Posted on 03/05/2019 4:20:40 AM PST by Kaslin
Vaccines save lives. Take smallpox, for example.
Smallpox was a deadly viral disease that marked survivors with scars and disfigurations. Accounts from India and China showed primitive vaccine utilization as early as the 1500s, made from ground smallpox scabs that were inhaled through the nostril. The first modern smallpox vaccine was developed in 1796 by Edward Jenner. In 1813, the U.S. government enacted "An Act to Encourage Vaccination," establishing a National Vaccine Agency. In 1853, the United Kingdom made smallpox vaccination mandatory. In 1874, the German Empire followed suit (population of 54 million). Then Sweden. And so on.
By 1949, the last case of smallpox was seen in the United States. Global smallpox eradication was announced in 1980.
But, it is human nature to oppose. Every masterpiece has a critic, after all.
Anti-vaccinationists first appeared in the early 1880s. The first batch claimed that the transmission of the virus was false. Religious zealots then claimed that vaccinations were unnatural and an affront to their deity. 1990s hippies spread rumors that vaccinations caused autism. Modern-day anti-vaxxers are socialists who believe something along the lines of evil corporations are selling vaccines for profit and hence the vaccine must be evil. As the ease with which information could spread increased, so too did the paranoia and the conspiracy theories.
The result? By the new millennium and the lightning speed of conspiracy theory dissemination, children again began dying of diseases which are entirely preventable. In 2018, for example, 41,000 Europeans were infected with measles, with 37 of them died. An elementary school in Oregon currently has toddler vaccination rates lower than those in Venezuela, according to PBS. Over 100 people have contracted measles in the United States this year.
If children and adults could be saved from disease via vaccination, then can our government impose compulsory vaccination laws to save lives?
The Supreme Court has unequivocally answered this in the last century: yes.
In 1904, the Supreme Court heard the case of a Massachusetts anti-vaccinationist. He claimed that his liberty was invaded when the state of Massachusetts subjected him to criminal penalty for refusing to submit to vaccination. He argued that a compulsory vaccination law was unreasonable, arbitrary and oppressive, and, therefore, hostile to his inherent right to care for his own body and health in whichever way he felt best; and that the execution of such a law, no matter for what reason, he felt was an assault. The opinion of the Court was handed down in 1905, striking down all of the anti-vaxxer’s arguments. The Constitution of the United States does not guarantee absolute liberty from government intervention, the Court explained, and it does not import an absolute right into each person to be wholly freed from government restraint.
“There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good. On any other basis organized society could not exist with safety to its members. Society based on the rule that each one is a law unto himself would soon be confronted with disorder and anarchy. Real liberty for all could not exist under the operation of a principle which recognizes the right of each individual person to use his own, whether in respect of his person or his property, regardless of the injury that may be done to others.”
In a prior decision in 1890, the Supreme Court explained the origin of restricting liberty for health and safety:
“The possession and enjoyment of all rights are subject to such reasonable conditions as may be deemed by the governing authority of the country essential to the safety, health, peace, good order and morals of the community. Even liberty itself, the greatest of all rights, is not unrestricted license to act according to one's own will. It is only freedom from restraint under conditions essential to the equal enjoyment of the same right by others. It is then liberty regulated by law."
In 1922, the Supreme Court again reiterated this stance in the case of a Texas anti-vaxxer, reminding us, “it is within the police power of a State to provide for compulsory vaccination.”
This year, Congress will consider enacting federal laws to mandate vaccination in the United States. The reason why the federal government is considering intervention is that 17 states have allowed exemption from vaccination requirements based on religious or philosophical beliefs. These states include all six considering infanticide this year: Virginia, New York, Vermont, New Mexico, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions will hold a public hearing on Tuesday, March 5, beginning at 10 am: “Vaccines Save Lives: What Is Driving Preventable Disease Outbreaks?“ Watch it live here.
Not sure what the point of vaccinating people in a country whose government is allowing and promoting a massive invasion by third worlders.
I remember the hysteria about the “Swine Flue” and that unproven vaccine.
A number of people died from it, not a single case of swine flue was ever recorded in the US.
What could possibly go wrong? With Bureaucraps in total control?
Anti-vaccinationists.
These people are horrible.
I’d go crazy without at least 2 vaccinations a year. :)
Last year I went to Vegas and The Bahamas.
Doing your best AOC imitation, I see. LOL.
Wow... what a gingoistic article. Can she fit any more buzzwords into her propaganda?
