Mandatory vaccinations vs. right to choose

POSTED BY: canttakesky
UPDATED: Thursday, December 7, 2006 07:56
VIEWED: 21145
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CANTTAKESKY

Saturday, November 25, 2006 10:42 AM

All 50 states have laws requiring mandatory vaccinations prior to school entry. All 50 states have medical exemptions for those children who are medically contraindicated for vaccination. Forty-eight states have religious exemptions. Sixteen of the 48 have an additional philosophical exemption. These exemptions are constantly being attacked by medical authorities, who would like to see parents have no individual choice on whether to vaccinate their children or not.

What do you think? Pro-choice? Or force it into those little suckers for the public good?

Can't Take My Gorram Sky
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The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting.
--Charles Bukowski (1920 - 1994)

PHOENIXROSE

Saturday, November 25, 2006 11:29 AM

I was not vaccinated as a young child. I got one shot when I was about five because the cook at my school had hepatitis, but other than that I have remained untampered-with. My mom took the 'religious exemption' because, as a Buddhist, she could, and also because it was a lot easier than going into why she thought it was a medically unsound choice to expose a very young child to a slew of viruses (even weakened) all at once.
Point of interest, at one point when she was registering me for school and signed the exemption card, she was told by the woman behind the desk that her brother always did that, too. He was a pediatrician.
Also, I am very healthy and have rarely been seriously ill. I had no ear infections, I had no trouble with chicken pox (they only lasted about two days), have so far remained seemingly immune to strep throat, rarely have a flu last more than a day, and have only had one fever that approached dangerous levels.
So I guess that tells you where I stand. Choice is always good, especially when there are so many things saying this is likely a good choice to make.

[]

KANEMAN

Saturday, November 25, 2006 12:24 PM

People should have the choice in the land of the free. That being said, it is the fools choice to not get vaccinated. Any opt-out, because of medical reasons, will be given an exemption from idiot status.........

Do you think Small Pox wanted our generation to be vaccinated?

as for Chicken Pox, if you didn't have it as a child, wait 'till you get that as an adult....lovely stuff.

CHRISISALL

Saturday, November 25, 2006 3:18 PM

Kaneman, you believe what you're told by the man.
All vaccines are necessary!
And there WERE WMD's!

Oh well.

World ain't that simple Chrisisall

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Saturday, November 25, 2006 3:26 PM

I suppose there are many layers to this discussion, but the extreme case would be some kind of plague (an epidemic and virulent disease) for which a benign vaccination existed.

Take Smallpox, for instance. There could be millions of people alive today and the risk of contraction is now almost nil, because of compulsory vaccination of smallpox.

So if you choose not to be vaccinated for a virulent and epidemic disease wouldn’t you be, to some degree, responsible if you contracted it? And if you did contract it and subsequently spread it to others who in turn died, wouldn’t you be, to some degree, responsible for their death? So couldn’t refusing compulsory vaccination of a deadly and contagious disease be viewed as reckless endangerment or negligent homicide?

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

PHOENIXROSE

Saturday, November 25, 2006 3:46 PM

If I stepped on a rusty nail or was bitten by a wild animal, I would get a shot. Likewise, if there were an epidemic, I would likely get a shot. But when was the last time that happened, really? I think the last one was polio, a little before the baby boom generation. Feel free to correct me if you know of another.
I think being sensible about it is fine of course, but getting a ton of shots all at once can compromise your body, that's all. In the young, especially, it can do some weird things. And flu shots, from what I've seen, can make you much more sick than just getting a flu. I really don't get that one at all. And giving babies a shot for hepatitis C when that's basically an STD? Pretty ridiculous, wouldn't you say?

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CHRISISALL

Saturday, November 25, 2006 4:02 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by PhoenixRose:
If I stepped on a rusty nail or was bitten by a wild animal, I would get a shot. Likewise, if there were an epidemic, I would likely get a shot.
And giving babies a shot for hepatitis C when that's basically an STD? Pretty ridiculous, wouldn't you say?

[]

My view, in a nutshell.

