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.
Then would you agree to let the government place a chip under your child’s skin “ for their protection?”
Me too, I hate those mandates that require restaurants to keep their food at certain temperatures, make their employees wear hairnets, force them to toss in the garbage their outdated foods, wash their hands after using the restroom, use a certain amount of disinfectant in their wash and rinse waters, keep their food preparation areas free of dirt and debris, and how about those silly mandates that tell the bartender that he has to stop pouring you a drink if you are apparently bombed or those restrictive laws that tell you that .10 BAC means that you can't drive and in Milwaukee they even have ordinances that say that when it snows you have to shovel your sidewalk...I tell you there are just too many laws and who needs theem....just let everyone fend for themselves....yeah, that'll work!!!
That’s good to know for those that are around immune compromised individuals. My kids had all the standard shots against the horrible diseases and the required TB tests. I was informed though and had to make the decision of my oldest’s third DPT shot. I was glad I made the decision of using the non-live shot that didn’t cause the brain damage and my Pediatrician agreed with me.
Well said.
So the State does own the child? And anything that the State says is good, is good. Anything not of the State, is “harm”. Is your name O’Brien by chance? Why do I feel like Winston Smith lately?
Dead people seldom buy pharmaceutical supplies...what sense would that make????
LOL!
I’m well very well aware of what went on when I was young-and I was in rural Texas most of the time-not on Mars.
My dad was career military and as military kids, we got any and all vaccines available if we traveled with him to a base-so did my mom.
That is still done in the military-which makes sense since there is possible exposure to all kinds of people from every God forsaken hellhole on earth. Civilians did not have that exposure in the past, and would not now if people were not allowed to come here without question-remember the guy who brought ebola? And he wasn’t even an illegal and didn’t sneak in...
I know very well that Franklin Roosevelt was disabled due to polio-so does everyone who paid attention in their history classes-he contracted what was probably polio in the early 1920’s, not after he was in office.
I’ve had measles, mumps, chicken pox-those vaccines were not around when I was a kid-moms exposed their kids to those things because they can be much worse in an adult. I’ve had no ill effects-I’ve never done drugs, legal or illegal...
Go back through this thread and point out to me to where I said that.
So why is your stance on what is harmful/neglect superior to theirs... because you say so? Because you know best? Isn’t that the very heart of leftist government is the answer liberals?
Your argument is silly. There are definitions of neglect that we agree to. They aren't made by "the government" they're laws passed by representatives of the people of the United States, signed by their executives, and reviewed for uniform application, fairness, and due consideration of their rights by the judiciary. All this is done in hearings with medical professionals and concerned citizens. There isn't some bureaucrat [or FReeper] arbitrarily making a declaration somewhere about what's good for your kids, and there are legitimate exemptions for conscience.
When did this anarcho-libertarian strain infect conservatism? Next you'll be telling me that traffic lights warranted by the DOT are an unreasonable intrusion into your right to operate your motor vehicle in whatever way you please. You don't have the right to harm your children. Those decisions are made by the polity. If you don't like that, go live in the wilderness somewhere. Civilization places some restraints on us. Deal with it.
Fine. I've dealt with nitwits before. The answer is no.
Now go have a discussion with someone at your grade level.
Idiocy? My idiocy, that’s what you have to respond with? Bottom line in this Country is that people even if with disagree with them, have the right to be stupid or an idiot. People have had their children taken away for not providing treatment. I had my kids vaccinated. I would not force someone else to do it. Do I think the benefits outweigh the risks, sure (depending on the what the vacc is) No one wants polio, and all the other previously “eradicated” (statistically speaking) diseases coming back. The Media presentation doesn’t represent the hesitancy of some parents and has been pretty much a Tsunami against the “free riders” even to the comments (NOT HERE, but on HUFFPUFF and other MSM esp. in California) that too bad if the vaccine is CONTRAINDICATED in certain cases, the “free riders” should have to get it anyway. That is wrong. Not all cases of unvaccination are due to “idiots”. I protected my kids. I don’t like the mercury in the vaccines. I think vaccines should be made. That makes me an “idiot”? If the MEDIA doesn’t handle responsibly the problem, people become targets that should not be. That’s all I’m saying. I became an “idiot” in your mind because I point out there are some that should NOT have the shot. That needs to be in any MEDIA presentation and discussion. Statistically small, but a genuine, legitimate amount of people. The railing against all of the unvaccinated that I heard last night on MSNBC (don’t ask), without any at all discussion about legitimate concerns. Everyone was called a NUT, “idiot”, I heard the term Nazi being bantered around.
Strawman. Didn't say it.
And anything that the State says is good, is good.
Strawman. Didn't say it.
Anything not of the State, is “harm”.
Strawman. Didn't say it.
Is your name O’Brien by chance? Why do I feel like Winston Smith lately?
Probably because you're a paranoid nutcase who extrapolates reasonable statements into bizarre strawmen that nobody ever came close to saying.
Is your name Jack D. Ripper by any chance?
I’ll have to look that up. Thanks for the info. I never gave my kids asprin. Whatever they thought, Motrin became standard as I had my kids and Tylenol with the liver damage, not so much.
“There isn’t some bureaucrat [or FReeper] arbitrarily making a declaration somewhere about what’s good for your kids, and there are legitimate exemptions for conscience.”
Are you certain of that? When was the last time that you have read the 80,000 pages of regulations written in the last 6 years?
The fact of the matter is that you, other freepers and I don’t know the process. It is impossible to know the process instituted by an unelected regulation author that makes changes to the regulation on his/her whim.
“When did this anarcho-libertarian strain infect conservatism?”
I’d rather be much closer to anarchy than we are today to tyranny.
I remember about the virus present, hence the aspirin given. A lot of medicine and science still isn’t “settled”. We learn more, discover new things, and things change until something else is learned.
The media is NOT concerned about the influx across the border of potentially unvaccinated people. The CDC has THIS to say about allowing unvaccinated in school and I would hope this would apply to the tens of thousands of children from Mexico and Central America allowed to cross over our border,
“Students who have no documentation of live measles, mumps, or rubella vaccination or other acceptable evidence of measles, mumps, and rubella immunity at the time of enrollment should be admitted to classes only after receiving the first dose of MMR. A second dose of MMR should be administered no less than 4 weeks (i.e., minimum of 28 days) later. Students with evidence of prior receipt of only one dose of MMR or other measles-containing vaccine on or after their first birthday should receive a second dose of MMR, provided at least 4 weeks have elapsed since their previous dose.”
Why is the MEDIA ignoring this threat from Illegal Immigrants?
Focus on ALL of the unvaccinated. Why not at all on the border?
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/meas.html
You prove my point! Christian families who have concerns about certain vaccinations at certain times in their babies lives are “Jack the Rippers”, “Murderers”, and “Abortionists”. I am not paranoid, people like you really are out to get us!
The arguments being made by people on this thread are EXACTLY the same as the arguments made by abortionists, and they refuse to see that, because they refuse to see where this irresponsible attitude that all of our rights are absolute takes us. The founders did NOT believe in any such thing.
Your kid refuses to eat the dinner you've put in front of him. Do you have the right to not feed him anything else tonight to convince him that he has to eat what you're able to provide? Sure. Do you have the right to not feed him anything ever again until he eats what's in front of him? No. You don't. Where that line gets drawn is a matter of law, and we all agree to be bound by it as the price we pay for having a civilization.
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