children).

Not completely baseless

[Okian Warrior]

These people already distrust anything science. They likely didn't get the point in high school and have been training their resistance to critical thinking and evidence based reasoning ever since. All that this will do is start a bunch of human rights complaints. The government would probably have better luck forcing all non-vaccinated kids into one school for the parentally challenged.

It's hard to see this from the parents' point of view, but keep in mind that their fears are not *completely* without merit.

The original polio vaccine was a weakened strain, and it was possible to get the disease from the vaccine.

This meant that there was a time when getting polio from the wild was less likely than getting it from the vaccine, so it's completely reasonable from the *individual* point of view that the best course is the one that minimizes risk.

Factor in the general devotion parents have to their child's well-being, and it 'kinda makes sense.

Then it was thiomersal. Thiomersal is a mercury compound mixed with vaccines to suppress fungi growth and such.

At the time, there was a large body of indirect evidence that suggested Tiomersal was safe. There was a lot of evidence, but it was all indirect(*).

Then one researcher published a study that directly linked thiomersal to autism and suddenly, the emperor has no clothes!

You see, direct evidence trumps indirect evidence every time. Indirect evidence makes assumptions about similarity that may or may not be true.

When the autism study came out, everyone realized that the evidence was indirect, and everyone freaked. It took medical science another decade to show that they were right.

In my opinion, I think science got lucky. Scientists relied on indirect evidence for something that was an emotional powderkeg, and it *could* have gone the other way. This sort of thing has certainly happened before(**), and still happens (***).

And also in my opinion, I'm not 100% certain that the science was right about this. Thiomersal was removed from most vaccines "out of an abundance of caution", and the political pressure on "being right" and "showing the researcher was a fraud" was so high that I'm not sure either question was fairly settled.

I'm not an anti-vaxer at all, just looking at the history.

The position against vaccines is incorrect, but not *completely* baseless.

(*) For example, Thiomersal is ethyl mercury, and risk was extrapolated from known exposure to methyl mercury.

(**) Tetra ethyl lead, for instance.

(***) Science now says that SSRI's are ineffective, despite being the go-to prescription medication for depression.

Have them buy insurance...

[Chas]

Seriously, if they're going to opt to not vaccinate their kids, they should be obligated assume liability for every child their unimmunized kid gets sick.
As such, they should also be obligated to take out an insurance plan to actually PAY for the medical bills of children made ill because of their decision.