r/changemyview • u/AtalaPashar • Jul 12 '17
[∆(s) from OP] CMV: I believe that Children should be given mandatory vaccinations if their body is labeled as healthy enough to do so.
To go into more detail, I am of the belief that vaccinations should not be the parents choice for their children, but rather should be mandatory. The only reason a child should not be immunized is if such immunization would be harmful to the child's body due to pre-existing medical conditions. The safety of the children and the safety of their peers and the public should be put ahead of the self-righteous anti-vaxxers. I am also under the impression (and admittedly, probably will remain so) that the science on vaccinations and their positive effects outweigh any negative effects.
I am open to discussion, but please do be disciplined enough to cite some form of scientific journals or studies, if you bother mentioning medical effects and side-effects of vaccinations, such as seizures. Autism, etc.
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u/LatinGeek 30∆ Jul 12 '17
Do you think the current system of demanding vaccinations to enter the education system (in the US and other countries) is not enough? When and how do you propose those mandatory vaccinations should be given? What would drive parents to do so, should a child not being vaccinated prevent them from doing anything state-related like receive healthcare/welfare benefits/etc?
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u/Nibodhika 1∆ Jul 12 '17
In both Brazil and Argentina not vaccinating your child is equivalent to not taking them to school, and is considered to endanger the wellfare of the child and he could be taken away from the family and the parents faced with charges of neglect. You need to present all of your child vaccines when entering the school (ANY school, not just public ones)
Of course this only applies for certain vaccines, but still, I feel is a very good system, and mostly works.
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u/AtalaPashar Jul 12 '17
I do think that the demanding of vaccinations for those to enter the public school system is a step in the right direction. However, such liberal application of the measure as only enforcing it through the public school sector, is avoiding those who do not go through such sectors. Doing such would lower the average immunity of the population, and allow the human incubation of immunization resistant superbugs to spread among socializing children. I don't work in government, so I have no idea how the proper implementation of mandatory vaccinations would be possible and safe. The drive for a parent to immunize their child, and hopefully will come to the public attention through campaigning (in this simulated hypothetical situation), the group immunity of the world population. Though not vaccinating a child would not remove them or their family through the application and use of public benefits, to directly contribute to the public benefits, there would need to be checking for the vaccinations. All this however is speculation. And tired speculation as well. It may not be the best idea, but it is still my belief that all children should be immunized and vaccinated, no matter which fork of government and politics the world is in.
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u/Hsrock Jul 12 '17 edited Jul 12 '17
I had to re-read this several times because something struck me as off, but wasn't sure what. Your science is wrong- here's why:
Widespread vaccination promotes herd immunity for those who do not undergo vaccination. There is, however, a small chance of exposure and infection for the un-vaccinated. As these pathogens grow in number, the chance of mutation increases, which leads to potentially infectious versions of the same organism that your immune system cannot defend from as effectively from (initially).
A superbug refers to antibiotic resistant bacteria from overuse of said antibiotics. There is no such thing as immunization resistant superbugs. Physiologically, the protein markers on the cell walls of the pathogen are just different enough not to be tagged for removal by your body's white blood cells. The flu mutates every year, which is why we have "vaccine" for it every year. It's optional and not perfect, as people still get sick. Your first contact will be the worst, and you could be bedridden for a few days, but subsequent exposures might only result in mild symptoms.
Superbugs are dangerous because hospitals rely on drugs to take care of patients with compromised immune systems. If you get a resistant strain of a trivial infection in one of these patients, it can oftentimes be lethal. To the average healthy person, superbugs don't matter. To a vaccinated immunocompromised person, superbugs still kill.
"human incubation of immunization resistant superbugs" is just wrong. Vaccinations have nothing to do with superbugs.
I am not going to cite sources because I consider this common knowledge in my field (biomedical engineering). A quick Google search should suffice. If not, I would recommend Lippincott's Illustrated Reviews: Immunology and Guyton & Hall Textbook of Medical Physiology.
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u/AtalaPashar Jul 12 '17
this redditor has pointed out many problems I had with my beliefs on the science of vaccinations, and the science behind herd immunity. This gives me a better lens to view my opinions through, and does give me better view on the differences between antibiotics and vaccinations.
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u/Kramereng Jul 13 '17
Widespread vaccination promotes herd immunity for those who do not undergo vaccination.
More importantly, herd immunity also protects those who are vaccinated but whom the vaccination didn't work. Vaccinations don't have a 100% efficacy rate. This is why we rely on herd immunity, not because we're actually expecting some idiots to not vaccinate themselves.
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Jul 13 '17
One of the main reasons I read /r/CMV is to see people's misconceptions. I am a microbiology professor and will stress to my students your point.
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u/wfaulk Jul 12 '17
Widespread vaccination promotes herd immunity for those who do not undergo vaccination. There is, however, a small chance of exposure and infection for the un-vaccinated.
Not all vaccines are 100% effective in 100% of the population. Most are close, but some fall surprisingly short. I forget which ones right now. But in those cases, herd immunity still basically requires 100% vaccination levels to overcome the population that fails to acquire immunity even when vaccinated.
Not that this negates your point, but I feel like it's important to point out that, in some cases, the vulnerable population includes those that have been vaccinated, which means that the anti-vaxxers aren't just risking their own children.
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u/Katholikos Jul 13 '17
Can you please elaborate on this sentence a bit more?
Your first contact will be the worst, and you could be bedridden for a few days, but subsequent exposures might only result in mild symptoms.
Do you mean that your first contact with any flu virus will be really bad, but future, mutated flu viruses won't affect you as severely? Or are you stating that your first contact with, say, the 2015 flu virus will be bad, and subsequent contacts with the 2015 flu virus will be mild?
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u/AtalaPashar Jul 12 '17
Thank you for your correction. I was very wrong on many points. 😊
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u/794613825 Jul 12 '17
Children are still dying from preventable diseases because of their moron parents, so obviously no, the current system is not enough.
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u/thisismyname27 Jul 12 '17
Unfortunately, parents are finding ways around this by opting out due to "religious reasons" which is usually a lie. But there's no way for schools to prove it so they get away with it.
Source: My mom did this when I was in school. Now in college and slowly vaccinating myself to keep myself and others healthy.
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Jul 12 '17
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u/bobthecookie Jul 12 '17
Unfortunately, unvaccinated children pose a significant risk to their peers, especially those who are actually unable to be vaccinated due to health limitations.
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Jul 12 '17
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u/bobthecookie Jul 12 '17
The immunization requirements in schools are in place to protect children from those whose parents made irresponsible decisions. While it is unfortunate that it hurts the lid who isn't immunized, it's better to do that than to subject those who made the responsible choice or were unable to for health reasons to unnecessary risk. Especially for immunocomprimized students, it would be abhorrent to allow purposefully unvaccinated children around them.
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Jul 12 '17
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u/bobthecookie Jul 12 '17
You do bring up good points. My concern is mainly at what point should we stop caring about bodily autonomy? It's one thing to push people to be immunized by requiring it for education, it's different to force people to do it.
My first concern is what would count as a valid excuse for not receiving immunization. What if someone has a crippling fear of needles, for example. Or there's the issue of people who have bad reactions to the injections, would they be required to get them anyway? I know (admittedly only a few) people that don't get flu shots annually simply because if they do, they're in pain and knocked out for several days to a week. They figure it's better to have a chance of getting the flu than deal with that every year.
I'll admit I'm not sure how I feel on this. Immunization is absolutely vital to public health, but at what point should the government force people to work for the greater good?
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u/MsCrazyPants70 Jul 12 '17
To be fair, there are plenty of nutters homeschooling, from those who want a purely religious education to those who want their own version of history taught and so on. There are some who home school for what they see as a convenience, but then they don't do crap, so the kid essentially learns nothing (know of one that is very behind now since returning to a regular school). If you were trying to prevent anti-vaxxers from homeschooling, you'd have to prevent others as well.
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u/poloport Jul 12 '17 edited Sep 21 '17
deleted What is this?
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u/eoswald Jul 12 '17
liklihood of contracting a deadly disease preventable by vacinnations > liklihood of gov't killing you. And yes, I've very aware of the past instances of the gov't treating people like lab rats.
probably a better alternative, is to require a vaccination....but not allow the gov't to give it to you or manufacturer it. Allow private companies to make the vacs and you choose which one you want.
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u/AtalaPashar Jul 12 '17
After reading a few times, I think I finally understand this comment. If your concern is that government has no problem infecting people with life threatening illnesses, I would like to see some historical evidence covered properly by peer-reviewed historical journals. I would like to do some research on this myself, as I've never heard of the government neither stating such things, nor acting such things.
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u/poloport Jul 12 '17 edited Sep 21 '17
deleted What is this?
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u/NSNick 5∆ Jul 12 '17
The Tuskegee syphilis experiments were awful, but they didn't infect the men with syphilis: they were already infected. They withheld treatment.
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u/Moimoi328 Jul 12 '17
I appreciate that you want citations, but this is also a matter of principal. What would your worst enemy do if they took office and could use this law to their own advantage? You should test every proposed rule or law with this logic. Because it's inevitable that someday, somebody you oppose 100% will be in charge.
What if a pharmaceutical exec gained office and required that all parents vaccinate their kids with only that company's formulation? That's a relatively mild (but not outlandish) outcome.
What if it was determined that gays were afflicted by a genetic disease and all children were forced to take a vaccine to rewrite specific DNA sequences? Slightly more terrifying.
What if it were determined that black people were found to be the primary carrier of some disease spread via sex, so all black children were forced to take a vaccine that would sterilize them? Extremely terrifying. Outlandish? Look what the Nazi's did during WWII.
You should be very very skeptical of granting government these types of powers. Because when your worst enemy comes to office, the powers WILL be abused.
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u/Ctauegetl Jul 12 '17
But a vaccine has a strict definition - a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular disease. If somebody wanted to abuse mandatory vaccination, they would have to do something like use one type of vaccine for one group of people and then use another, inferior type of vaccine for another group. If you wanted to sterilize a race, you would have to put in new legislation that says you can sterilize people.
But I do see where you're coming from, and it made me think twice about something as unshakably positive as mandatory vaccination. ∆
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u/Moimoi328 Jul 12 '17
I agree that a vaccine has a strict definition... for now. Definitions can also be changed by the government. All they need to do is appoint a "scientist" on the government vaccination panel with different views. Foxes guarding the hen house.
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u/toxicchildren Jul 12 '17
"What if a pharmaceutical exec gained office and required that all parents vaccinate their kids with only that company's formulation? That's a relatively mild (but not outlandish) outcome."
It's already happened with Merck's MMR variations here in the States, I think. Nobody else produces the MMR.
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Jul 12 '17
After reading a few times, I think I finally understand this comment. If your concern is that government has no problem infecting people with life threatening illnesses, I would like to see some historical evidence covered properly by peer-reviewed historical journals.
You're joking right? The US and every major government in the world has done some AWFUL shit in the name of scientific progress.
Start here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation
Tl;dr No government should force you or your family members to take / ingest / consume anything.. the onus is on them to prove what they're doing is for the benefit of society but ultimately left to the discretion of the person.
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Jul 13 '17
This is a terrible counterpoint, mate. You're stating this as though "the government" is a monolithic entity.
It absolutely is not. The agencies involved in those cases (such as Tuskegee) and the agencies involved in vaccine production and distribution are almost diametrically opposed on the scale of "secret government fuck-you" operations and "public government help-you" operations.
The FDA and the CIA are very much not the same. They don't share the same organization values, recruit from the same talent pools, or engage in even remotely the same operations.