It’s interesting the sheer amount of attacks and propaganda entering the press about “anti-vaxxers” - this is obviously a paid campaign and I guarantee that health has nothing to do with it. It’s a distraction from the fact that the disease outbreaks are occurring in areas that have the highest illegal immigration. It’s also a further attempt to increase big government in our lives and to divert funds into big pharma.
Vaccination saves lives, that’s not in question. What’s in question is getting vaccinated for dozens of diseases in one shot or the questionable need for “compulsory” vaccinations of HPV or flu shots.
ROFL!!!
And I made that up without the economics degree she has!
I should be banned for that comment alone :)
But I suspect she will say something close to that stupid within the next 300 days.
Yeah. Polio and smallpox were killers and was needed at that time. I had ALL the so called childhood diseases. Measles, chicken pox. Etc. No biggie. But my kids had the vaccines for these.
The worst thing I ever did was to take a flu vaccine 19+ years ago. It put me in an autoimmune condition I am still fighting. There are vaccines and there are vaccines. My kids had all the normal vaccines but no one in my family takes flu shots.
Before she fell ill she was already able to stand up in her crib and hold on. She is married to a wonderful man and both have a son who will be 12 years old this month and is very smart. He taught himself to type and types 80 or 90 words per minute. I am lucky if I type 20 wpm
The country cannot claim that it can mandate vaccines simultaneously as it says that you have a right to do with your body what you want. Saving others? Convenient argument, we can say the same about saving babies being murdered.
While I am not anti-vaccine I AM anti bad vaccines and they do exist. I refused, successfully the anthrax vaccine in the DOD, testified in front of congress as to how it will make people leave and looked deeply into that vaccine, its development its protocols and all the clams for and against, its a very bad vaccine that should not be given to anyone, especially women.
Human Papaloma vaccine is another. Not satisfied that its worth it at all let alone necessary except if you are promiscuous in sexual activity.
I know some will disagree but again you will not find me anti-vaccine, but definitely anti bad vaccine. The left loves to promote themselves as the only educated ones in the room and on this, climate change and transgenderism they refuse to even entertain that something they want could be wrong or bad. I agree that some on the right act in ignorance of medical vaccines and how good they can really be, but like climate change and transgender issues the conversation can not be honestly held with the left.
Wrong. The Constitution does not permit this.
I remember that too and it was the most ridiculous reason for a vaccination, I’m not a pig
The author seems not to understand there is a legal difference between the Constitution not banning states from mandating vaccines, and the Constitution authorizing the feds to mandate them on a national level.
If it permits this (it doesn’t) then it also permits locking up aids patients so they won’t spread aids. (They do this now in Cuba.)
I had the measles and I had the mumps and once you had them you was immune to them and could never get them. I do not recall ever having chickenpox. Two years ago I did not get the flu shot, not that I was against it, I just never got around to it. The same for my husband. We did not get the flu either because we stay away from people. It was different when we were younger
Nobody is going to mandate that I put something into my body that I don’t want there. That’s the hill I’ll die on.
There are good vaccines and bad vaccines.
There is also a bad time to give a good vaccine...
I’m not anti-vaccine. But I do question whether or not the multi-vaccine cocktails are the best method. I also question whether or not administering vaccines to infants is a prudent decision. And I have reservations that pharmaceutical companies, allied with big government bureaucrats, are being completely transparent about the testing regimen and possible side effects of the carriers the vaccines are contained within.
These should all be legitimate concerns and areas of inquiry, but to suggest any of them is to be labelled an “anti-vaxxer”.
Whether or not government (and the level of government at which it occurs is an important part) should compel vaccinations, especially for diseases which are avoidable via behavior modification, is a completely separate question. Certainly there are other solutions to those opposed to vaccination than to use force of government to coerce them.
“What’s in question is getting vaccinated for dozens of diseases in one shot...”
Somme doctors will refuse to give newborns those kinds of shots.
Actually there aren't. Vaccine effectiveness falls into an area of mathematics known as "network" theory, e.g. deadly diseases propagate from person to person, perhaps through a disease vector, through a chain of connections. It is well known in network theory that to stop the propagation of a signal you must cut a critical number of network nodes. The whole point of vaccinations is to cut enough nodes in the propagation chain the mass contagion is suppressed. Refuseniks become the links in the chain by which mass contagion can occur.
Public health is one of the greatest goods that a beneficent society can produce. That is the difference between a first world society like, say Japan or pre reconquista Sweden and say Washington DC, which doesn't actually believe in paving the roads. It's a state of mind as much as anything else.
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