Hundreds Rally For Their Right To Not Vaccinate Their Children (msn.com) 524
CBS News reports that as Washington state confronts a measles outbreak which has sickened at least 56 people, "hundreds rallied to preserve their right not to vaccinate their children."
They packed a public hearing for a new bill making it harder for families to opt out of vaccination requirements, reports The Washington Post: An estimated 700 people, most of them opposed to stricter requirements, lined up before dawn in the cold, toting strollers and hand-lettered signs, to sit in the hearing.... The Pacific Northwest is home to some of the nation's most vocal and organized anti-vaccination activists. That movement has helped drive down child immunizations in Washington, as well as in neighboring Oregon and Idaho, to some of the lowest rates in the country, with as many as 10.5 percent of kindergartners statewide in Idaho unvaccinated for measles. That is almost double the median rate nationally....
One activist who spoke Friday, Mary Holland, who teaches at New York University law school and said her son has a vaccine-related injury, warned lawmakers that if the bill passes, many vaccine opponents will "move out of the state, or go underground, but they will not comply."
The sponsor of a similar bill in Oregon says that anti-vaxxers "have every right to make a bad decision in the health of their child, but that does not give them the right to send an unprotected kid to public school. So if they want to homeschool their kid and keep them out of other environments, that's their decision."
But there are still 17 U.S. states that allow "personal or philosophic exemptions to vaccination requirements," reports the Post, "meaning virtually anyone can opt out." (Though some states are now considering changes.) "The enablers are state legislators in those states, that have allowed themselves to be played," complains Dr. Peter Hotez, a co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
The World Health Organization estimates that measles vaccines have saved over 21 million lives since 2000. But last year in the European region's population of nearly 900 million people, at least 82,600 people contracted measles, reports Reuters. "Of those, 72 cases were fatal."
They packed a public hearing for a new bill making it harder for families to opt out of vaccination requirements, reports The Washington Post: An estimated 700 people, most of them opposed to stricter requirements, lined up before dawn in the cold, toting strollers and hand-lettered signs, to sit in the hearing.... The Pacific Northwest is home to some of the nation's most vocal and organized anti-vaccination activists. That movement has helped drive down child immunizations in Washington, as well as in neighboring Oregon and Idaho, to some of the lowest rates in the country, with as many as 10.5 percent of kindergartners statewide in Idaho unvaccinated for measles. That is almost double the median rate nationally....
One activist who spoke Friday, Mary Holland, who teaches at New York University law school and said her son has a vaccine-related injury, warned lawmakers that if the bill passes, many vaccine opponents will "move out of the state, or go underground, but they will not comply."
The sponsor of a similar bill in Oregon says that anti-vaxxers "have every right to make a bad decision in the health of their child, but that does not give them the right to send an unprotected kid to public school. So if they want to homeschool their kid and keep them out of other environments, that's their decision."
But there are still 17 U.S. states that allow "personal or philosophic exemptions to vaccination requirements," reports the Post, "meaning virtually anyone can opt out." (Though some states are now considering changes.) "The enablers are state legislators in those states, that have allowed themselves to be played," complains Dr. Peter Hotez, a co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
The World Health Organization estimates that measles vaccines have saved over 21 million lives since 2000. But last year in the European region's population of nearly 900 million people, at least 82,600 people contracted measles, reports Reuters. "Of those, 72 cases were fatal."
Understood (Score:5, Insightful)
If they go live on a deserted island and never come back, I'm OK with it.
If not, they are a danger to society and should not be allowed to mingle with normal people.
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Re: Understood (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: Understood (Score:4, Insightful)
Did you read it or just the headline? 90-97% of the population was vaccinated, only 20% of the infected people were vaccinated (who may not have had all the doses).
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People who refuse to merge with nanobots will also be callled a burden on society. I hope you're ready to call for the forced mechanization of humans into cyborgs. Vaccines barely existed a century ago so be sure that new scientific opportunities become obligations under the State-as-religion philosophy.
Social Darwinism is a more powerful force, btw. But gotta wear that Resistance is Futile Che shirt, I get it.
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While I despise social darwinism, I actually wouldn't mind to be turned into a cyborg.
Re:Understood (Score:4, Insightful)
What about the child's right not to die of a curable disease? Society should protect their human right to life, no matter how stupid their parents are.
Vaccines are proven, safe technology. There is no down side to having them.
Re:Understood (Score:5, Informative)
Vaccines are not 100% risk free. That said, the risk of injury from the vaccine is many orders of magnitude lower than the risk from the disease, so yes, vaccinate.