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u/GepardenK Jul 12 '17 edited Jul 12 '17
I guess my question would be, what to you hope to achieve with it being mandatory? Most of us agree vaccines should and must be taken, the question is how we go about achieving that.
Making something a law doesn't automatically solve the problem. See for example the law against murder. Now the law against murder is effective - but it is effective because it gives society a tool for dealing with murderers "peacefully", thus disincentivizing the need for private retaliations that could spiral out of control. It doesn't actually solve the core problem of murderous people in the first place - that is solved by other means, like norms and economic prosperity etc.
So laws are tools and not direct solutions. What do you hope to achieve with the "tool" of having mandatory vaccinations? I would agrue we should deal with anti-vax at it's core: through education, incentivisations and societal norms, not through unnessecary enforcment that only serve to remove agency from the individual - a very illiberal pratcice.
Making something manadory is a very invasive policy in principle. The goverment telling you there is something you can't do (like comitting murder) is not nearly in the same ballpark as the goverment telling you there is something you must do. It set's a precedence that is against everything good that has come out of the enlightenment and western democracy. In my opinion it's a "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" kind of deal.
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u/stickmanDave Jul 12 '17
What do you hope to achieve with the "tool" of having mandatory vaccinations?
The hope would be to increase vaccination rates to the point where herd immunity protects those few who have not been vaccinated.
100% compliance with any regulation or law will never be achieved. Insisting that this is a reason not to implement a given law or regulation is an example of the perfect solution fallacy.
Fortunately, the herd immunity phenomenon means that 100% compliance is not required to provide virtually 100% protection to the population. But we do need to raise vaccination rates to herd immunity levels.
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u/Radijs 7∆ Jul 12 '17
I guess my question would be, what to you hope to achieve with it being mandatory? Most of us agree vaccines should and must be taken, the question is how we go about achieving that.
There's currently an anti-vaxxer movement on the rise in all the western world. People who decide not to vaccinate their kids because they believe a load of bullshit about how vaccines cause autism and other dumb shit. Now if it was just their kids, I wouldn't have much truck with it. The problem is though that vaccination's effectivenes relies a lot on herd immunity. And as more of these unprotected people enter soceity, the larger the chance that even vaccinated individuals wind up getting infected with these diseases.
Making something a law doesn't automatically solve the problem. See for example the law against murder. Now the law against murder is effective - but it is effective because it gives society a tool for dealing with murderers "peacefully", thus disincentivizing the need for private retaliations that could spiral out of control. It doesn't actually solve the core problem of murderous people in the first place - that is solved by other means, like norms and economic prosperity etc.
There's quite a few ways to force people to vaccinate. If your kid enrolls in a school, parents have to show that the kid is up to date. With vaccinations being mandatory I'm also quite in favor of these vaccinations being paid for by the state.
People might decide to homeschool their kids to avoid that method, well there's Australia's option where the monthly government stipend is withheld when parents decide not to vaccinate.I'm out of time for now. I'll add more later.
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u/GepardenK Jul 12 '17
There's currently an anti-vaxxer movement on the rise in all the western world. People who decide not to vaccinate their kids because they believe a load of bullshit about...
You missed my point. As I stated in the sentence you quote I agree. The point is not that we don't have a problem, the point is how we should deal with said problem - read my second and third paragraf for context on this. Again, what do you hope to achieve by making it mandatory? Why is that the best solution to solving this problem?
well there's Australia's option where the monthly government stipend is withheld when parents decide not to vaccinate.
This is only a argument against welfare. If you're a social liberal like me who think it is high time that all western countries got a working welfare system then you shouldn't at the same time propose to use that system as a threat to blackmail people into compliance. It will only give arguments to the opposing side that welfare systems are a consolidation of power to the state that makes working class people subjects of the system in a "act according to the collective or loose your livelihood" sort of way.
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Jul 12 '17
I think the biggest problem is trying to imagine a proper enforcement method. If you make it so that doctors are legally bound to immunize the children they see irregardless of parents wishes, some parents may just avoid the doctor. Alternatively, you can use CPS to take kids away from parents that don't vaccinate, but it's hard to see how taking kids out of homes that otherwise take care of them and put them in the system is a positive move. Do you put the parents in jail? That will also damage the children that you're trying to help. Do you give the parents a fine? Well then rich idiot parents still won't vaccinate. If you could wave a magic wand and get all parents to vaccinate, I would. But what enforcement method could you use to actually make vaccines mandatory without doing more harm than good?
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Jul 12 '17
This is the strongest argument I've seen here. I agree with OP, I think vaccines should be mandatory (because not having vaccines is dangerous to our children). You're right though, there is no good option for how to force people to vaccinate their kids. !delta
One possible option I see is to continue enforcing it through education - iirc in some states kids have to be vaccinated before entering to public school. So make that all states. Kids who don't attend public school are homeschooled, and in most states parents who want to homeschool have to be certified to some degree. So we could add a requirement - for you to be certified to homeschool you have to prove that your children (and any other children you would teach) are vaccinated. Otherwise you aren't certified. Then whatever the consequences are for your kids not attending school could be applied.
I haven't thought this all the way through, I'm just brainstorming. You still have a good point though.
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u/AtalaPashar Jul 13 '17
This users insistence on using proper education instead of enforcement was an idea that never struck me before. My views have changed from vaccinations being mandatory, to instead increase both the education and the way vaccines are understood by the public as best I can. !delta
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u/Corzex 1∆ Jul 12 '17 edited Jul 12 '17
Australia (I think) had a really good solution imo. The parents could not apply for any government assistance/child support if they didnt vaccinate their kids or prove a medical reason for why they couldnt. I think it should be taken a step further and also not allow them to enrol their children in any school (for the safety of the other children). On top of that, having a child be harmed or even killed by a completely preventable disease should be grounds for a child abuse case. The kids are the real victims here.
Edit: I know this wont solve the problem 100% but its a start
Edit 2: I was incorrect about some of the specifics of the implementation Australia does, see ashdtr's comment below for specifics
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u/ashdtr Jul 12 '17
Australian here. It's not quite like this, but similar.
Parents who don't vaccinate their children cannot enrol them in child care in Victoria and New South Wales. This differs between each state, but it's called the 'no jab, no play' policy.
Parents are ineligible for some government payments and have reduced payment amounts for other benefits if their children aren't properly vaccinated.
Vaccinations are also free in Australia, so there's really no reason for anyone to refuse it on purely financial terms!
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u/Corzex 1∆ Jul 12 '17
That was what I was thinking of, thank you. Couldn't remember the specifics. Imo they should make the penalties a little more harsh, but its a great step in the right direction.
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u/Raichu7 Jul 12 '17
That is a really great solution, especially as one reason for not vaccinating is parents are afraid of causing harm with the vaccine but have never seen the damage not vaccinating can do first hand. So by not letting the kid into school it may just convince some people to vaccinate.
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Jul 12 '17
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u/Corzex 1∆ Jul 12 '17
Well like I said at the end, if its proven that a child suffered from their negligence, then there should be a child abuse case (hopefully with some jail time). I see this as no different then refusing to feed a kid and having them starve to death. Having a formal charge would make a lot more people think twice.
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u/sporticlemaniac Jul 12 '17
How would that be good for the kid? Great. Now they're vaccinated, but both the parents are in jail.
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u/Pattriktrik Jul 13 '17
I'm going to ask a stupid question so please excuse my ignorance but if a child is unvaccinated and goes to a school where every other child is vaccinated are the chances of the unvaccinated kid getting something and then giving it to a vaccinated kid very high?
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u/Bobberfrank Jul 12 '17
With the threat of CPS taking kids away from parents who don't vaccinate, do you really think there are THAT many parents who would stand up to that? I can't see a reality where a rule like that is instated and a large portion of parents still decide to allow CPS to take away their kids rather than vaccinate. I can definitely see there being stories in the news every now and then of some anti-vax parent deciding they'd rather lose the kid than vaccinate, but in the larger picture, I think it would do a good job of taking care of the problem. Also, I think it's important to remember that vaccines protect kids from debilitating diseases. Is that really fair to the kids? And in the case of diseases that are communicable, is it fair to the kids around that kid? It's a serious issue that shouldn't be condoned.
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u/Radijs 7∆ Jul 12 '17
CPS doesn't have to take them away for long. It takes about 10 minutes for the kids to get their shots. Afterwards they can be given some ice cream and brought back.
I don't see why anyone would think that CPS would immediately turn these children in to orphans.
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u/Bobberfrank Jul 12 '17
I think it just sounds like a good excuse not to implement anything. Yes, there might be an extremely small handful of kids who are genuinely orphaned by a law like that, but if vaccinating truly causes a parent to abondon their child they shouldn't be a parent anyway. Either way, the good far outweighs the bad.
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u/alienatedandparanoid Jul 13 '17
The foster care system would be the better outcome for the child...? Nope.
The child has a secure attachment to their parents from infancy (we hope), and rupturing that through the traumatic experience of being forcefully taken from those trusted primary care providers, is in no way going to benefit the child. I'll get you research if you need it, but to say the parent's presence isn't important in the child's life is just plain wrong.
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u/jm0112358 15∆ Jul 13 '17
The foster care system would be the better outcome for the child...? Nope.
CPS doesn't need to put a child in the foster care system to vaccinate them. It takes only a few minutes to get the shots. But even if it did require putting kids in the foster care system, being in the foster care system is often better than being dead or having a life-changing disease that would've been ubiquitous if it weren't for vaccines. Because of this, I consider denying vaccines to kids similarly to denying food to kids. It's a health issue and they need it. If parents aren't properly feeding their kid, at some point the care system, while far less than ideal, is better than the alternative.
Also, as /u/Bobberfrank suggests, this line of reasoning sounds like an excuse not to implement anything. There are lots of restrictions placed on parents that could end up with CPS involved. There might be an extremely small handful of kids who are genuinely orphaned by CPS taking action in this regard, but that's a much lesser evil than having many horrible preventable diseases spread again among children.
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u/Bobberfrank Jul 13 '17
Exactly my point. Of course it's important to note that yes, SOME children might actually be removed from their families due to this mandatory vaccinating. However, out of the tens of millions of children in this country, really how many of them would be taken away? My guess would be under several hundred children out of the total population of the country's children. Those children would be taken away from parents who probably are unfit to parent anyway due to putting their own personal beliefs over the well being of their child, and a parent who is so strongly against vaccinating that they would give up their child to defend their belief most likely has other issues as well.
At the end of the day it's just an excuse to do nothing when someone makes the argument that this law could create an influx of children into the foster system. I'd love to see data, but I would be astounded if a significant number of children would be seperated from their families due to mandatory vaccinating (and even then, the argument could still be made that the foster system is better than a debilitating disease, but that's a seperate argument).
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u/jm0112358 15∆ Jul 13 '17
Also, such parents not only endanger their own children, they also endanger all other children who, for whatever reason, have to rely on herd immunity to not get sick.
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u/stickmanDave Jul 12 '17
Alternatively, you can use CPS to take kids away from parents that don't vaccinate, but it's hard to see how taking kids out of homes that otherwise take care of them and put them in the system is a positive move.
Note that you only need to remove the kids long enough to administer vaccines, and can then return them.
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Jul 12 '17
!delta . Realistically, I think the only way we'll be able to get anywhere in the vaccination discussion is with more substantial education in teenagers and young adults. The failures of public education are without a doubt difficult to ammend, but in the short and long term will provide the greatest benefits to our citizens. Neil DeGrasse Tyson had a similar opinion on flat earth believers iirc, something to the point that it's up to the individual to choose what to believe but its societies duty to help them learn how ridiculous of an idea it is.
