Posted on 02/04/2015 11:01:19 AM PST by Kaslin
This week, controversy broke out over whether state governments have the power to require parents to have their children vaccinated. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, no stranger to compelling his citizens to stay off the roads during blizzards, announced that he had some sympathy for the anti-vaccination position: "I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well. So that's the balance the government has to decide." Kentucky Senator Rand Paul doubled down on Christie's remarks, stating, "I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental orders after vaccines. ...The state doesn't own your children."
Christie and Paul aren't the only politicians sympathizing with anti-vaccination fanatics; in 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama repeated widely debunked claims of links between autism and vaccination. Skepticism of vaccination crosses party lines, unfortunately -- although the most organized anti-vaccination resistance comes from the New Agey left in places like Santa Monica and Marin County, who worry more about infinitesimal amounts of formaldehyde in vaccines than about death by polio.
Unsurprisingly, older Americans believe that children should be vaccinated against diseases like measles, mumps and whopping cough, by a 73 percent to 21 percent margin. Americans 18-29, by contrast, believe by a 43 percent to 42 percent plurality that government should not mandate such vaccinations.
That's because young people don't remember a time when such diseases claimed lives. They don't remember a time when the vast majority of Americans weren't vaccinated. Older people do. Many of them lost loved ones to polio and measles and mumps and rubella. In 1952, over 3,000 Americans died of polio and well over 21,000 were left with mild or severe paralysis. Thanks to Dr. Jonas Salk's vaccine, there have been zero cases of natural polio in the United States since 1979.
The same is true of measles. According to Dr. Mark Papania of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 90 percent of Americans suffered from the measles by age 15 before widespread vaccination beginning in 1962. From 1956 to 1960, he reports, "an average of 542,000 cases were reported annually." That included 450 deaths per year, as well as 150,000 cases of respiratory complications and 4,000 cases of consequent encephalitis per year, many of which resulted in later death. Then mandatory vaccination kicked in. Until a major upswing in 2014, we averaged less than 100 cases of measles per year in the United States since 2000.
The point of mandatory vaccinations is not merely to protect those who are vaccinated. When it comes to measles, mumps and rubella, for example, children cannot be vaccinated until 1 year of age. The only way to prevent them from getting diseases is to ensure that those who surround them do not have those diseases. The same is true for children with diseases like leukemia, as well as pregnant women. Herd immunity is designed to protect third parties.
But Americans have short memories and enormous confidence in junk science. Parents will ignore vaccinations but ensure that their kids are stocked up with the latest homeopathic remedies, Kabbalah bracelets and crystals. St. John's wort, red string and crystals all existed before 1962. They didn't stop the measles. Vaccination did.
That doesn't mean that all vaccinations should be compulsory, of course. There are certain diseases that can only be transmitted by behavior, like HPV. There are others that are too varied for effective herd vaccination, like the flu shot. But when it comes to measles and mumps and rubella and polio, your right to be free of vaccination -- and your right to be a dope with the health of your child because you believe Jenny McCarthy's idiocy -- ends where my child's right to live begins.
From the web page: There are no vaccination requirements for visitors to the United States. The Disney outbreak is almost certainly not from an American, but from a tourist.
So don’t get the live vaccine. Pretty easy, really.
Nowhere in that article is any claim made that vaccinated persons will get measles from unvaccinated persons.
Obviously you haven’t been paying attention.
Theoretically, there’s no such thing as full immunity, even if you’ve had the disease. The claim that vaccines aren’t 100% perfect, therefore we shouldn’t use them, is idiotic. It’s like saying you shouldn’t have a life preserver in a boat because you can still drown with one on.
I’m truly shocked at the number of FReepers that are falling for this.
I think vaccinations work. That said, I no longer trust the government and their cronyism with companies that make the vaccines. Not all good intentions can be trusted to be good these days.
Anything could be in those vaccines, anything. And if it were bad, will the people that forced those on people have any price to pay?
I think not.
“If vaccinations are the golden ticket, what do you have to worry about? Your kids are vaccinated?”
No medication and no vaccination is 100% effective.
Thus, if one happens to be among the 1.5% of the population that is not protected by the measles vaccine, they will get the measles if exposed as will those who are not vaccinated.
If everyone is vaccinated or even if 95% are vaccinated, measles will not be able to spread, even if introduced.
It is interesting that it is the older folks that favor vaccines. The reason being, in all likely hood, due to the fact we were routinely vaccinated in school. My mother used to be terrified when polio season came around.
Our current vaccination rate is about 91%.
From the CDC, yet Barry has allowed Illegal Immigrants to enter this Country and Schools without a SHRED of documentation.
“Only doses of vaccine with written documentation of the date of receipt should be accepted as valid. Self-reported doses or a parental report of vaccination is not considered adequate documentation. A healthcare provider should not provide an immunization record for a patient unless that healthcare provider has administered the vaccine or has seen a record that documents vaccination. Persons who lack adequate documentation of vaccination or other acceptable evidence of immunity should be vaccinated. “
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/meas.html
Please stop wearing your seat belts. They don't always work. Please don't obey traffic lights: sometimes other drivers drive right through them. Please don't stop at stop signs: a lot of illegals don't stop at them. Please don't wear a life jacket. You can still drown with one on.
Vaccines is dangerous!
So is warshing yo hands!
I ain’t seed nothin bout no germs in The Bible!
Many are egg based. A child with allergies to egg reacts. For years I would get a reaction on the mandatory flue vaccine. Recently they’ve come out with one that doesn’t use latex on the needle. No longer have a problem
Good points!
“Theoretically, there’s no such thing as full immunity, even if you’ve had the disease. The claim that vaccines aren’t 100% perfect, therefore we shouldn’t use them, is idiotic. It’s like saying you shouldn’t have a life preserver in a boat because you can still drown with one on.”
Great point.
These people are saying, “I knew someone who died in a car crash and he was wearing a seatbelt, so therefore, I will never wear a seatbelt.”
Or
“Cancer treatment is not 100% effective and because of that, I will not treat my cancer.”
The US is 91%
Mexico is 89%
Our measles problem is not from Mexico, but from America.
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