Re: Understood (Score:5, Insightful)
Vaccination doesn't give immunity, it gives increased resistance. So being exposed to lots of people with the diseases can still get you infected.
On top of that herd immunity is an important factor and protecting people whose immune system is compromised at the moment, such as chemotherapy patients.
Not sure why I feed the troll.
Re: Understood (Score:4, Insightful)
Vaccination doesn't give immunity, it gives increased resistance.
Increased to the point of functional immunity for all intents and purposes. There will be the odd case slipping through the cracks - someone with anergy or another other problem of the immune system. Of course you are right that repeated massive exposure heightens the risk of vaccine failure - but the reason these things are used in the first place is because they are highly effective.
Re: Understood (Score:5, Funny)
On the upside, if you're a kid being bulled by an anti-vax kid, you can always retaliate by sneezing in their lunchbox... ;)
(Anti-vax kids are like dark humour - they never grow old)
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No. You overestimate the effectiveness of the vaccine. If everyone is vaccinated, then the disease will die because it can't spread effectively, but if several vaccinated people are exposed it's reasonably likely that more than one will come down with the disease. OTOH, their bodies will (usually) mount a stronger and quicker defense, so they're less likely to end up with neurological damage.
That said, measles isn't smallpox. Most people who catch it don't have any permanent aftereffects. (Do you feel
Re: Understood (Score:4, Informative)
Increased to the point of functional immunity for all intents and purposes.
This depends on both the disease and the patient.
Some vaccines confer nearly 100% immunity. MMR is 97% effective against measles. The smallpox vaccine was also nearly 100% effective.
Other vaccines are much less effective. Influenza vaccines are estimated to be about 40% effective, and its primary benefit is keeping R0 [wikipedia.org] well below one, so that the disease does not spread through the herd.
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The measles vaccine is definitely not 100% effective. Whenever there are measles outbreaks, something like 20% of the cases are previously immunized people who should have had immunity if the vaccine were 100% effective. Please note that I am just providing this information for the sake of accuracy and perspective. It does not constitute an argument that vaccinations are not beneficial. You can have an over 90% vaccination rate, and then when you look at the vax status of the measles cases, the vaccination
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Vaccination doesn't sicken you. Strike one. It just activates the immune system response.
Medical need is that everyone be vaccinated for herd immunity, and aim at eradication of the diseases, so medical need is all (so by that argument, we're under-vaccinating by people being dicks).
Stupid agenda? Oh, why can't we just go back to the days of polio and smallpox. They were so much better.
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You don't need to bring politics into this, your agenda of trying to prove that those leaning left are stupid falls on its face because there are plenty of examples of idiots of every political stripe.
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HPV is not harmless. It is harmless to many people but harmful to some. Just like measles doesn't kill most people, even though it does kill a large number.
Antivaxxers are stupid in the sense that they are more believing in fringe conspiracies than in science, and that they feel good about their rejection of science. Many of them don't just stop at "it's possibly harmless" and head straight into woo-woo land of thinking that vaccines are a government plot. It's one thing to be raised in a religious cult
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Actually, that's not true. People who have had cancer are prohibited from giving blood, because under the right circumstances, it *is* contagious. Metastasis is, by its very nature, exactly that — a tumor releasing cells into the bloodstream in such a way that they spread into other parts of the body. The only reason cancer is only slightly contagious is that we don't typically share blood.
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Re:Understood (Score:4, Funny)
"Cancer isn't contagious. Unlike stupidity."
You've heard of oncoviruses, yes?
An oncovirus is a virus that can cause cancer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
But it's not as contagious as that stupidity virus you seem to suffer from.
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Re: Understood (Score:5, Insightful)
"I'm of mixed opinion. Measles is nasty as hell, I have no problem with requiring that vaccine. It's airborne and can linger for hours after an infected person leaves an area.
But HPV is not in the same league,"
You think that just because you don't have a cervix.
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Well, and because the effects on males aren't as well known. I've read a study that there are deleterious effects, but I still don't remember what they were.
Also: It's important with HPV that you get vaccinated well before any exposure. Again, I don't remember the details about why, but it should be done well before the child is sexually active. IIRC 8 years old was being recommended. Perhaps it takes the immunity awhile to develop.
Other Religious Exemptions (Score:5, Funny)
I want a religious exemption from speed limits.
