Injustice
Smoke a little pot, go to jail. Infect unwitting strangers with measles because you’re too twee to get your kids vaccinations? No punishment.
As usual, Megan gets it right:
I just think that people who are unvaccinated, unless they have a legitimate medical reason for same, should not be allowed to use public roads, public sidewalks, or public services. They have a right not to vaccinate their children. But they do not have a right to risk my health.Update I chose the word “sociopath” quite deliberately. I think parents who leave their children unvaccinated are the moral equivalent of people who drive drunk. I imagine the person in my comments who contracted measles at 15 months from an unvaccinated child, and ended up with permanent corneal scarring, feels even less kindly than I do.
If vaccines really work, why would an un-vaccinated child endanger anyone that has been vaccinated?
David
March 25, 2008 at 11:08 am
If everyone thought that way, then no one would get vaccinated. Also because, as an adult, the vaccines aren’t as effective. Vaccines work in two ways. One is by protecting you against the disease and the other is by destroying the reservoirs for the disease to even be present. If enough people don’t get vaccinated, the resvoirs reemerge, and small children – as one example – who haven’t yet gotten vaccinated, can get sick, as can adults. Also, in the case of children who don’t make medical decisions, their parents are functionally damning them to the possibility of getting some really nasty illnesses.
Matt Zeitlin
March 25, 2008 at 11:20 am
David, methinks you need a primer on the concept of “herd immunity”.
John Cain
March 25, 2008 at 11:29 am