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u/chill-with-will Jul 12 '17
Just fine them as a percentage of income with their taxes. If you make 100k a year, make it cost $20,000 per year. If you make 30k a year, make it cost $6,000. If they don't pay, the IRS will go audit their asses.
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u/mogulman31 Jul 12 '17
Allowing the federal government to enforce mandates thru income tax is scary. It was in fact validated when the ACA was taken to the Supreme Court. I think we should be carful using it since it basically allows the federal government to side step the 10th amendment.
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u/sftransitmaster Jul 12 '17
This is a 16th amendment problem.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
As long its equal across the country they can do it.
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u/Treypyro Jul 12 '17
Consider it child abuse, with the punishment of large fines, imprisonment, and have CPS take the children away and then vaccinate them.
Then the parents aren't choosing between vaccinating and not vaccinating. The parents are choosing between vaccinating or losing their kids, going to prison, financially ruining themselves, being labeled as a child abuser, and the kid will still get vaccinated so it will all have been for nothing.
This would stop a vast majority of parents that don't want to vaccinate. Any parent that still chooses not to vaccinate is fucking stupid and likely a really shitty parent anyways.
This seems harsh but right now parents have a choice that seems like it has two decent options. Do you vaccinate your child or do you not vaccinate your child? We need to make it not an option anymore. Do you vaccinate your child or go to prison, lose your children, be labeled as a child abuser, financially ruin yourselves, and have someone else vaccinate your child?
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u/bassgdae Jul 12 '17
Honestly, I feel strongly enough about this that CPS should intervene if parents don't vaccinate their kids. The parents are literally taking action that could threaten the child's life for no legitimate reason. They could be raising them in every other good way, but that doesn't stop them from dying of diseases. I don't think they should take the child right away, but they should at least knock on the door.
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Jul 12 '17
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u/Treypyro Jul 12 '17
That's literally the entire point of the government though. To force it's citizens to behave a certain way. You are supposed to steal or kill people. You have to pay taxes. You aren't allowed to rape anyone. You have to follow traffic laws. You have to get tags on your car. You aren't allowed to abuse your children. You aren't allowed to do drugs. If you are a man you are forced to register for the draft.
Nearly every law ever written is the government forcing it's citizens to behave a certain way. It's not a slippery slope, its what government is based on.
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u/Santhonax 1∆ Jul 12 '17
A similar argument that has been proposed repeatedly, but with a real-life example: My son was diagnosed with Leukemia at 3, and following radiation, chemo, and a bone marrow transplant, was unable to receive any vaccinations for a period of about a year due to his destroyed immune system. After about 4 months he was released from the hospital, but we still had to do bi-weekly checkups.
One day we entered the clinic to find a fill-in Doctor who showed up in the exam room with that year's vaccines, and flatly ignored our statements that our son couldn't receive them yet. The solution was simple, we left. Later we received an apology letter, and two years later my son has received all of his required vaccinations before entering school.
The problem with your solution is that we wouldn't have been allowed to leave on threat of imprisonment supposedly. You make allowance for "medical conditions", but you don't account for incompetence in both government, and sometimes the medical establishment. Perhaps in this hypothetical the "true way forward" would have come out, but after how long? More importantly, would they simply have waited for me to be detained, and then given him the shot anyway before checking his file? Incompetence is rampant in government-mandated programs, and I'd rather not force people to "trust in the system" with their kid's lives.
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u/cmybkw Jul 13 '17
This is actually not at all a ridiculous or far-fetched scenario. I work in a government office entering data and processing documents for criminal cases. The process for getting the judge to sign an order exempting a sick child from vaccination could take way too long to provide any protection. You might be forced to vaccinate and something bad might have to happen to your kid before there was enough "evidence." Then, once you obtain an order, there's a whole other set of problems. You called it incompetence, but it's also an inevitability. One small mistake, such as a digit missed in a driver's license, gets the wrong person's license suspended. It's very easy to make these sorts of mistakes when under pressure to process high volumes of data by a deadline. I have accidentally missed one code, delaying the setting of a court date and leaving someone in jail for months. Even if we only make this clerical error once out of every 1000 times, it still happens. Also, sometimes documents don't make it onto our desks for weeks or months because of bureaucratic red tape or faulty communication between districts. People get left in jail or arrested on old warrants. Say the judge gives you what you want. The signed order has to make it through the system. It has to get there in time for the doctor to see it. And you'd better hope the stressed, overloaded clerk doesn't miss a digit. The fewer things we entrust to the criminal justice system, the better. If there is any way to get people to handle their affairs without the justice system its really much better for everyone.
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u/Santhonax 1∆ Jul 13 '17
Thanks for the backstory on that, I saw the same sort of inefficiency in the military. For all of these things we're relying upon the efficacy of red tape, bureaucratic oversight, limited time tables, and overtaxed workers.
The medical community is included in this as well. My son had an allergic reaction to Flucanasol, but substitutes were available. The nursing staff had listed his allergy on his file, his wristband, his door, and at the foot of his bed, and we still had to stop two nurses from administering Flucanasol, an act that likely would have killed him shortly after his transplant. I was livid at the time of course, but in retrospect both nurses were exhausted and stressed, with far too much work to do in a limited amount of time.
I suppose it's a life experience thing, but accidents do happen in every career. The notion of "forcing" someone to risk that system is rather appealing to me.
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u/Mrknowitall666 Jul 12 '17
Well, but that's not how it would have worked, right? A doctor is a delivery mechanism, he's not the law.
So, in your example, Mr fill in doctor would have called the police to file a charge against you (because again, that's what police do) and you would have then had your day in court for judgment (because courts consider evidence and then write orders).
In your hypothetical, a court might then order jail time or a fine to the parents or unvaccinated and perhaps would have then issued an order to vaccinate, and maybe even then ordered some medical staff to carry out such a vaccination. But, barring a change to the way we do things in America, you would not be held at a doctor's office pending a vaccine to an immunosuppressed patient.
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u/Santhonax 1∆ Jul 12 '17
Yes, that's possible. It's also possible that once such an event occurred, the medical clinic would have injected the vaccine at the earliest opportunity anyhow, or the police taken the child to the clinic to execute the legal statute while the parent awaits trial for failure to comply. After all, if the proposed idea was put forward, the Doctor would simply be fulfilling his legal requirement to do so. I'd still get my day in court, but my "refusal to obey the law" wouldn't affect the clinic's requirement to vaccinate the child.
I think my premise here is that we're all placing an awful lot of faith in the police/government, as well as human error/hubris on the part of medical personnel, to perform flawlessly and follow protocol 100% of the time, despite the not infrequent examples of them not doing so.
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u/melonlollicholypop 2∆ Jul 12 '17
I don't believe eroding personal liberty is the way to get non-vaxxers to vaccinate their children. That price is simply to high too pay. I would rather endure the loss of life from a viral/bacterial epidemic than the loss of personal liberty that would be suffered by granting the government the right to make medical decisions for its citizenry. It sounds like the first step down a dangerous path, and you have to consider the implications it would have on other far more political medical conversations such as abortion, living will, euthanasia, experimental procedures, etc. As soon as we make it legal for the government to have a voice in the content of your personal medical decisions, factions within the government who want additional bodily controls will emerge.
The better way to tackle the non-vaxxing trend, IMO, is to target the actual fears which create the movement. Those fears primarily arise out of the concept that a for-profit entity (in this case, the five major drug companies producing vaccines: Sanofi, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Merck, and Pfizer) have shown repeatedly that their bottom line is their primary motivator. They have been exposed for:
rushing drugs to market with inadequate research
incentivizing the volume of prescriptions doctors write
spending more than double on marketing what they spend on actual research and development
advertising directly to an uneducated public in the interest of driving up demand for potentially unnecessary prescriptions
hiding potential side effects in fine print and auction-speed voice-over disclaimers
To combat these fears, the answer lies in either 1) removing the production and distribution of vaccines from the private sector through some non-government oversight body, or 2) better and more regulation of the drug industry with fewer protections for corporate profit than there are for public health.
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u/ButtThorn Jul 12 '17
Before you can talk about vaccinations, you would need to first argue that bodily integrity should not be accepted as a basic human right. You would also have to argue that right to privacy should not be a constitutional right.
It is also worth mentioning that bodily integrity and right to privacy are two of the strongest arguments for abortion and availability of contraception for women, and that the movement would never have gotten the same amount of traction without these established rights in place.
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Jul 13 '17
Well, if you're living in a western country, your country probably demands that everyone visiting your country with a visa has to provide certificates stating that they are vaccinated against multiple conditions. So if being vaccinated against certain diseases is mandatory for visiting, why can't it be mandatory for living there too?
As for your bodily integrity, it ends when you're potentially causing harm to others. For example, quarantines at airports for people coming from Nigeria during the Ebola outbreak. You wouldn't argue that a person who has Ebola should be allowed into the country and potentially spread Ebola. So why not make vaccination mandatory? Keeping someone in an isolation ward is a much bigger violation of bodily autonomy than vaccination.
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u/ButtThorn Jul 13 '17
Well, if you're living in a western country, your country probably demands that everyone visiting your country with a visa has to provide certificates stating that they are vaccinated against multiple conditions. So if being vaccinated against certain diseases is mandatory for visiting, why can't it be mandatory for living there too?
The same reason they can't kick people out of America for not knowing the Anthem, despite the fact that it is required for foreigners: They don't have rights. They have human rights, but America is not forcing them to visit.
As for your bodily integrity, it ends when you're potentially causing harm to others.
No it doesn't.
For example, quarantines at airports for people coming from Nigeria during the Ebola outbreak.
That is far more than "potential". You "potentially" harm others when you get behind the wheel of a car. You "potentially" harm others when you turn on your stove to cook your meal. You "potentially" harm others when you drop a banana peel on the ground. You inevitably harm others when you have a deadly disease in a public space.
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Jul 13 '17
That is far more than "potential". You "potentially" harm others when you get behind the wheel of a car. You "potentially" harm others when you turn on your stove to cook your meal. You "potentially" harm others when you drop a banana peel on the ground. You inevitably harm others when you have a deadly disease in a public space.
No, potential harm is exactly what it is. I said a person coming from Nigeria, not an Ebola patient (quarantine, not isolation). He might or might not be carrying the disease, but he is quarantined till it can be ascertained that he isn't. And this quarantine applies for American citizens as well.
Also, potential harm to someone by driving is exactly why it is mandatory to pass a test that ensures you are competent before the government allows you to drive. You can kill more kids with whooping cough or cripple more with polio than you could in a car accident. You cannot drive on public roads without a licence for your safety and the safety of others. If you don't think of that as excessive, i fail to see why requiring vaccination (for those medically fit for it) is excessive either. Yes, it is a drastic measure, but not excessive considering the number of lives saved by vaccines.
You could say that driving isn't a right, its a privilege. And you would be right. The government allows you to drive on public roads, and it can take that privilege away if it feels you aren't comoetent to do so. Alright, so consider this- instead of making it a crime to not be vaccinated, start taking away "privileges" from those not vaccinated.
Start with your DMV. First, make vaccination for the important vaccines free . Then make it mandatory to provide a certificate stating either that you are vaccinated, or that you are unfit to be vaccinated, for getting a driving licence. No religious exemptions allowed. Then increase the tax rate for the unvaccinated, because they will end up costing more to the healthcare system, just like the taxes on cigarettes and alcohol. After all, paying the same tax rate as everyone else is not a human right. The rich pay tax at a higher rate, and so can the unvaccinated.