Not that I'm a nut

Chrisisall

RUE

Saturday, November 25, 2006 4:42 PM

I come from a different generation. My mother had a mild case of polio. A coworker got chicken pox while in grad school. He spent weeks in ICU and decades later is still paying off his medical bills and dealing with the lasting brain, eye and lung scarring. Working in a hospital I volunteered as a guinea pig for an experimental Hep B vaccine b/c (at the time), ultimately, 30% of medical workers contracted Hep B.

My sense is that vaccinating young children is safer and more efficient than older children. Their immune systems are coming up to speed and are primed for learning. And the more you are exposed to, the better trained your immune system becomes in giving your own tissues a pass - ie, you become less likely to develop autoimmune diseases.

But you young'uns here seem to think differently. So, if you all don't mind, could you post information and / or links explaining your areas of concern ?

CANTTAKESKY

Saturday, November 25, 2006 4:46 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
And if you did contract it and subsequently spread it to others who in turn died, wouldn’t you be, to some degree, responsible for their death? So couldn’t refusing compulsory vaccination of a deadly and contagious disease be viewed as reckless endangerment or negligent homicide?

This argument rests on the assumptions that the vaccine in question is both effective (confers immunity) and safe (doesn't confer anything else). Those people who refuse vaccines generally do so because they have serious doubts about both assumptions--doubts so serious they are willing to risk contracting the disease.

The dilemma is, do they have the right to question authority and have those doubts? Do they have a right to disagree with authority that said vaccine is both effective and safe? Do they have the right to informed consent?

In any epidemic or pandemic, people are going to contract diseases and spread them. Vaccinated or not, a responsible citizen takes sanitary and quarantine precautions to the best of his ability. Having done that, I don't think he should be blamed for spreading the disease anymore than someone else can be blamed for giving it to him. Plenty of vaccinated people spread diseases for which they received vaccines--they aren't blamed when they are involved in an outbreak even when death occurs.

Can't Take My Gorram Sky

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Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.
--Will Rogers

CARTOON

Saturday, November 25, 2006 5:03 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by kaneman:
Do you think Small Pox wanted our generation to be vaccinated?

Yes. I mentioned as much in the previous thread where this was discussed. Every one of my grandparents lost siblings to that dreaded disease. My parents and my generation were all vaccinated -- and the disease was eradicated.

If anyone has any doubts about the smallpox vaccine, just look at the photos (as I did) of children who contracted it. Then do a search for the number of people who died from it before the vaccine eradicated it.

BTW, my parents (as well as all of their siblings and most of their classmates) had virtually every common childhood disease one could contract at the time, because vaccines hadn't been developed for them: measles, chicken pox, scarlet fever, mumps, etc. My sister and I were vaccinated for everything available (there were no chicken pox vaccines then, so couldn't get that one -- see below), and we contracted nothing for which we'd been vaccinated. Going to school in the 1960's, I didn't know one kid in my class who got measles, rubela, scarlet fever, etc. They'd all been vaccinated.

In my parent's generation, everyone came down with those diseases -- some suffered severely and others died. In my generation, those diseases were signficantly rarer.

I'm not saying the government should mandate vaccinations. As I said in the previous thread, I haven't researched either the medical or legal aspects of this, so I can't offer an informed opinion. I'm only stating how I know the vaccines helped my generation from suffering the fate of my parent's generation, and both of our generations from suffering (or even surviving the fate of my grandparent's generation from smallpox.

Quote:
Originally posted by kaneman:
as for Chicken Pox, if you didn't have it as a child, wait 'till you get that as an adult....lovely stuff.

I had chicken pox as a child (this was prior to the discovery of the vaccine for it). My sister had a mild case. I was bedridden with extremely high fever for nearly a week.

As Kaneman has pointed out, chicken pox is even worse the older you are when you contract it.

And even worse, once you get chicken pox, you're susceptible to shingles (which is a re-emergence of the chicken pox virus). I had shingles at the age of 39, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I know people who've had it much later in life, who nearly died.

Believe me, if you can avoid chicken pox, do whatever you can to avoid it. The actual, initial emergence of the disease is nothing compared to what it can do to you later in life as the shingles.

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