The issue of mandatory vaccination is once again an item of debate in media circles given the recent outbreaks in measles, and fueled this week by the continued inability of politicians to discuss vaccination policy without sounding like anti-science fools.... The current vaccine debate, unlike those prior ones, is actually motivated by a real problem (the return of diseases presumed previously eradicated) as opposed to conspiratorial musings....But vaccination is not about protecting the vaccinated so much as it is about protecting others from disease-carriers. Vaccines are properly understood not on the basis of narrow self-interest but as a defense of...