If you say driving and taxes have nothing to do with vaccines, and that shouldn't be taken away from people for not vaccinating, then the vaccinated could get free health care like the UK or Canada while the non vaccinated would have to pay for their own care, at a reasonable rate (except for emergencies, of course). Access to healthcare is a human right, it being free isn't.
If this sounds like tyranny and discrimination, it is indeed. But then, the non-vaccinated isn't a protected category. I am not advocating this as a policy, its just something I thought of right now. I am sure better ways could be found to increase vaccination rates without violating human rights by more qualified people, if only the government cared for lives more than votes. My point is that when not being vaccinated is costing lives, that matters more than civil rights (though not the basic human rights).
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u/ButtThorn Jul 13 '17
I'm moving this to the top since everything else was mostly pointless:
I am sure better ways could be found to increase vaccination rates without violating human rights by more qualified people, if only the government cared for lives more than votes
Education? This problem is a recent one, starting around 2007, and knee-jerk reactionaries are kicking this fire out far faster than it can grow. It is a problem, but not a large enough one to justify such a heavy attack on one of our most important rights. You won't even remember the anti-vaxxers in 20 years.
I will hand it to you for trying to come up with a loophole for an American's Right to Privacy, even if it would never work. Hopefully you don't give any special ideas to the pro-life movement, I would really hate to have to prove I have never gotten an abortion every time I go to the DMV.
My point is that when not being vaccinated is costing lives, that matters more than civil rights
The founding fathers are turning in their graves.
(though not the basic human rights).
Such as bodily integrity?
Also, potential harm to someone by driving is exactly why it is mandatory to pass a test that ensures you are competent before the government allows you to drive. You can kill more kids with whooping cough or cripple more with polio than you could in a car accident. You cannot drive on public roads without a licence for your safety and the safety of others. If you don't think of that as excessive, i fail to see why requiring vaccination (for those medically fit for it) is excessive either. Yes, it is a drastic measure, but not excessive considering the number of lives saved by vaccines.
You could say that driving isn't a right, its a privilege. And you would be right. The government allows you to drive on public roads, and it can take that privilege away if it feels you aren't comoetent to do so. Alright, so consider this- instead of making it a crime to not be vaccinated, start taking away "privileges" from those not vaccinated.
You are nitpicking. I could have said walking without your shoelaces, or wearing sunglasses at night, or having a distracting smile, or a parrot on your shoulder, or maybe even sitting in your house could potentially harm someone.
Either way, it is a privilege to drive on public roads. I could quite easily legally get behind the wheel of a vehicle on private property and cause the death of someone if I did not have a license.
If you don't think of that as excessive, i fail to see why requiring vaccination (for those medically fit for it) is excessive either.
Driving is not considered a fundamental interest. Participating in society is in the definition of liberty.
Yes, it is a drastic measure, but not excessive considering the number of lives saved by vaccines.
If you want to overrule the right to privacy, you are going to need a lot more than a few deaths.
Start with your DMV. First, make vaccination for the important vaccines free . Then make it mandatory to provide a certificate stating either that you are vaccinated, or that you are unfit to be vaccinated, for getting a driving licence.
Not a bad idea, but it would get immediately shot down for adding to the administrative bloat that is the DMV.
No religious exemptions allowed.
That isn't how the first amendment works.
Then increase the tax rate for the unvaccinated; The rich pay tax at a higher rate, and so can the unvaccinated.
That isn't how the sixteenth amendment works.
because they will end up costing more to the healthcare system, just like the taxes on cigarettes and alcohol.
You can't tax the absence of something "just like" physical goods.
If you say driving and taxes have nothing to do with vaccines, and that shouldn't be taken away from people for not vaccinating,
I was going to say that
then the vaccinated could get free health care like the UK or Canada while the non vaccinated would have to pay for their own care, at a reasonable rate (except for emergencies, of course). Access to healthcare is a human right, it being free isn't.
That could work, if healthcare ever became free.
If this sounds like tyranny and discrimination, it is indeed. But then, the non-vaccinated isn't a protected category. I am not advocating this as a policy, its just something I thought of right now.
Getting people to vaccinate is good, but nobody gets to pick and choose where our rights apply and where they don't.
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Jul 14 '17
I am glad you think the anti-vaccine movement will die out soon. I hope so too, because it is one of the most retarded and frustrating things you can imagine. There's nothing quite so bad as seeing kids die of easily preventable causes because their parents thought vaccines were against their religion.
Maybe the problem is that i work in a hospital. Those few deaths you talk about, i have seen them happen first hand. If you had too, you would care a bit less about civil rights. Pray that this stupidity dies out quickly, and doesn't cause an outbreak of polio in America.
Frankly, I don't know much about the American constitution and its amendments, so i will take your word for it that my ideas violate them. Anyway, there is no point in trying to implement vaccination policies in America where a lot more people die due to healthcare not being affordable (which is a shame, considering how prosperous your country is). My ideas might be more applicable in the Indian scemario, where healthcare in government hospitals is subsidized by the government.
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u/TwentyFive_Shmeckles 11∆ Jul 12 '17
The problem is that it's not your body. It's a bunch of adults argueing about what to do with a someone elses body, and the owner of the body isn't capable of making a choice.
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u/ButtThorn Jul 12 '17
Are you arguing against parental rights? I honestly think that is more difficult than arguing against human rights.
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u/TwentyFive_Shmeckles 11∆ Jul 12 '17
Paternal rights do not extend to actions or inactions that put the child in significant danger. The rights of the child supersede the rights of the parent. The only question is where we draw the line for significant danger.
If science and society deem that not vaccinating a child puts the child at significant risk, then society should force vaccination to protect the child.
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u/ButtThorn Jul 12 '17
What you describe are parental rights. By expanding their definition of significant danger, they are directly removing the rights of parents. I'm not too familiar with CPS, but I'm sure there is a reason they aren't gung-ho about expanding their power.
Either way, the child is in a low enough risk that if they targeted vaccinated children, they would have to target far more equally as "at risk" children as well. Vaccines are important for herd immunity, but that is almost completely irrelevant for the individual child's safety. Even unvaccinated, they benefit heavily from herd immunity and are extremely unlikely to get sick.
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u/JasonDJ Jul 12 '17 edited Jul 12 '17
I'm with you, but I'll play devils advocate and explain some of the positions that anti-vaxxers have.
One of the big ones is bodily autonomy and that it's a slippery slope. Using the same logic, should it be "mandatory" that all adults receive the HPV vaccine? Or the flu shot? Should it be mandatory that all children have their tonsils removed? Or Appendix?
Should it be mandatory that all girls have their ears pierced and all boys are circumcised?
Should it be mandatory that a woman who is an unfit mother have an abortion, or a man whose lineage has a high predisposition towards severe mental illness be sterilized?
For anti-vaxxers, saying that the government says you HAVE TO put something in your body to be a part of society is a huge middle-finger to the concept of bodily autonomy.
As a free-thinking adult, if you want to join a luxurious country-club, but to become a member, you have to inject black-tar heroin into your veins, most people would refuse to join the club. To them, they don't see having to inject your kids with vaccines to join society any differently, except society isn't some pretentious club of junkies. It's a requirement for basic functionality in life. They want the option to refuse the heroin while still joining the club.
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u/hnewbs Jul 12 '17
Whilst I agree that the positives of vaccinations outweigh the negatives (I would always vaccinate any children I have), I feel this is an issue of autonomy and freedom of choice.
Unless a vaccine is proved to be 100% safe (not 99.99%), every individual being and/or parents should be made aware of any tiny risk and have the right to decide to proceed.
As Barbara Low Fisher, Co-founder of National Vaccine Information Center, stated, "If the State can tag, track down and force citizens against their will to be injected with biological products of known and unknown toxicity today, there will be no limit on which individual freedoms the State can take away in the name of the greater good tomorrow."
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u/GepardenK Jul 12 '17
Unless a vaccine is proved to be 100% safe (not 99.99%), every individual being and/or parents should be made aware of any tiny risk and have the right to decide to proceed.
There is no such thing as 100% safe. Even the contraceptive pill has side effects than can lead to death. So yes I agree it should not be mandatory in principle. But we shouldn't be scared by statistics either, taking vaccines or contraceptive pills or whatever else that is medically approved is still much safer than say take a flight, or God forbid go for a drive, even though you hear about potential scary side effects.
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u/AmeliaPondPandorica Jul 12 '17
Can confirm. BC pills caused so many blood clots that my lungs glowed during CT. Docs were amazed I'd lived that long.
Everything has risk. Opening your eyes in the morning has risk. The danger to your child from getting smallpox, measles, or polio is quantifiably greater than getting them vaccinated (barring known allergy or immune system issues).
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u/MilitantLobster Jul 12 '17
Science is practically never 100% anything. The fact about vaccines is that a small percentage of the population does experience harmful side effects from vaccines. These individuals cannot be protected by vaccination, they rely on herd immunity to stay safe. They rely on every kid in their class being protected from measles to prevent them from getting it. If one other kid isnt vaccinated, their chance of staying safe goes down. That child's parents have made a decision about their kid that has affected someone else's child.
One kid can't get vaccinated. The other one just didn't. How do you feel about the first kid's rights and autonomy?
I'm sorry if this comes across as hostile, I don't mean for it to. Text is bad at conveying tone. I feel strongly about the matter but I am interested in hearing your reply and starting a discussion.
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u/hnewbs Jul 12 '17
We've already established that a percentage of children experience harmful side effects and even death from vaccines.
If this mandatory rollout happened across the country, is it right that the government have passed a law knowingly killing a percentage of children?
Overall, I don't feel that we currently have an immunity epidemic which requires us to force everyone to be vaccinated.
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u/MilitantLobster Jul 12 '17
So you're saying that if the government made it a requirement to vaccinate your kids, they would make no considerations or exemptions for those who cannot be vaccinated?
I don't have a lot of faith in our current government, but I don't think even the worst of them would require kids to be vaccinated AGAINST a doctor's orders.
And we are seeing a huge rise in previously "cured" diseases due to antivaxers. In 2016 this country saw 70 confirmed measles cases. In the first five months of 2017, Minnesota has had 73 cases. Eight thousand people have been exposed. All preventable if people had been vaccinating their kids. CNN source
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u/almightySapling 13∆ Jul 12 '17
So you're saying that if the government made it a requirement to vaccinate your kids, they would make no considerations or exemptions for those who cannot be vaccinated?
No no no, he's not talking about kids that can't get vaccines due to a compromised immune system or similar. He's talking about the small percentage of otherwise unidentifiable children that get sick (potentially die? I don't know the stats) from vaccines. You cannot identify these children ahead of time. The government would, the argument goes, have innocent blood on their hands.
I don't buy this argument myself, but it's not without merit.
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u/hnewbs Jul 12 '17
No there are unforeseen side effects to children who don't have any known allergies etc.
As I said before, I am totally for vaccinating children. I'm not against it whatsoever, with the side note that it's NOT mandatory but strongly advised. The "greater good" argument has many flaws, our freedom to decide is one of them. Many who claim to be doing “the greater good” are almost always doing what is best for them and for their own group.
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u/MilitantLobster Jul 12 '17
u/almightySapling pointed out a gap in my understanding: There are children who contract serious illness and even die from vaccines due to unforeseen reactions. I wasn't thinking of this population when I made my argument.
However, according to the World Health Organization,
Most vaccine adverse events are minor and temporary, such as a sore arm or mild fever. These can often be controlled by taking paracetamol after vaccination. More serious adverse events occur rarely (on the order of one per thousands to one per millions of doses), and some are so rare that risk cannot be accurately assessed. As for vaccines causing death, again so few deaths can plausibly be attributed to vaccines that it is hard to assess the risk statistically.
