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New York City Orders Mandatory Measles Vaccinations in Brooklyn (providencejournal.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the roll-up-your-sleeves dept.

"New York City officials on Tuesday declared a public health emergency and ordered mandatory measles vaccinations" in an area where most of the state's 285 measles cases have occurred. The Washington Post reports: New York's mandatory vaccination order in four Brooklyn zip codes is by far the toughest action to date by state or local officials, as the disease's tally grows to 465 cases in 19 states. Officials there and elsewhere have sought to bar unvaccinated children from schools and other public places but have had limited success... The mandate orders all unvaccinated people in four zip codes to receive inoculations, including children as young as 6 months. Anyone who resists faces a misdemeanor charge and could be fined up to $1,000.
Long-time Slashdot reader Major Blud shares a BBC report that under the order, "any person living in the affected areas who has not been vaccinated must be immunised within 48 hours."

6 of 322 comments (clear)

  1. end the nonsense by sdinfoserv · · Score: 4, Informative

    Good. Their "rights" to liberty absolutely terminate when they endanger the lives of others.

    1. Re: end the nonsense by Dunbal · · Score: 4, Informative

      Spoken like someone who has never seen anyone die from either one. Spend a few months in a children's hospital. Oh I will grant you death is rarer than having to live on with some permanent defect. But when either case is entirely preventable, your argument is like saying "yeah but drunk driver's don't kill all THAT many people a year what's the big deal"...

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  2. Re:why does it matter? by rednip · · Score: 4, Informative

    A common misconception about vaccination is that it prevents infection. Vaccination only trains your own body's immune system to attack a disease after your system has been exposed to it. For some their vaccination wasn't good enough to build an immunity and others might have temporary or lasting immunity system problems. Even vaccinated people can get a disease, but it's generally less frequent and more mild overall.

    Babies have to grow some before and other people have actual real problems taking a vaccine ever, those people rely on 'herd immunity'. I'm fairly certain that you too were at least once a baby.

    --
    The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
  3. Re:Do you know what Vaccination is? by Smidge204 · · Score: 4, Informative

    No vaccination is 100% effective. There will always be a small percentage of people who get vaccinated but do not become fully immune. With measles I believe it's 2-3 percent, which is still tens of thousands of people.

    Even if you are immune, you can still potentially carry the virus with you. Measles virus can survive outside the body for several hours and still be infectious.

    And you contradict yourself within three sentences:

    1) "You do not endanger others if you are not vaccinated"
    2) "You could spread it to other people who are not vaccinated"

    So which is it? Are you not endangering others, or can you spread it?

    =Smidge=

  4. Re:Checking residency by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    The easy and final solution would be to simply tattoo them, make them wear specific insignia, and quarantine them.

  5. Re:That's an Unamerican sentiment by drewsup · · Score: 3, Informative

    Most of the Jewish people there are natural born citizens . They do lead an insular lifestyle, but last I heard, that is not illegal.
    You need to be more careful, your Nazi armband was showing just a bit there...