Anti-Vaccine Fanatics Kill

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.

My choice is better than the government choice. I remember when the rotavirus vaccine came out. The main reason why it was pushed on to the public was because it saved the healthcare system money by less hospitalizations. That was how it was promoted to health care professionals.

The government will use that same tactic to babies with genetic defects, mark my words.Once you allow them access...

If something like a Captain Tripps or Ebola was a threat to me and my family, and there was a vaccine available, I would be first in line for it. The risk of those diseases is greater than the vaccine.Chicken pox does not meet that standard.

If you believe everything the CDC tells you, read the current issue of Vanity Fair. They were absolutely useless when Ebola was in Dallas, to the point of incompetence. Ebola was a clear and huge danger, but they sat on their butts and let Dallas handle the situation. The CDC did nothing in that outbreak. But you trust them to tell you that new vaccines are safe, and their current vaccination schedule is safe. I, for one, do not believe in giving a 2 month old 6 vaccines in one sitting- which the CDC recommends.

If the government can force a needle into my arm,then they can inject a chip that monitors my movement.

Why? You do know they can quarantine you, don't you? You do know that the Founders agreed with that authority?

They can dictate my weight, my behaviors ( drinking alcohol or smoking)

Prophylaxis against the spread of disease isn't regulating your more or less harmless habits.

because enforcement of vaccinations is a slippery slope to loss of freedom.

Slippery slope arguments are nonsense. I won't accept yours. I can just as easily say: If the government won't allow me to shoot or stab my kids [by the way, in case you were unaware, it doesn't allow this] then pretty soon I won't be able to beat them with chains and then I won't be able to spank them or talk to them crossly or even politely ask them to lift their feet while I'm vacuuming. Then pretty soon after that the government will be requiring them to poke me with sharp things. It's all a slippery slope.

Rubbish. We have Constitutions, legislatures, executives, the judiciary, and most importantly the polity itself to apply the breaks when we're heading down a slippery slope.

If a woman is pregnant with a Downs baby determined by prenatal testing, then she will be told to abort it because the door has been opened to allowing government access to our bodies

Only in the tortured "thought process" of an antivaxxer can a requirement to protect the life and health of your child be turned into a claim that you would be forced to harm or kill your child. That is EXACTLY what I am arguing AGAINST. Governments have an obligation to protect life, liberty, and property. That's why they're instituted. See Locke, or Jefferson. Read the first few paragraphs of The Declaration of Independence if you're confused about why we've constrained the demons of our darker nature through government.

[Nice reiteration of the abortionists' sacred motto, by the way: "allowing government access to our bodies."]

Protecting the lives and health of children -- born and unborn -- isn't a "loss of liberty" except to people who believe that children are property with no rights. We settled the issue of whether human beings could be regarded as property in 1865. Going backwards 150 years makes you an enemy of liberty, not a proponent of it. Your children have Constitutional rights just as you do. Those rights are protected just as much as yours are. And when you claim the right to harm another human being you're not talking about liberty, you're talking about license.

I am absolutely for proven vaccinations with a modified schedule. I do not believe the government should force a vaccine on me or my family with no long term studies of complications. What if the vaccine has horrible long term effects not realized until years in the future? Do I get to sue the government? That is why I am against the varicella vaccine. No one knows how long it lasts, no one knows if it prevents shingles.
Quarantine does not affect my health. The only side effect is boredom from being forced to stay home
Giving a med with no follow up on long term results can also be defined as abuse by the government. Look at the Gardisal vaccine- lots of young girls had serious side effects from an unproven vaccine.
If you think the judiciary is going to help- look at Roberts and the Obamacare ruling. Clearly unconstitutional, but Roberts voted for Obamacare.

[rotavirus] The main reason why it was pushed on to the public was because it saved the healthcare system money by less hospitalizations. That was how it was promoted to health care professionals.

No, the main reason it was pushed is because rotavirus kills millions of children in the world every year. But thanks for self-identifying as an antivaxxer nutcase who believes BIG PHARMA and similar boogeymen are behind immunization.

[Blah-Blah-Blah, more conspiracy theory] But you trust them to tell you that new vaccines are safe, and their current vaccination schedule is safe.

No, I trust a rigorous testing regime, which, by the way even your dreaded rotavirus vaccine went through. And here are the trade offs:

Brazil and Mexico undertook their own independent epidemiological studies which demonstrated that 4 deaths were attributable to vaccine, while it had prevented approximately 80,000 hospitalization and 1300 deaths from diarrhea each year in their countries.

-- Bines J (2006). "Intussusception and rotavirus vaccines". Vaccine 24 (18): 3772–6. doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2005.07.031. PMID 16099078.