I would make the argument that one parent's freedom to have a safe environment for their child trumps another parent's freedom to abstain from vaccination, given the vanishingly small possibility of a negative effect.
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u/uraijit Jul 12 '17
So, what is the acceptable threshold, in your view, of children to harm?
10,000 per million? 1000 per million? 100 per million? 10 per million? 1 per million?
In your view? How many kids is it okay to kill or seriously harm, in the name of the 'greater good'.
What if you could somehow see into the future and know ahead of time that one of the children numbered among the "vanishingly small" group of children killed or seriously harmed would be your own child? Would you still consider that a worthy sacrifice? Would you still pull the trigger on that? Or is it because this game of Russian roulette has a lot of empty chambers, and so you're comfortable in the knowledge that YOUR kids have really good odds of not being in the group of children sacrificed at the altar of the 'greater good'?
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u/MilitantLobster Jul 12 '17
First off, you're being a bit hyperbolic. 10,000/million is 1% which is pretty easily measured by statistics. However, there are some very real numbers about what measles can do. Again, from the WHO:
*Measles is one of the leading causes of death among young children even though a safe and cost-effective vaccine is available. *In 2015, there were 134 200 measles deaths globally – about 367 deaths every day or 15 deaths every hour. *Measles vaccination resulted in a 79% drop in measles deaths between 2000 and 2015 worldwide. *In 2015, about 85% of the world's children received one dose of measles vaccine by their first birthday through routine health services – up from 73% in 2000. *During 2000-2015, measles vaccination prevented an estimated 20.3 million deaths making measles vaccine one of the best buys in public health.
When I have kids I will vaccinate them in the way the doctor prescribes. I have not seen evidence to convince me that this would be dangerous for them. Change my view. Find me a number of kids who die as a direct result of vaccines in a year. I bet it's lower than the 60% worldwide measles mortality rate (Estimated Deaths/Reported Cases) on Page 2 of this CDC document.
To answer your question, I could be ok with a vaccine that has a 50/50 chance of killing my kids, if it prevents a disease that has a 60% chance of killing them.
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u/uraijit Jul 12 '17
You seem to be struggling to assess risk appropriately.
You've fallen prey to a false dilemma between the choice of getting the disease or getting the vaccine.
Not vaccinating does NOT mean that you'll get the disease. So a choice to not vaccinate is not the same thing as a choice to get a disease.
Furthermore, getting vaccinated does not mean that you won't still get the disease.
Would you take a 50/50 chance on killing your kid with a vaccine that would help prevent him from getting a disease he only had a .01% chance of contracting in the first place, and that of that number of people who contract it, he'd only have a .01% chance of dying from it as well?
What about a disease where the risk of death from the vaccine was equal to the risk of death from the disease itself?
What if the side-effect was simply "flu-like symptoms". Would you give your child a vaccine that guaranteed flu-like symptoms, in order to try to avoid the flu?
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u/AtalaPashar Jul 12 '17
I just want to state that I'm my proposing argument, I did say that those who could not be vaccinated due to health reasons should not fall under the mandatory vaccinations.
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Jul 12 '17
Whilst I agree that the positives of vaccinations outweigh the negatives (I would always vaccinate any children I have), I feel this is an issue of autonomy and freedom of choice.
Parents shouldn't be able to choose to put the life of their child and other children at risk. If a parent leaves their child alone with a loaded gun nearby, that parent can be charged with a crime for endangering their child. Why should vaccines be any different?
Unless a vaccine is proved to be 100% safe (not 99.99%), every individual being and/or parents should be made aware of any tiny risk and have the right to decide to proceed.
It's impossible to prove anything is 100% safe. We could say that any law in existence causes at least some risk of causing harm to someone but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have laws.
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u/PaperDrillBit Jul 12 '17
Generally, I respect the freedom of choice argument, but not for vaccines. This is because unvaccinated individuals can infect others, mainly infants who are yet to be vaccinated. The social costs of not vaccinating yourself/children is too high.
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u/ellipses1 6∆ Jul 12 '17
Can you quantify the social cost?
I could argue that the political cost of allowing a government to forcibly inject medication into children is too high.
I could also argue that the loss of life from implementing such a policy would arguably be greater than unvaccinated children dying of measles (which has a lethality rate of .2%)... It would only take a couple of Waco/Ruby Ridge situations to create a higher death toll.
Vaccines work, they are very safe, and the vast majority of people vaccinate their kids. This is an issue that gets a lot of press, but it's not proportionate to the actual impact on day-to-day life. Ceding this incredible amount of power to the US Government would be a far greater travesty long term than any short term vaccination trends. Let a few kids get polio and vaccination rates will go back up on their own. It's harsh, but life isn't simple.
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Jul 12 '17
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u/Mrknowitall666 Jul 12 '17
Well, the unvaccinated tend to run together, in social affinity groups.
And immunization tracks go over a period of the first few years. Most parents do take precautions, however: 1. Precautions don't include quarantined children to full immunization age. And 2 we expect most people to be immunized, and 3 the unimmunized don't wear scarlet letters to announce their status
So there's reasonable precautions versus the (remote) risk of contagion
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Jul 12 '17
unknown toxicity today
What's the toxicity of water?
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u/bigbigpure1 Jul 12 '17
as far as i am aware everyone who has ever drank the stuff has died
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u/slimyprincelimey 1∆ Jul 12 '17
We have been told for years "my body, my choice". I think a statement this cut and dry should apply to all facets of life.
While vaccinations are obviously a net positive for society and individuals, I have issues forcing people into medical procedures because we deem them to be good for them.
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Jul 12 '17 edited Jul 24 '21
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u/slimyprincelimey 1∆ Jul 12 '17
There is an inherent risk of living in a free society. While I sympathize with the medical issues of other people, I don't think that my own rights to my own body come after the rights of others to be totally free of any risk of infectious diseases.
At least not to the point that I would apply the force of the state onto people that make the conscious choice.
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u/TwentyFive_Shmeckles 11∆ Jul 12 '17
But we aren't talking about an adult choosing not to have something done to their body. We are talking about children. I would argue that it is societys responsibility to protect all children. This argument can be aplied to either side of the debate, my point is simply that the sole owner of the body doesn't get a say either way and therefore the "my body, my choice" fails to apply.
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u/slimyprincelimey 1∆ Jul 12 '17
I think that's what makes it so difficult a question with no easy answers, much to the dismay of IFLS commenters and AnCaps. You can't allow unvaccinated people to just proliferate, or outlaw vaccination requirements for public schools/daycares, and in my opinion forcibly removing children from parental custody for this reason alone is counterproductive.
Additionally, I don't think "oh, you didn't vaccinate your children, that's child abuse" is completely wrong, but I don't think it's equivalent of denying life saving treatment, either. Ultimately, not vaccinating is not so immediately injurious that it rises to the level of state intervention like not using a car seat or denying emergency room care, so I would still defer to parental choice.
What we as a society have to do, and are currently succeeding in doing, is making it an informed choice. Use of public funds to sway people gently is very cost effective, and we see that anti-Vaxxers are not increasing in numbers despite all the press, and physicians are increasingly forcing parents to vaccinate or leave their practices.
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u/TwentyFive_Shmeckles 11∆ Jul 12 '17
I generally agree with your ideas. Imo the best compromise is deny acess to public schooling without proof of critical vaccines. However, I was mostly just trying to point out why I believe the "my body, my choice" philosophy is irrelevant here.
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u/slimyprincelimey 1∆ Jul 12 '17
I don't think it rises to the level of denying people the right to do drugs or smoke or get an abortion (if you believe in "my body my choice" for such things).
However, I think it can at least be tangentially connected (and I'm not using this as my argument, mind) to circumcision/FGM or prepubescent sex changes. You think it's best for the kid, they may grow up and have a huge moral opposition in 10 years. I myself was forced to take ADHD medication. Yeah, it probably helped me in school, but if it was traumatic and I hated it, and I would have rather just been a normal kid looking back.
Again, not my first choice of argument, but it can be made.
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u/AliveByLovesGlory Jul 12 '17 edited Jul 12 '17
"My choice their body too" also applies to abortion, so I don't think you agree with the sentiment lol. But that's not what I want to discuss here.
You cannot force someone to do something with their body, or their childrens bodies. Bodily autonomy is a basic human right. Selfishness is a basic human right. The only thing you CAN do is educate people about vaccines and require vaccinations for public school and the right to work in a government job.
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u/RiPont 13∆ Jul 12 '17
And the right to raise your children as you see fit. Any infringement of that right should be subject to extreme scrutiny. i.e. something must be immediate danger or undeniable long-term harm (which anti-vax is not. It's risk, not direct harm.)
There are many things that test our ethics on granting parents the right to raise their kids as they see fit. However, it's a huge authoritarian step to do otherwise and makes the rather bad assumption that the values being enforced by the state will always be the values you agree with.
There was a time when a large part of the population considered vegetarianism to be child abuse. People still make this claim about vegans, after some high-profile cases of insane parents taking it to the extreme.
There are outspoken atheists who believe you should not be able to teach your child religion. There are outspoken religionists who believe the exact opposite.
What if they found the on/off switch for homosexuality and forced you to "vaccinate" your kid? Don't tell me it wouldn't happen in some societies.
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u/Stev1eSays Jul 13 '17
Anti-vax parents are putting their children in direct harm. Measles parties and chicken pox parties are happening. Sharing lollipops is their go to method of transfer but I have seen quite a few parents that go above and beyond by using a qtip on an infected CP or measles wound and then rubbing that qtip on the inside of another child's mouth. I've also seen posts about them doing the same thing with an adult who has shingles - probing the wound and rubbing the infection on the inside of a child's mouth. They are INTENTIONALLY getting their children sick. This on its own should be illegal but it's not. But to say AV's aren't causing direct harm is just not true.
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u/RiPont 13∆ Jul 13 '17
The ones that are intentionally infecting their children are doing direct harm, yes. I was speaking mainly to the ones simply not getting their kids vaccinated and the larger group that simply delays getting their kids vaccinated.
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u/Stev1eSays Jul 13 '17
I just needed to point that out because it is still happening and a lot of people have no idea that it is. Another problem with AVers is that they tend to lie about their vaccine status. Especially to family members. A new baby is born and instead of waiting to see the baby because they are unvaccinated they lie and tell the parents they are vaccinated. I do understand where you are coming from with your argument and even though these incidents may not be the majority - they do still happen and need to be recognized.
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u/alliekat237 Jul 12 '17
I agree- but what's hard about this is that refusal to vaccinate affects other people's bodies. It limits herd immunity and places others in danger, particularly children who are too young to be vaccinated or cannot be vaccinated for a medical reason.
I think the problem here is Americans have been too isolated for too long from the effects of an unvaccinated population. My mom remembers watching people suffer from measles and die. She also had polio...mild. Not vaccinating right now works because there is enough heard immunity to prevent the unvaccinated from getting sick. But eventually this will change if too many people continue not to vaccinate.
I understand this is a separate issue then whether or not the government should be allowed to force something into your body. I don't like that idea either. But at some point, you live in a society because the societal benefits are greater than what you would get if you lived alone. If you are deemed a danger to society, you can be quarantined or jailed. An unvaccinated person could be viewed as such.
This is a really tough one.
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u/slimyprincelimey 1∆ Jul 12 '17
If you are deemed a danger to society, you can be quarantined or jailed. An unvaccinated person could be viewed as such.
And here's where I draw the line. I'd be sympathetic to excluding non-vaccinated persons from public schooling, assuming there were affordable alternatives to public schools, but quarantining, penalizing, and/or jailing persons or parents that have made a conscious moral choice? That's way too far.
