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Hundreds Rally For Their Right To Not Vaccinate Their Children (msn.com)
CBS News reports that as Washington state confronts a measles outbreak which has sickened at least 56 people, "hundreds rallied to preserve their right not to vaccinate their children."
They packed a public hearing for a new bill making it harder for families to opt out of vaccination requirements, reports The Washington Post: An estimated 700 people, most of them opposed to stricter requirements, lined up before dawn in the cold, toting strollers and hand-lettered signs, to sit in the hearing.... The Pacific Northwest is home to some of the nation's most vocal and organized anti-vaccination activists. That movement has helped drive down child immunizations in Washington, as well as in neighboring Oregon and Idaho, to some of the lowest rates in the country, with as many as 10.5 percent of kindergartners statewide in Idaho unvaccinated for measles. That is almost double the median rate nationally....
One activist who spoke Friday, Mary Holland, who teaches at New York University law school and said her son has a vaccine-related injury, warned lawmakers that if the bill passes, many vaccine opponents will "move out of the state, or go underground, but they will not comply."
The sponsor of a similar bill in Oregon says that anti-vaxxers "have every right to make a bad decision in the health of their child, but that does not give them the right to send an unprotected kid to public school. So if they want to homeschool their kid and keep them out of other environments, that's their decision."
But there are still 17 U.S. states that allow "personal or philosophic exemptions to vaccination requirements," reports the Post, "meaning virtually anyone can opt out." (Though some states are now considering changes.) "The enablers are state legislators in those states, that have allowed themselves to be played," complains Dr. Peter Hotez, a co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
The World Health Organization estimates that measles vaccines have saved over 21 million lives since 2000. But last year in the European region's population of nearly 900 million people, at least 82,600 people contracted measles, reports Reuters. "Of those, 72 cases were fatal."
They packed a public hearing for a new bill making it harder for families to opt out of vaccination requirements, reports The Washington Post: An estimated 700 people, most of them opposed to stricter requirements, lined up before dawn in the cold, toting strollers and hand-lettered signs, to sit in the hearing.... The Pacific Northwest is home to some of the nation's most vocal and organized anti-vaccination activists. That movement has helped drive down child immunizations in Washington, as well as in neighboring Oregon and Idaho, to some of the lowest rates in the country, with as many as 10.5 percent of kindergartners statewide in Idaho unvaccinated for measles. That is almost double the median rate nationally....
One activist who spoke Friday, Mary Holland, who teaches at New York University law school and said her son has a vaccine-related injury, warned lawmakers that if the bill passes, many vaccine opponents will "move out of the state, or go underground, but they will not comply."
The sponsor of a similar bill in Oregon says that anti-vaxxers "have every right to make a bad decision in the health of their child, but that does not give them the right to send an unprotected kid to public school. So if they want to homeschool their kid and keep them out of other environments, that's their decision."
But there are still 17 U.S. states that allow "personal or philosophic exemptions to vaccination requirements," reports the Post, "meaning virtually anyone can opt out." (Though some states are now considering changes.) "The enablers are state legislators in those states, that have allowed themselves to be played," complains Dr. Peter Hotez, a co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
The World Health Organization estimates that measles vaccines have saved over 21 million lives since 2000. But last year in the European region's population of nearly 900 million people, at least 82,600 people contracted measles, reports Reuters. "Of those, 72 cases were fatal."
I believe you are jumping to the conclusion that this is a rich vs poor problem when it's not. Greater funding for the public system hasn't led to better educated kids. That is the reality of it. People think they can throw money at a problem and magically it'll fix the problem, but it's not going to solve the problem if you don't even understand what the underlying problem is. We should eliminate public education altogether and leave it to the parents to educate there kids. When you don't steal from the people there is more money for parents to fund the private education and it puts the responsibility of it onto the parent rather than the state which has demonstrated a clear and undeniable incapability of doing it well or efficiently. Without competition and without parents being involved kids don't do well academically. The problem is better solved by giving back the people the money that has been wrongly stolen from them by government that undermines the poorest most of all. And before you give me that nonsense about the poor getting more back then they send in it entirely ignores the fact the government steals money via hidden taxes, sales taxes, property taxes (and via rent), fees, fines, duties, tariffs, and employers. Start factoring those in and magically the poor wouldn't be all that poor.
Debunked, debunked and debunked. There are quite a few studies that show there's no link between mercury compounds in vaccines and autism. And believe it or not scientists and health care professionals are not "out to get you" with some giant conspiracy to give your kid autism.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Increased to the point of functional immunity for all intents and purposes.
This depends on both the disease and the patient.
Some vaccines confer nearly 100% immunity. MMR is 97% effective against measles. The smallpox vaccine was also nearly 100% effective.
Other vaccines are much less effective. Influenza vaccines are estimated to be about 40% effective, and its primary benefit is keeping R0 well below one, so that the disease does not spread through the herd.
Vaccines are not 100% risk free. That said, the risk of injury from the vaccine is many orders of magnitude lower than the risk from the disease, so yes, vaccinate.