As I said: Adults understand that there are trade offs. The danger of bowel obstruction, which was a side effect in 1 of every 12,000 vaccinations, is not a serious concern in the US. But even in the developing world, the likelihood of death from diarrheal disease is far greater than the likelihood of the side effect.

And by the way, that 1300 dead babies doesn't even count the number of additional deaths that occurred because 80,000 hospital beds and thousands of doctors and nurses were unavailable to treat other diseases while they tended to children with a preventable illness.

I, for one, do not believe in giving a 2 month old 6 vaccines in one sitting- which the CDC recommends.

And you, for one, have no credentials whatsoever upon which to base that decision, nor apparently have you exercised the due-diligence expected of a person making such a decision by staying informed. You've read the antivaxxer propaganda, and accept their views.

with no long term studies of complications.

All vaccines are tested.

That is why I am against the varicella vaccine. No one knows how long it lasts, no one knows if it prevents shingles.

The first of these statements is a claim that the perfect should be the enemy of the good. The truth is, no vaccine is 100% effective, and as a matter of fact there are rare cases in the medical literature where people who have actually had chickenpox get it again.

What you are making is not an argument against varicella vaccine, but an argument against any vaccine, because none are perfect. Well, sorry, but I think vaccinating my kids against polio, or having a vaccination against smallpox myself, was a sound decision.

The second is objectively false. We do know that if you have immunity from varicella you will not get shingles.

Quarantine does not affect my health. The only side effect is boredom from being forced to stay home

You're missing the point, probably because you're determined to. The government is depriving you of life, liberty or property when you're quarantined. It's telling you what you may or may not do with your body. So you accept that authority in some cases, but think everything else is a slippery slope.

In that case, I will accede to your reasoning: as long as you agree to be quarantined for life, you may forego immunizations.

Look at the Gardisal vaccine- lots of young girls had serious side effects from an unproven vaccine.

If by "lots" you mean "a few."

The manufacturer makes information publicly available about the side effects of that vaccine. The manufacturer very clearly says that for certain patients that vaccine is contraindicated. I'm opposed to high schools participating in vaccination programs. I'm opposed to Rite Aid or Sam's Club administering vaccines. I'm opposed to vaccines being given by PA's or nurse practitioners, unless an actual MD has reviewed the patient's medical history -- especially allergies -- first.

That said, Gardasil is extremely effective, the side effects are rare, and it is going to save the lives of 100's of thousands of women. Since there is no history of celibate females getting cervical cancer [we actually learned of the link between HPV and cervical cancer through studies of Catholic nuns] since there is no evidence that you can get cervical cancer except as a result of venereal disease, I would say participation in that program should be voluntary as long as young women understand that they shouldn't be having sex before marriage, and if they do, there are significant risks, not the greatest of which is eventual cervical cancer.

However, most diseases DON'T fall into that category.

If you think the judiciary is going to help- look at Roberts and the Obamacare ruling.

Judges and juries make awards in medical cases every day. Lest you forget, Robert's opinion in the 0bamacare ruling, written for the majority, found parts of 0bamacare Unconstitutional. It found only the individual mandate, viewed as a tax, to be Constitutional.

Challenges to 0bamacare in Federal Court are not over and will be going on for years.

Finally, I think you missed the most significant aspect of the whole 0bamacare fiasco: The electorate put in place a pResident and two Houses of Congress that passed and signed 0-care. As I said: we are protected from slippery slopes by our institutions, but most importantly by the vigilance of the polity. In the case of 0-care we, The People, failed, plain and simply.

’m not opposed to vaccination as long as the vaccine has been shown to be effective and does not contain impurities

Precisely.

Ok, we have a elite mini minority who has openly declared their desire--no, not only desire but intent--on ridding the world of most of us. We have had a Merck vaccine developer who has admitted vaccines routinely contain hidden cancer viruses derived from diseased monkeys. Would their be a more effective vehicle to insure a vast chunk of us don't make it much beyond our productive years than a vaccine or a series of vaccines who each trigger another needed component to cause disease? Or, say, a component in a vaccine that is later triggered by something in the environment?

Google "Transcript of audio interview with Dr. Maurice Hilleman"

For I say unto you, It would be better for you to have a millstone tied to your neck and be throne into the ocean, than to advocate harming a child. Which is what smoking pot in the same room with a kid is advocacy for.

But not tobacco, because it's legal, right? Actually, tobacco would almost certainly be more harmful.

And I'm not a Cathoholic, so I wouldn't know about your nun anecdote.

But hey, let's not stop there. Regarding child abuse, I'm sure that many of your left-wing ilk would say the same about a McDonald's happy meal.

By the way, all of my kids have been vaccinated, and I would advocate the same for anybody else's.