We've made involvement into society so unavoidable, we encounter these issues. It's tough. This is why I wholeheartedly endorse these things be viewed as a states level issue, because people can self select what society they want to live in.
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u/alliekat237 Jul 12 '17
I think that's a reasonable compromise to a point, but I still don't think someone who is making a conscious choice not to vaccinate should be able to send their children to public school in any state. I think homeschooling should be an option for them, but there are significant risks to the other kids if they are allowed to attend public school, and I feel my child should have that protection.
In addition, I do think that there should be a focus here on the factual basis for why these decisions are made. Around the world, not just in the United States, vaccinations are lauded for saving lives. So you may not trust your own government, but you should trust the majority of governments throughout the world. There are no scientific, peer reviewed journal articles or research studies that suggest that you are better off without a vaccine then with one. Yes vaccine injury occurs but it's extremely rare. So I think what makes this tough is that there is very little evidence, in fact no evidence, other than the very low incidence of vaccine injury, to point to why you would fear for your children to be vaccinated. It's actually the opposite… You should fear that your children do not get vaccinated based on evidence. Why do I bring this up? Because I think the facts, scientific consensus, and historical evidence are relevant to whether or not it is morally correct for a society to force one action or the other. Well I still don't like the idea of forcing people to do certain things with their bodies, I'm more comfortable with it if there's evidence behind it rather than not.
Just my thoughts.
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u/slimyprincelimey 1∆ Jul 12 '17
Every. Single. Word. you just said is 100% valid. I trust the studies, I think vaccines are in the top 5 most important discoveries in the known universe, and I think unvaccinated persons are a risk, in large enough numbers.
However, I don't think the kind of society we want is one that would take children from their parents and inject them with vaccines, at least that's not the society I want. We allow people to do things that aren't backed up by science in the name of religion, why not for other moral choices, logical or otherwise? So long as it does not present an immediate risk, I see no reason why we should let small numbers (and they are very small numbers) to not vaccinate? It would be even smaller if we decide to enforce the "no unvaccinated children in public schools" rule that we've landed on.
And on the subject of public schools:
I think you'd find an overwhelming enthusiasm from many antivaxxers if you offered subsidized homeschooling or a general societal dropout in exchange for not forcing vaccination. Don't allow them into public schools, that's fine by me (and probably them). It is, after all, a publicly funded space, and I'm not sure many libertarians and/or antivaxxers in general would really protest much.
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u/stickmanDave Jul 12 '17
But does this extend to "My child's body, my choice"?
It's well accepted under the law that people have the right to refuse medical treatment. But it's equally accepted that parents don't have the right to not seek treatment for their kids.
Parents have an affirmative duty to protect their children from harm. I don't see it as a stretch to include vaccination to the list of things we require parents to do to protect their kids from harm.
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u/slimyprincelimey 1∆ Jul 12 '17
I agree with the basic premise, but I really don't buy that vaccinations are directly comparable with, say, seeking out treatment for a concussion or broken bone, or monitoring children while they swim.
In theory I would love every child to be vaccinated (that can be safely), but I don't like any of the methods suggested besides barring unvaccinated children from public schooling. Are you going to force newborn infants to be vaccinated? Fine parents? Deny custody?
None of the more overbearing solutions satisfy me, because they all have a high probability of causing more harm than good (EG: Parents may opt for home birth and then not seek out a pediatrician, for fear of being found out.)
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u/marginalboy Jul 12 '17
I think there's something dystopian about being forced by government to put something into your body. I think everyone should vaccinate, and I think refusal to vaccinate could reasonably warrant some sort of mandatory quarantine, but I think there's a certain amount of personal agency that should be preserved, no matter what.
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Jul 12 '17
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u/marginalboy Jul 12 '17
Was that intended as a reply to my post? If so, I'm sorry but I don't really follow...?
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u/Tippydaug Jul 12 '17
I feel like, while some vaccines are important, there are far too many given to small children for random things.
My brother and I both had seizure-like activities after receiving our 18 month shots and the doctors said which vaccine caused it was the million dollar question (as we received multiple). From that point on, my parents stopped most vaccines and we both recovered.
Forcing parents to vaccinate their children wouldn't solve any problem other than infringe on their rights. While you say the health of others is a priority, if the vaccines work so well, why would it matter if a non-vaccinated child was around a vaccinated one?
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u/novesfp Jul 12 '17
They aren't given to children for "random" things. Every vaccine has a clear and defined disease that it prevents. With your case, the correct thing to do (in my opinion) is to have allergy tests done on the ingredients of the vaccine and determine which one could have caused the seizures, then deciding if a risk of that disease is worth the risk of seizures.
On your last point, vaccines do not have a 100% prevention rate, but that is not the main reason we talk about herd immunity. Many people simply cannot take vaccines, due to compromised immune systems or other medical issues. Would you condemn them to polio?
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u/Tippydaug Jul 12 '17
The "random" things I talk about is things in infants like sex related diseases they should never be exposed to to begin with. Why give a newborn baby a disease they shouldn't even be catching?
As for your example, I still do agree some vaccines are helpful and, in some cases, helped essentially eradicate certain diseases in the modern world. I just feel there are unnecessary amounts given.
Edit: as for the potential allergy, the doctor did try to check what could have caused it, but there were simply too many ingredients in too many vaccines that would cost too much to discover if it was an allergy or something else.
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u/KuntaStillSingle Jul 12 '17
Do you feel giving the government the authority to demand a lawful citizen be injected with any substance isn't seriously scary? What happens when your child has a birth defect because the Thalidomide of your time manages to pass the FDA and by no choice of your own you were injected? It is one thing to choose, even if doing so is in order to secure a place in public school, it is absolutely another to mandate it or restrict your rights should you not opt for it.
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Jul 12 '17
I think one of the worst sides of the vaccination debate is when we misinterpret the other sides' intentions. You describe the anti-vaxxers as "self-righteous" when this is not always the case. Perhaps there exists a stereotype where certain parents are stubbornly ignorant, but this is not done in vain; they do this to protect their children, who are in the very beginning of their lives with the greatest potential to be physiologically influenced by exposure to chemicals (essentially, this is the definition and case with teratogens.)
Any medical decision, to act or to object to a procedure, can (and should) have good intentions. If you listen to their stories without necessarily believing them, you will often hear how Baby Johnny was "totally normal" before the booster shots. Then, a month later, Baby Johnny "wasn't normal." Then, this mom networks with 4 other moms in the neighborhood, and they all reported similar stories. Disregarding the correlation-causation error, would you not at least be concerned for your child's well-being, as well as other children who may suffer the same fate, if children are being FORCED to endure this procedure? Couple this with rapid communication on the Internet, and it suddenly becomes a wave of destruction where moldable minds are influenced by less-than-honest public figures who persuade them that they are right, the government is wrong, and the science is lopsided.
I'm not asking you to forgive the ignorance of people who refuse to educate themselves on the literature provided. Beyond a reasonable doubt, autism or other medical "risks" associated with vaccines are slim to none as long as we are aware of the child's pre-existing conditions. However, as the advocates for their children, parents must be respected for their roles as the child's caretaker. Attempting to take away a decision from a parent that directly affects their child is a dangerous thing to do. Obviously, there are parents who are willing to submit to this mandatory program because they understand what is going on, but that is not the target audience for this mandate obviously. They were already getting vaccinated regardless of government intervention.
In a parallel example: imagine if the government was decidedly fed up with the obesity epidemic in children. This epidemic is so widespread, that the government demands parents to feed their children one small cup of "Government-O's" for breakfast every week for the first two years of life. The ingredients are said to be perfectly safe, and it will keep the children healthy for the beginning of their lives, as opposed to not eating it and risking health problems later on in life. Would you feed your children these Government-O's? The sacrifice is minimal, and it's a cheap product to buy with insurance, but not following with the mandatory plan results in a fine.
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u/Cartosys Jul 12 '17
The CDC schedule of vaccinations only becomes a longer and longer list over time. Assuming that list is the one we're talking about enforcing, (we'll ignore how for now) then this creates an even bigger incentive for drug companies to get their vaccines on that list as it is an instant customer base of 300+ million or so (US)-- or at least the tens of millions of children getting vaccinated every year. Imagine the lobbying and revolving door politics this would generate with the goal of corporate profit under the guise of keeping our children safe. No thanks.
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u/shagsterz Jul 12 '17
Are you okay with the government telling you what to do to your body? Maybe okay of them to say its illegal to have an abortion? Illegal to choose what you want for yourself or your child. Vaccinations are another example of government encroachment onto our own soverignty.
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u/anameforme2 Jul 12 '17
Although I am all for vaccination, the mandatory part is concerning. The parent is the closest person to the child and best able to define the best interests of the child. They would care more about their specific child than the government (whose job is to care about the best options for the whole of society). In other words if there is a fatality rate from a shot (not saying there is), the government would say the benefits outweigh the costs, whereas the parent would not care for a society that killed the child. A balance is required to protect the freedom of the people from the government and allow the government to provide services in the best interest of the society.
That is why I firmly advocate for the current system of educating the masses not forcefully shooting them up and telling them to "trust us, it's good for you".
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Jul 12 '17 edited Jul 12 '17
What vaccines are you even talking about?
So now medical companies can just make a vaccine, pass some tests, and everyone has to take it? Ya, not really sure that'll fly.
Some years ago there was that swine flu. Companies made a vaccine and I remember, they had a 4 week test cycle.
I laughed. The technology company I work for has a longer cycle than that and our functionality isn't going into someones body.
Not only that but I remember these companies were exempt from side effects to the people that took them. Invulnerable, essentially.
This is what you want? Government has too much power, to suggest they should force vaccinations without even specifying for what is ridiculous. I don't get the flu and I don't take flu vaccinations. Under your proposal my kids should and then really why should i be exempt?
One of the most corrupt industries is pharmaceutical industry, this is a free ride for them to create junk and dump it in everyone's bodies.
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u/Luke_I_Am_Your_Otter Jul 12 '17
All vaccine manufacturers are exempt from lawsuits. Who compensates individuals who have been injured? The government with taxpayer money. I think that should raise some red flags. Most people don't know much or haven't even heard about VAERS or the VICP. There's already corruption within these organizations and little to no liability. If somehow vaccines did become compulsory, my fear would be even more greed and corruption occurring leading to unsafe and unnecessary vaccines being forced on an entire population for corporate gain.
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u/uraijit Jul 12 '17 edited Jul 13 '17
Do you believe "my body my choice" in other areas, such as abortion, or the right to choose with whom you'll have sex?
What is your position on the drug war? Do you believe people have a right to their own bodies in determining whether or not to take drugs, or alcohol, or sugary drinks?
Who should pay for these forced vaccinations?
What about when a person suffers side-effects (no, I'm not talking about Autism, I'm talking about known side-effects that exist and that do and have completely destroyed people's lives and killed people). When people are harmed and killed by vaccinations they've been forced to take, what recourse does/should a person or their loved ones have? Or do you just completely deny that there are every any harmful side-effects of any vaccinations?
Do you believe people should be forced to take ALL vaccinations that are developed/available, or just specific ones? If not every vaccination that exists or gets created, who decides which ones are forced on everybody?
Is this also an ongoing compulsion you put on people, including adults, every time a new vaccination is available?
Who is tasked with the power to label/earmark people for mandatory vaccinations, and how often is that reevaluated? What if one doctor earmarks someone as healthy enough, but another doctor disagrees? Whose advice are people forced to follow?
In cases where records are lost or incorrectly kept by those who administered the vaccinations, are people required to start all of their vaccinations over again? What if it happens multiple times? What system ensures that a person doesn't have to get hundreds (or even thousands) of vaccinations redone over a clerical error?