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As a practicing Aztec I want a religious exemption for murder. It just doesn't feel right when I can't cut someone's heart out with an obsidian knife and throw their corpse down my pyramid.
Freedom must have limits. One of them is public health.
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I want a religious exemption from speed limits.
Does anyone know of a religion that forbids paying taxes . . . ? I'd like to become a believer.
There are so many wacky religions out there . . . there's probably ones that forbid driving on the right side of the road or brushing your teeth.
And I don't get how Christian folks say Jesus was against vaccinations. He trotted around healing lepers with his touch, which is kinda sorta like giving folks vaccinations.
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I believe that the Pope has a religious exemption from paying taxes as head of the Catholic Church. That's why the Discordians had a time when anyone could be a Pope of the Discordians.
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What about a religious exemption against dying?
I mean, if you're going to try for a religious exemption against a certain thing in life, then why not go for broke?
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IIRC exemptions against paying taxes have been tried in the past. For awhile they were allowed if you didn't own any taxable property or have any monetary income, but that was eventually thrown out.
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The varicella vaccine is derived from cloned cells from an aborted fetus, fyi.
Make accurate arguments in favor of vaccines or you appear to be the religious kook to the antivaxxers.
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Most honest anti-vax people were opposed to vaccination before that ever came up due to many vaccines requiring blood as a culture medium. I'll agree that there may be a few honest anti-vax people for whom the cell culture was the deciding factor. (Apparently that argument gave the Pope trouble, even though he decided that vaccination was good.)
And that argument would, in any case, only apply to one (or a few?) vaccines, not all of them. IIUC the blood argument could honestly be applied to all of them.
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I see in your sentence that somebody faked some studies. That doesn't connect it to religion anywhere but in Logical Fallacy Land.
In the interest of the actual topic at hand, though, here's a comprehensive timeline [measlesrub...iative.org].
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You are illiterate and a moron. Seriously, the AC wasn't that difficult to follow, and what he said accords with my understanding as well. Most exemptions in law are based on religious freedom, and that implies that some people consider it a religious issue.
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Nobody needs to prove it, good, because it's directly false per the timeline I just posted from the quite-objective Measles and Rubella initiative.
Here it is again for you.
https://measlesrubellainitiati... [measlesrub...iative.org]
Hope it having pictures helps you. And don't get defensive about my "real life" because you demand yours end.
Re:Other Religious Exemptions (Score:5, Interesting)
The Anti-Vax Movement is not a left/right issue. Instead, it is correlated with extremism in either direction. Right-wing nutjobs see vaccines as a government conspiracy. Left-wing nutjobs see vaccines as a corporate conspiracy. Moderates on both sides vaccinate their kids.
Anti-Vax beliefs don't follow the usual political polariization [theconversation.com]
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a) there isn't one
b) they don't
c) nothing
With the overwhelming amount of evidence for their benefit, the Bible would advocate for them--under the basic directive to "love your neighbor as yourself", including not spreading diseases to them.
The secular direction on this would be, naturally, a pointless projection of erroneous guilt toward religion, and having -absolutely no- basis for this or an
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A starting point for them. [gotquestions.org]
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For some people there is a religious issue due to the Bible saying something like blood is sacred, and only God can be a blood sucking monster. And so some people read that as saying anything built from blood is taboo, i.e. religiously forbidden. And there are those who honestly believe that and take it seriously. But I don't think you can count anyone who doesn't at minimum keep kosher, and probably insists on vegetarian cuisine. (Not vegan, that's a more extreme form whose roots I've never looked into
Call CPS (Score:4, Interesting)
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Well, yes, now that you mention it. I should have my stats checked. But I had measles (two kinds) in the 1950's before there was a vaccine. OTOH, immunity does fade over time, and I don't really know the drop-off curve.
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I'm not worried. Just bummed that I can't blow your face off with a shotgun for being a fucking moron.
If they don't want to vax their kids... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:If they don't want to vax their kids... (Score:4, Insightful)
It should absolutely be a crime against the parents/guardians, yes, but at the same time it can be hard to prove exactly who actually infected the victim and there is no possible way to compensate the damages or in some cases to even get any compensation. That's why I'm in favor of isolating them from society if we cannot make it mandatory (excusing legitimate medical reasons only).
Re:If they don't want to vax their kids... (Score:5, Insightful)
... then they should pay for the public health costs that arise because of their decision. It is a welfare of the community issue. Laws are often made to protect the community from the bad decisions of individuals.
