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.
Otherwise no. Because stupidity like this costs everybody.
ummmmmm if my kid is vaccinated, and your unvaccinated kid gives mine the sickness.....doesn’t that say something about the vaccination in the first place?
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.
Yes, but every nation in the Americas has measles vaccination rates of above 85% with Guatemala being the lowest at 85% and many countries having rates higher than the US
That looks like a young Vito Andolini.
Absolutely you should have that choice. It was the safest for your kids. My youngest just started college last year. When they were little there were not the plethora of shots recommended and the combinations. That, IMHO, might not be the best thing to get those combinations all at once, esp. for a little baby. I had read a study when my kids were little that SIDS spiked at two, four and 6 months (coinciding with the shots). Scared me. My kids had their shots. Oldest had a bad reaction to the Whooping cough. At the time, the guidelines (and i called my Pediatrician) said a high fever of 104 and “irritability” was normal. Hell this wasn’t. I realized after the second that my son was probably having a bad reaction and at the third booster, I had my son get the Pertussis vaccine (the dead virus I think) that didn’t cause the BRAIN DAMAGING reactions of the live virus. No ONE or GOVT was going to order me to have my baby have the third shot of the vaccine that caused BRAIN DAMAGE. He did fine on the “older kid’s booster” type.
It means your kid was vaccinated against one strain and was infected by another. Or, in adults, they didn’t keep up with their boosters. Or we can blame this shadowy rogue gruop of “anti-vaxxers.”
So, if a parent wants to abort her child, the state can’t say anything about it? [Either we have freedom or we don’t.]
The vaccination rate for American children has been slightly more than 90% for the last 20+ years.
“Anti-vaccine fanatics” have had little to no effect on that number.
This latest measles outbreak certainly appears to be the result of some factor besides the “anti-vaccine” crowd.
All vaccines aren't created equal.
Think about the 1976 swine flu vaccine fiasco.-Tom
Of course it does. For some reason I doubt that those being criticized as being Liberal and rich will care much that the media/this Administration are flinging at them. They support all the other policies of “the One” and his leftist causes.
We both have/had reason working with our trusted pediatrician. Too many are reacting not thinking thanks to the media
Mark of the beast? Really? hahahahaha
Yes, Satan is laughing in his fiery lair at all the “good” folks getting vaccinations...
You have the right to risk your children’s lives by not vaccinating them, but you do not have the right to put my children’s lives at risk.
Tell me, why is the press stoking hysteria? Who do they care more about? You? Or Obama?
They don’t. Just liberal media hysteria.
You’re dead on. Free Republic has clearly jumped the shark on this issue. Now vaccinations are a left wing plot to do... well... something!!!!
The Polio vaccine (live) can give polio to someone whom is immune compromised or hasn’t had the vaccine for some reason. A baby’s POOP can infect someone for up to six weeks IIRC when reading the pamphlet given with my kid’s oral polio vacc.
The logic in these threads makes my head hurt.
Yes, illegals caused this outbreak. Because they aren’t vaccinated. So therefore, people who aren’t vaccinated are at risk of getting measles. SO.... large portions of Free Republic are now railing against.... vaccinations?? This makes no sense whatsoever.
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