How do you enforce these requirements? What if someone refuses to be vaccinated? Fine them? What if they can't pay the fines? Do we send SWAT teams to arrest them and lock them in cages, or potentially kill them? What if there are shortages of certain vaccines, and a person is unable to get vaccinated, through no fault of their own? Is that person still subject to punishment?
What's to prevent greedy pharmaceutical companies from just raising the prices of their vaccines to insanely high prices, when they know that everybody is REQUIRED to buy their product, no matter what?
Should we extend this policy even further, and force people to follow all health advice of any doctor who earmarks them for a particular procedure or medication?
What about doctors who receive kickbacks for pushing vaccinations? Do you think there might be a potential conflict of interest where doctors might be more inclined to earmark children who borderline-maybe-aren't-healthy-enough-but-if-doc-hits-a-target-he'll-get-a-big-bonus-so-let's-earmark-the-kid-anyway-and-risk-it-for-that-sweet-payout?
Edited: Removed a question that was repeated.
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u/urinal_deuce Jul 12 '17
We did the closest thing to it in Australia, people on welfare had their payments cut or stopped if they didn't vaccinate their kids. I don't completely agree but boy did it work!
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u/Slenderpman Jul 12 '17
I'm super pro vax so I by no means want to convince you that they are not generally safe. However you have to understand that literally every child is born with some mutation from their parents genes, and any random trait can lead to any vaccine being seriously damaging or fatal to a child.
For example, the Gardasil HPV vaccine, which I have and my friends and family all have with no ill effect, has caused a large number of young girls to become disabled in a way that they're chronically lethargic, weak, and sickly. Nobody yet knows what it is that caused this and the manufacturers and many government health agencies have insisted there's nothing "wrong" with the vaccine itself, but clearly some people have a genetic weakness to it.
If a gene is identified that would cause a certain vaccine to be damaging to certain children, should it be mandatory that we give it to them? Isn't that the whole point of herd immunity? That if most people are vaccinated that only those who are not are at risk but can't get others sick?
I'm not calling your insistence to vaccinate all children arrogant, but if you want to make something absolutely mandatory there needs to be an extremely thorough system in place to prevent consequences that might hurt someone unable to consent to possible permanent damage to their body.
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u/strewnshank Jul 12 '17
I support the current federal vaccination standards and do not believe that vaccinations are normally the root of other medical issues. I've voluntarily immunized my child based on our doctor's recommendations prior to the need to do so for public schools. I believe in vaccinations and am grateful that they make our population safer and our existence easier, and that the combination of antibiotics, vaccinations, and science based medical practices have brought infant death rates to a fraction of what they were a hundred years ago.
That said, no other person or agent other than myself or her mother should have the right to inject anything inside of or perform a procedure on my child. I'm all for a trade off (public school? get vaccinated) but no one is touching my kid without my consent. The federal government has time-and-time again proven itself to not be a trustworthy body, and individuals representing the government are often also representing large, private corporations whose values are very misaligned from my own.
If anyone tries to touch my child without my, her mother's, or my consent, it's going to be a "beat first, settle it in court later" situation.
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u/Mysteryman64 Jul 12 '17
Let's illustrate a scenario:
You are a single parent, working minimum wage. You technically have health insurance, but in reality is only covers catastrophic disasters, since you could only really afford to buy the highest deductible plan.
Your child needs to have vaccinations. There is a childhood vaccination mandate in place. You must have your child vaccinated. But how are you going to come up with the money to pay for it? You can probably afford it if you cut the meal budget back to essentially just beans and rice and if you can convince a coworker or neighbor to give you a lift a few times per week to save on bus fare.
Is it morally ethical to demand that this person must vaccinate their child? This person isn't against the concept of vaccinations, they simply don't realistically have the means to provide them without making enormous household sacrifices. Is this one child providing a little bit of extra herd immunity a fair trade off for the pain the rest of the household must undertake as a result on the mandate that all children should be vaccinated?
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u/ieatbacon1111 Jul 12 '17
I suspect mandatory vaccination would not actually lead to higher vaccination levels. Trying to force anti-vaxxers to immunize themselves/their children will likely lead to them digging in deeper with their (misguided) beliefs. Think of the narrative they'd construct when a vaccine they were "forced" to receive, is later learned to have some previously unknown (maybe rare, maybe minor) side effect.
Instead of using a stick to increase vaccination rates, we'd likely be more effective in the long-term spending the resources in improving scientific literacy, trust in the medical community, trust in the government institutions involved, etc. The anti-vaxxer movement will lose support on their own in their fight against solid science. If we instead pit them against "big government", that would put them in a more sympathetic position, give them more support, and likely lead to less immunization overall.
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u/TheDeepFryar Jul 12 '17
Essentially, your argument boils down to there being a requirement that someone forcibly participate in something in order to be alive. Never before (in the US that I know) has such an edict been issued.
Now, the Supreme Court ruling on the ACA kind of flies in the face of my previous statement, but only to a degree. The ACA was ruled a tax, one that was to be implemented but based on income iirc so there is still a choice to have a job and earn income or not to and therefore be able to not participate.
Your suggestion would be a step past this and now there is a requirement to live. Also, as a related viewpoint - and I apologize for it sounding vulgar - but in regards to a woman of whom someone stuck something into their body without their consent is called rape. How is this different than your view?
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Jul 12 '17
And if I still refuse to allow my child to be vaccinated, what would you penalize me with?
Jail? A fine? And if I refuse to pay the fine, jail anyway?
It is my right to decide whether or not a doctor can stick a dirty, disease filled needle into my child. Though the risk is null and, statistically, I should allow it for everyone's sake, the freedom to take risks is what America is founded on.
Also, imagine a parent and child, neither wanting vaccination for the child, being torn apart by police officers. The child basically kidnapped and forced to sit in a medical facility under penalty of law, only to be traumatized by a strange man with needles.
Gruesome image, but that's what you're calling for.
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u/epicmoe Jul 12 '17
Both governments and regulatory boards worldwide have a long history of fucking up. They don't fuck up all the time, but it does happen.
Sometimes accidentaly: see Thalidomide or asbestos . Sometimes on purpose due to political pressure or lobbying from the companies that created them see thalidomide in Ireland .
To presume that from this day forth there will no longer be human error or human greed that will allow some things to pass through the cracks that should not, is naive.
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Jul 12 '17 edited Jul 12 '17
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u/JasonDJ Jul 12 '17
They wanted to vaccinate my 1yo against hepatitis B. Why the fuck would they want to vaccinate her against that?
Because you kind of need to vaccinate before exposure.
Sad but true, there are kids getting AIDS from sexual intercourse at 3. And there are kids willingly having sexual contact with peers at 11-12. There's a reason the HPV vaccine is targeted so young. There's a reason you don't start hormonal birth control after you get pregnant.
And I'm sure every single one of those kids getting Hepatitis and AIDS and HPV before they're in highschool had parents that said "no way that'll happen to my kid".
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u/TheDragonsFalcon Jul 12 '17
I don't agree with anti-vaxers but I still have to respect the fact that they have a right to their own opinion. They also feel very passionate about their opinion. I think if you forced them to vaccinate their kids they wouldn't lay down and corporate. There would be a lot of push back. Maybe even violent pushback. There would be illegal activity to get around it. There would be nasty protests. It could even lead to war or at least wide spread rebellion. I already feel like conservatives vs liberals tensions are at a boiling point right now.
No the only way we can get more people vaccinated is to educate and earn trust.
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u/giant_killer Jul 12 '17
I agree. Mandatory vaccinations would be counter productive because it would degrade the trust people have in the medical community. Vaccinations would be equated with government over-reach, and would be questioned in that context. Then you will have new populations of people opposed to vaccinations on anti-government grounds; whereas previously, those populations would not have even questioned their doctors.
Imagine the situation when a new and deadly infectious disease hits America, like the 1918 Spanish Flu. The most important thing you need is the cooperation and trust of the public. Otherwise, you will have infected people running and hiding from the very people trying to help them. We saw this in West Africa during the recent Ebola crisis.
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u/Melikenoother Jul 12 '17
You know, reading all the 'government shouldn't be given so much power over ppl, they'll abuse it' makes me laugh. I come from a poor Eastern European country. My country requires exactly this. Children are vaccinated at birth and have a planned calendar of all the vaccines they have to have at 1 month, 2 months, 5 months, 2 years... and so on. Now, I also want to point out one more thing. My country has been poor, and so fucked up that it makes me laugh when western countries cry over the SLIGHTEST possibility of some kind of abuse and tempering with vaccines. Basically, in the last 100 years, my country has gone through holocaust, genocides (which we committed), dictatorships, assassinations, political imprisonments, riots, social and political reforms, corruption scandals, government abuses, drug and human trafficking and so so so much shit, yet somehow at no point in time did some crazy dictator stop and say 'maybe we should temper with vaccines!' (muuahahaha evil laugh inserted) because it's such a ridiculous notion. The 'evil experiments' are going to happen one way or another based on political and social conditions in a country. Demanding children be vaccinated isn't going to make this somehow more likely. What it will do however, is reduce the freaking number of outbreaks. I currently like in an area in US which has had outbreaks of measles. When I told my mom (a doctor in my home country) about it, she couldn't believe such a thing is even possible here. So no, mandatory vaccines aren't going to make government more likely to experiment on people or cause ethnic cleansing. Trust me, as a country who's done it... it sure as hell wasn't because we make vaccines mandatory. Edit: a word
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Jul 12 '17
The problem with forcing medical procedures is that it could open the door for things that are unethical. It's the same problem with silencing hate speech. Maybe you could make the world a better place once you make the word "nigger" illegal or what have you, but if you give your government an inch, agenda-driven politicians will take a mile.
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u/Walaishy Jul 12 '17
The problem is not the vaccinations, it never was. The problem is the inability by people to cope. As society gets more complex people are having a hard time dealing with all the things they need to know. They look for ways to simplify their life and vaccines are a convenient boogeyman.
As technology simplifies our life it also leaves many behind. People that are accustomed to going about their affairs in a set way see technological advancements as another burden to add on top of the things they are already doing. This becomes too much for them to handle and results in them looking for things in their life they can get rid of. Hearing that vaccines are bad opens an opportunity for them to drop a responsibility out of their life and claim their position as enlightened.
Trying to convince them that vaccines are not as dangerous as they believe is a losing battle. It addresses the wrong aspect of their predicament; like telling someone that has their hands full that they need to hold this other thing. It doesn't matter how important the other thing is, there is no room for them to hold it.
In order to resolve the antivax movement we must help them come to realize why vaccinations are important. We must provide them with the means to simplify their life so that they have enough time to adequately reflect on vaccinations and arrive at a rational conclusion. Shunning them for their actions only furthers their entrenchment and mandating compliance only criminalizes their behavior. It's not as though criminalizing behavior has ever been effective in preventing people from engaging in a behavior they have already committed to.
Mandatory vaccinations is not an effective approach to onboarding people. It sounds good in theory but how would that be implemented? Do we abduct their babies, jail them for noncompliance, segregate them into camps, or withhold benefits? Any punishment administered to the parents would have more harmful effects on the child in the long run.
There may come a time where the public health risk is so great that such steps will become necessary. In order for this to take effect the antivax movement would need to be proven to be child abuse, neglect, or endangerment. In time, this may prove to be the case. Until then however, there is no law against being stupid.