Exactly. Non vacinators should pay for increased risk they self select, unless there is a real medical reason not to. They also should not be allowed to send kids to public schools where they endanger kids who can’t be vacinated for valid reasons. They are entitled to be stupid but not endanger others.
Re:If they don't want to vax their kids... (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't buy back child lives! (Score:2)
Dear Americans,
not everything can be reduced to a sum of money.
What cost exactly do you plan to tell parents you assigned to the death of their child?
And how will some material trinkets bring back that specific life?
No, the right choice is that they don't get to mingle with us at all, if they made decisions that make them a danger to us.
Originally, that's what prisons were created for. But to be fair to everyone, I'd tell them they can make their own country, with Jesus and measles. And we’ll put an e
Their health insurance should cover the risks... (Score:5, Interesting)
Only by making the costs or either decision transparent, you can address both the unfounded and the founded fears of vaccinations risks versus non-vaccinations risks.
While the benefit of the measles vaccination seems obvious to most, actual scandals surrounding other vaccinations have cast shadows of doubt on just every vaccination, especially for those who do not differentiate.
One tragic contemporary example:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world... [bbc.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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And what price are you going to put on the price of a death caused by them not vaccinating their child(ren)?
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IIUC there is a problem with Dengue fever, in that there are multiple strains, a vaccine against one not only doesn't protect against a different one, it can make that strain considerably more deadly. And the immune system won't allow you to vaccinate against all of them.
OTOH, I'm not real certain of the name of the particular illness. And it was my understanding that it occurred in South America, not in the Philippines. Still, the effect is real, and at the time I read the article how to deal with it wa
"have every right to make a bad decision" (Score:5, Insightful)
"have every right to make a bad decision in the health of their child"
No they fucking don't. Whenever someone causes harm to their children, either by a deliberate act or neglect, we call it child abuse. Why would this be any different ?
I'm appaled by the number of people who still see their children as we did in barbaric times; as their personal property, to do with them as they please, with the right of life and death over them.
We are not fucking barbarians anymore. This is the 21st century. We live in a civilized society now, or at least we should be. And in civilized societies, human beings don't own other human beings. Your children are not your children, no matter what your fucking animal instincts tell you. Your children, are citizens, just like you are, with the whole gammut of basic human rights every evolved and civilized culture agrees on. They are under your care until they reach the legal age of independance. And until then, your are required, by law, and by basic human decency to provide them with the best possible care. And so is society as a whole. That's why every civilized nation has mandatory education. And also why every such nation has, or should have nationalized health care for all children.
Grow the fuck up, people. Barbarism, tribalism, social Darwinism are over. Join the civilized world.
Aren't they concerned that being together... (Score:2)
By coming together in one place like this, all it takes is one person with measles to decimate them. I would expect them to be concerned about this, even if they do not wish to be vaccinated. I wonder if the adults are vaccinated? Like, were they vaccinated as children, yet they don't want their children vaccinated?
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By coming together in one place like this, all it takes is one person with measles to decimate them.
While deaths or severe complications from measles are easily avoidable by vaccination, most people contracting measles do not suffer any severe complications. So no, they are most probably not concerned of being decimated when they come together.
Apart from that, there are even lots of anti-vaxxers that practice the dangerous habit of "voluntarily" exposing their children to certain infections, because they are under the believe that this somehow helps their immune system to develop. (The weird misconceptio
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There is precedent. It worked with cowpox. The cross-immunity for smallpox was documented by Edward Jenner in 1796.
Measles outbreak in Washington State... (Score:2)
Difficult (Score:2)
I don't think the "homeschool" safety option is necessarily "safe".
We're probably going to have to mandate vaccinations and live with the small amount of "collateral damage" (autonomous vehicles will rack up more collateral damage that this).
Hurry up and colonize mars (Score:2)
So we have somewhere to put these idgits.
Desert island - exactly right... (Score:5, Insightful)
Vaccinations are part of your public responsibility, like following traffic laws. If you don't want to obey traffic laws, that's easy: don't have a vehicle. If you don't want to vaccinate your kids, that's fine, don't have kids.
I'm not hugely worried about compliance. An idiot can speed through town a time or three, but eventually they'll get caught. Children's immunizations should be signed off by a pediatrician, and verified at the beginning of every school year, when buying that summer pass to the swimming pool, and other occasions.
Just needed someone with measles to come... (Score:2)
They're all so anti-vaccine and pro-disease, I'm sure they would have been just fine with a couple of the active measles patients coming to the hearing.
That'd help things along.