But I wouldn't for a moment consider coercing or criminalizing any parent who conscientiously chose not to do so.

Indeed, your own hysterical, wild-eyed, slavering authoritarian attitude very effectively exemplifies why it is the height of folly to delegate such parental decisions to an overbearing nanny-state.

To my mind, one thing much more dangerous than parental ignorance is submitting to the dictates of smug, self-assured disciples of science and statistics; demagogues who know what's best not only for themselves, but for everybody else as well, and can (apparently) only make their point by talking down to people in the most abusive manner.

As C.S. Lewis noted, the Tyranny of such zealots is relentless. I'm sure it's been quoted in this thread already, but it bears repeating:

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

Well, don’t visit children if you are sick with something, because when you are sick, you are contagious. Most exceptions to this rule are diseases with pretty limited overall contagion, such as HIV. But with the flu or measles, some person or kid coughing into the air of the house or open air should not visit people. Even with all the vaccines out there, you aren’t covered against every disease out there, some people need to use some sense. As it stands, rash and coughing drops of your saliva into the air spread measles, so someone with a sick child decided to take them to Disneyland, the Texas daycare, and so forth. It never ceases to amaze me how much people think this rule of health sense doesn’t apply because you have vaccines against a small fraction of the diseases out there, when you dramatically drop the risk of spreading the infection by none other than not going to visit someone old or going to school when you are sick, it boggles my mind how this simplest rule of common sense flies over the heads of so many people. Then, even with the vaccine and the boosters, there is a variable of between usually 2 to 5 percent that you still can get sick, and get other people sick with at least the case of measles. Others tend to have higher chances of infection with the vaccine.

There's no evidence that tobacco smoke is the least bit harmful when inhaled second hand.

That's interesting, because there are apparently plenty of "well informed" scientists who assert exactly the opposite, and, indeed, they spread the word using government-subsidized PSA's, no less.

It would be pretty reasonable to presume that if second hand smoke from cigarettes was not harmful, then second hand smoke, in general, would probably not be harmful. Or does tobacco possess some sort of magical properties which make its second-hand smoke uniquely benign?

In any event, I agree with your conclusion that second-hand smoke from cigarettes is of negligible impact, but, as we have seen, that doesn't stop ostensibly well-informed scientists and other nanny-staters from spreading state-funded propaganda which emotionally claims otherwise.

The debate rages on, and is a prime example of the need for society's do-gooders to rise and save us from ourselves.

Rotavirus kills millions of children in the world, but not in the US. Rotavirus kills about 30 children a year, probably kids with preexisting conditions. Rotavirus is generally diarrhea which May ( or may not) requires IV fluids for about 12 hours, and then they go home. Rarely do you see a roto positive kid stay in the hospital for more than a day. A vaccine is great for a child who may have genetic defects, cardiac problems, but not a normal baby. It is overkill. In order for the pharm companies to make money in vaccines, they promote and try to make mandatory vaccinating for something that is relatively minor.You are also comparing diarrhea deaths in third world countries to the US. Not a good comparison at all.

You are comparing me to an anti vaxx, but I am not. I do not think the government should force medication on anyone. I also do not believe in forcing meds on people with minor cost vs benefit ratio.

Polio, mumps, measles, pertussis , tetanus, diphtheria are something I would vaccinate my kids for.If I had kids. I would space it out.

Hepatitis I would wait until they are in their teens. Children are not at risk for hepatitis, especially newborns.

I would not give gardisal, varicella and roto vaccine. Cost vs benefit ratio is not there, and I am not here to help pharm make money off me. Gardisal does not even vaccinate against all strains of HPV. It is a waste of time, and risk of side effects much greater than the benefit.

I also think that we are the guardian of our bodies. The government has no right to sticking a needle in me. It is a slippery slope to government intervention in controlling behaviors they deem costly to the system.

Your statement :
“young women understand that they shouldn't be having sex before marriage, , and if they do, there are significant risks, not the greatest of which is eventual cervical cancer.”

That shows a lack of understanding of HPV. HPV can be passed from men to woman, so if the chaste girl marries an HPV positive male, she will get HPV.

If someone has measles, they should be quarantined. I have no problem with that.

If you want to force vaccines on everyone, then we should also prohibit the sale of alcohol, because drunk driving kills more people in the US than measles does. Slippery slope.

Big Pharm needs to make money, and they pay off the politicians. Less vaccinations= less money.

Parents who have immunocompromized children are worried, and I understand that. A father who has a child with leukemia is suing the school district in California to not allow un vaccinated kids in his child's school.

However, if a child has leukemia, there are other diseases in school that can also get them sick.Staph, strep, e coli, common cold, fungus. I think if a child is immunocompromized, they should home school, or stay in a private classroom, and the school district pay for it.

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