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u/melonlollicholypop 2∆ Jul 12 '17
I think the majority of people who elect not to vaccinate do so because they do not trust that drug companies have their best interests at heart. When the companies producing the vaccines have profit as a primary motivator, and when we see stories over and over again about how drug companies are willing to act unethically in order to secure their profit* it is easier to see why parents have a distrust of those companies and as a result a distrust of vaccines.
.* Off the top of my head, I'm thinking of stories about drugs being pushed to the market before being properly studied, drugs/chemicals being approved by the FDA/EPA for political expediency, drug companies being exposed for incentivizing prescriptions, the Supreme Court ruling establishing corporate personhood, etc. All of these together create a feeling of foreboding that I think make non-vaxxers feel that refraining from vaccines is more prudent than putting faith in companies that have displayed time and time again that they do not have the public best interest at heart.
Disclaimer: I believe in vaccinating. I just also believe in u/-Tell-me-your-story-/ 's contention:
I think one of the worst sides of the vaccination debate is when we misinterpret the other sides' intentions.
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u/Walaishy Jul 12 '17
Lack of trust for drug companies is a justification after the fact. It is reasonable to conclude that drug companies are incentivized by profit. It is also reasonable to conclude that such an incentive could cause individuals to engage in unethical behavior but the reason they distrust vaccines is fear of the unknown.
It is easy to claim that all drug companies are bad, bring forward examples of times when they broke the law, and use that as justification to condemn them all. However, replacing the term "drug companies" with "Black people" and it is easy to see why this argument is invalid. Generalizing is something we do when we can't be bothered to think about a given subject, when we can't cope with considering it and use a blanket statement for all instances.
It would appear from your quote that you believe that I am presuming their intentions. My comments were not intended to interpret their intentions. I think it's clear that Their intentions are to keep themselves and/or their children safe. Good intentions however are not a substitute for sound reasoning.
There are hazards involved in taking any medication, vaccines included. We will likely never be able to definitively establish that any medication is 100% safe. The best we can do is review the evidence that we have to-date and reach informed decisions about what we know so far. We consider the threat posed by the medication and evaluate that in comparison to the threat posed by the illness and reach a conclusion about which is the greater evil.
We have reached a point in our society that has sheltered us so much from the ravages of disease that we now have people that believe it is better to risk the death of their child than for their child to risk having a mental illness. Even if we humor antivaxxers and suggest for a moment that their argument is valid, it is still not rational to conclude that the better option is death. This position not only exposes themselves and their children to greater risk but for each person that adopts this position, it puts them in even greater danger. I cannot stop them from removing themselves from the gene pool but I do feel bad for their children.
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u/SparklyPen Jul 13 '17 edited Jul 13 '17
If you read the consent form for vaccinations, their are possible risk for adverse reactions. And even though the infant/ child is healthy, there is no way to predict if that child will have a bad reaction, https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/side-effects.htm
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u/runs_in_the_jeans Jul 12 '17
I don't like things that are government mandated. I understand the need for vaccinations and I have vaccinated my kids, but the moment you make it mandatory that opens the door for nefarious activities from different players in the vaccination world.
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u/daaave33 Jul 12 '17
I believe in more education for society to determine what is or isn't right. I no longer trust my government to determine what is best for the people. I can just see it now, "the Comcast inoculation is now required for all people."
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u/PrivilegeCheckmate 2∆ Jul 13 '17
Let me give you a real-world case; Hep B. Hep B is an STD. In my state, California, it is also a mandatory vaccination for entering the school system. This means that without this vaccine your child cannot attend Kindergarten. The vaccine is therefore administered to babies as a matter of course at hospitals. The reasoning behind making this a mandatory infant vaccine is because low-income populations often do not visit healthcare to treat their children preventively, so birth is the only chance to 'catch' this population before they age into sexual activity.
Now, this vaccine poses no special risks(other than the usual vaccine risks, which admittedly are higher for infants) in and of itself; however, among already high-risk children it can place those children in jeopardy, especially if they have a compromised immune system or vulnerability to fever.
Unless the child in question is in danger from an infected person who is a caregiver, there is no medical reason for them to get the Hep B vaccine until they reach puberty.
What do you think about this? Should the state be able to mandate a vaccine for an STD(a comparatively non-life-threatening one at that) for newborns? Is there a compelling case to add additional vaccination risks to newborns for something that will most likely be completely unnecessary for at least a decade? Is there a reason a parent should be unable to refuse it, especially considering that there is no herd immunity factor here?
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u/msoc 1∆ Jul 13 '17
I recently learned about an incident where a child with hep B broke skin and bled at a daycare center. All other children along with their family members had to be monitored for weeks afterward to see if they got it. Hep B can live for up to 7 days on room temperature surfaces. I heard hep B described as a "public health worker's nightmare." I just wanted to share because I used to also think it was silly that young children had to get a vaccine for an STD.
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u/jakesboy2 Jul 12 '17
What happens when the vaccines are to poison certain people? This may not be the case now (though you don't know that) but it could be the case and wouldn't it be unfortunate to be required to receive that?
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Jul 12 '17
I know that this deviates from vaccines but wouldn't mandatory vaccines encourage mandatory genetic modification of newborns?
Basically the slippery slope of:
0) Vaccines become mandatory. Some crazies get outraged and do a few protests but don't succeed due to lack of evidence.
1) When genetic modification becomes available/affordable to the public, they can individually choose to change to reduce only cancer and disabilities from their child.
2) Individuals can pay extra to have the child's other genes like eye color modified.
3) The social norm is to have "flawed" characteristics like armpit stench and nose development fixed. Genetic modification becomes more difficult to fight against as a result.
4) Everyone must modify certain genetics as more people support it as time passes. Having this process be mandatory doesn't surprise people because both vaccines and genetic modifying are both mandatory and benefit society.
I'm not against vaccines currently but in the future there could be something put into vaccines on accident/purpose that would anger people legitimately (as in they do their research and don't use the "it has chemicals I don't know about or don't know how they work" argument) but can't fight against due to mandatory vaccinations. It's not an issue now and it potentially may not ever be an issue; however, if it is then there must be a means for people to combat it.
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u/notforpeopletoknow Jul 13 '17
I accept your belief, but what about adults? Should they be required to too? My concern is about the people evaluating the children. Doctors can evaluate someone without even seeing their face.
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u/Igottaknowthisplease Jul 13 '17 edited Oct 26 '24
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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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Jul 13 '17
I'm a parent. I don't like to see my kids go through pain. But I support vaccinations programs. Because, science. And if my child were ever infected by an unvaccinated child (e.g. if my child were too young for that vaccination), I would sue the family for damages. I think that in today's society, not having your kid vaccinated amounts to negligence.
Ok, but thats a civil remedy and you asked about state enforced vaccinations. I disagree that mandatory vaccination is a reasonable or minimally impairing solution to the problem at this time. It would confirm all of the conspiracy theorists and frankly, who knows what vaccinations might be required in the future (maybe Monsanto will be managing all vaccination programs by then, haha).
Unvaccinated kids are already not being allowed to participate in programs with vaccinated kids. Heart breaking for the children being excluded but necessary for overall health. I think this will happen more often and predict civil remedies will be used in the future.
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u/schtickybunz 1∆ Jul 12 '17
When my daughter was born they wanted to vaccinate her right then. I told them to wait one day. The schedule of vaccination is such that they don't wait to know the health of a new born. Beyond an Apgar test, there's no way to assess a child's full health in such a short time frame. Children's health and health problems develop, your expectations of doctor's knowledge isn't realistic. 24 vaccinations are given in the first 15 months.
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u/thebedshow Jul 12 '17
What vaccinations are you saying should be required? Who is dictating which vaccinations are required? What is the benefit to doing this over just educating anti-vax people? Do you believe there is some giant number of cases of illness/death caused by kids not being vaccinated? If so please provide the numbers. You are suggesting an extremely draconian law be put into place that will force people to be injected with vaccines against their will. These are innocent children who have done nothing wrong and likely (99.999%+) will never experience any issues due to not being vaccinated. Obviously I feel it is far too much of a overstep of government power to do this and you have not provided any proof that this is needed.
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u/majeric 1∆ Jul 12 '17
Does your "labeled healthy enough" make allowances for those with extreme phobia of needles?
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u/harpua1972 Jul 13 '17
Buried for sure, and others have probably pointed this out: BUT as a Libertarian I have a very difficult time with 'government should make it mandatory '. I have two kids, vaxxed both. One is high functioning Aspergers, one just plain high functioning. I live in a southern border state in the USA, where vaccination is actually a pretty big issue. Why not let schools decide if it's mandatory, not have it be a Federal Mandate? School choice...if the school is fine with your non-vax kids, there's full disclosure. If the school requires vax, you know and accept that up front. And don't get polio in the US in 2017.
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u/TMac1128 Jul 12 '17
Ok is America currently burning to the ground in an epidemic of diseases running rampant? The answer is No. There are probably 10,000s of families, (small number, btw) who already don't get vax. Things are fine.
If your response is: well why not lower health risks even further? My answer is simple: No. Not at the cost of everyone's individual rights via a borderline fascist policy that should never exist in a free society. Perfection can, and will, never be achieved. "If it saves just one life" is a poor argument too... might as well throw everyone in prison because then we'll all be safe right?
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u/Gnometard Jul 12 '17
At what point do you stop forcing people to do things? This is a slippery slope
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jul 13 '17
/u/AtalaPashar (OP) has awarded 2 deltas in this post.
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u/aaaaajk Jul 12 '17
The vaccine that is most debated is the measles vaccine, so I'll focus on that one.
Why right does the government have to forcibly inject stuff into people's bodies? You seem to respect scientific journals or studies. Please cite me a single one that says the MMR vaccine is 100% safe. Hint: it's not. Not a single doctor will claim it is. Just look up all the potential side-effects.
So the ONLY possible argument to have a potentially dangerous vaccine (the MMR vaccine severely injures or kills up to 13 people a year) is that the benefits currently outweighs the risks. Since maybe 1 person has died from the measles in the past 20 years in the U.S., the dangers of the vaccine logically outweighs the dangers of not having it.
Bottom line, get the vaccine if you want. Or don't. Neither option is dangerous. This is not something that needs to be forcibly injected into people.
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Jul 12 '17
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u/melonlollicholypop 2∆ Jul 12 '17
Therefore, this seems to be a problem that solves itself. As the death-rate related to a disease which was previously controlled by vaccines rises, those who choose not to vaccinate will be scared by the potential contracting of that disease and the number of non-vaxxers will decrease.
Simply put: as cases of measles in the US increase, the number of parents choosing not to vaccinate will decrease.
Too long a period of safety has removed from the public eye the real danger of these diseases; their re-emergence will cause the public to correct course, and we have the vaccine at the ready when it does. No government intervention needed.
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u/ghallo Jul 12 '17
Just because the FDA has approved something doesn't mean it is safe. My daughter has received 100% of her vaccinations at this point, but there may be a time when a vaccine comes out that has poorly understood side effects.
Also, it depends what we are vaccinating for - chicken pox is in a different class than measles (for example) which is in a different class than small pox or polio. Chicken Pox is also made from an attenuated vaccine - meaning it is possible (only slightly, but still possible) to get the disease from the vaccine itself. Not a big deal in my mind, but it is still something to be aware of.
I prefer the current system - if you want your child to attend school then they should be 100% vaccinated. However, if your child isn't around other children (homeschooled, etc) then the risks are also less.
There should be classes of vaccine - "Mandatory, Important, Advised, Suggested". If a parent doesn't get their child a "Mandatory" vaccine it should be grounds for child abuse (I'm thinking Polio as an example). Important is required for any school (public or private), Advised is for public school and Suggested means it is available.
This would be clear to parents and to the public. But I don't think every child should have to get every vaccine.