[wintertime]

There are certain highly communicable infectious diseases that are very very dangerous to not only children but adults as well. I support vaccinations for these diseases.

Not everyone who is vaccinated responds to the vaccine, however, when large enough numbers of people in the community are vaccinated it acts as a fire break, keeping the disease confined, and preventing these killing and crippling diseases from being passed around.

But....What I suspect, is that as a nation we have forgotten how devastating a plague of polio, measles, or whopping cough can be. Maybe ( sadly) we will need to go though a major catastrophic event for everyone to relearn these lessons.

[LearsFool]

There are certain highly communicable infectious diseases that are very very dangerous to not only children but adults as well. I support vaccinations for these diseases.

Right on. And since HPV is transmitted from one 6th-grade girl to another just by sitting together in the cafeteria, a vaccine is necessary to prevent a catastrophic outbreak.

That's /sarc, since I know you see the difference between highly communicable infectious diseases and HPV. Several on this thread, however, talk about HPV as though it were typhoid fever. Next they'll tell us you can catch herpes from a toilet seat.

[6ppc]

What I suspect, is that as a nation we have forgotten how devastating a plague of polio, measles, or whopping cough can be. Maybe ( sadly) we will need to go though a major catastrophic event for everyone to relearn these lessons.

Exactly right. I personally have known two people with polio. Both were in wheel chairs, one could not communicate with anyone but his parents who had learned how to understand his distorted speech. Polio leaves broken bodies with intact minds...absolutely devastating and finally became preventable, and was virtually wiped out...I say virtually because one of the cases I know of was acquired well after the vaccine was distributed nationwide, but the affected person was NOT vaccinated.