Very good brain (Score:4, Funny)
The smartest man in the world believes vaccines are a danger.
http://fortune.com/2017/02/16/... [fortune.com]
Why not? (Score:2)
Some of this is the medical industry's fault (Score:2)
The great majority of vaccines are extremely valuable. Unfortunately the same can't be said in general for everything provided by the medical industry, and uninformed / uneducated people may not understand the fundamental difference between say vaccines and over-prescribed pain killers.
Its easy to think that everyone should be informed, but despite our best efforts one out of ten of the population is in the bottom 10% in terms of understanding things. That is still a lot of people and we need to help them
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A family I know had a daughter who was perfectly normal and healthy and fine become kind of totally mentally disabled within weeks after a vaccine. She now requires 100% constant supervision, and likely will for the rest of her life. I know that doesn't prove anything. But if you were those parents, your perspective would be different. Thanks for your thoughtful post on the matter. Not sure if you were trying to make a joke when you said "one out of ten... is in the bottom 10%." LOL. Even more shocking, onl
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My comment on the 1 in 10 was to head off possible responses that people need to be better informed, smarter, whatever. (typical on slashdot).
I'm sorry to hear about you friends daughter - that is terrible.
Its tricky. Vaccines are in general clearly a huge win. I think people have forgotten the horrors of diseases like measles, polio and the like. Vaccines have almost entirely fixed that. They are not perfect, there is some risk, but I believe that risk is small compared to the disease risk. The proble
Why force them or be upset with it? (Score:2)
1) Most the stuff you and your children can not catch because you were vaccinated so being exposed isn't a problem. That is why you got vaccinated in the 1st place.
2) If their kids suffer, it's their own fault. We don't have civilized healthcare but if we did, then it would cost the tax payers something and an argument could be had on that front.
3) We are overpopulated.
4) Bad paranoid parents of low IQ (in your opinion) then shouldn't be stopped from lowering their own impact on the gene pool. We have to s
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Its not the *kids* fault and they are the ones who suffer.
Its probably more about education than about IQ. Some children of uneducated parents are very intelligent and to very well later in life.
The medical industry is not trustworthy - like all industries it is a shark. One should expect it to act like a shark and take appropriate precautions, put in appropriate restraints. Like a shark it isn't "evil", it is just doing what it is designed to do, which is make money.
Outrage. Punishment (Score:4, Insightful)
The reactions to this news piece, and to some extent even the way it is written perfectly demonstrate the dysfunctional dynamic gripping America right now. Everything is an OUTRAGE, and the solution that is immediately proposed is a PUNISHMENT. It is an OUTRAGE that these parents should not want to vaccinate their children. The parents should be PUNISHED by being exiled to a desert island or by having their children removed by CPS.
I would like to challenge you all to find some empathy in your heart and focus on ways to improve voluntary compliance with all the wonderful things you think everyone else should do. I mean, I am sure you are right, because you are smart and you have all the answers. But please focus on gently and kindly educating others instead of sending police of some sort around to force them to do whatever you think is in their best interest.
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But please focus on gently and kindly educating others instead of sending police of some sort around to force them to do whatever you think is in their best interest.
That's been tried, and it's not working. You can give them the facts calmly and reasonably, and they will dismiss you as part of some kind of conspiracy, or as an unwitting tool. Then their precious little snowflakes carry some disease to others, who suffer. Is it kind to permit that to happen to them? Is that gentility?
Re:Outrage. Punishment (Score:4, Interesting)
The point is, you have to make your case to convince others to believe as you do. Sending cops around to arrest them instead is a well-worn path to dystopia.
So is letting willfully ignorant tools spread disease. What's the lesser of evils, here?
Re:Outrage. Punishment (Score:4, Interesting)
I would like to challenge you all to find some empathy in your heart
It is not a virtue to have more empathy for parents who experience modest intellectual discomfort because of their own wilful ignorance than for the victims who suffer physically because of the former's irresponsible choices.
If you judge everything by your feeling of empathy for one particular person without 1) considering impacts on others, and 2) considering impacts in future as well as impact in the present, then your value system is seriously deficient.
Where’s the rest of the headline? (Score:4, Interesting)
I didn’t read the article, but I’m pretty sure Slashdot cut the headline off early. I’m not sure how it was supposed to end, but I have a few guesses:
Hundreds Rally For Their Right To Not Vaccinate Their Children...
...measles outbreak ensues
...thousands expected but had to stay home with sick children
...in what turns out to be the largest CPS sting in history
...casket futures soar
...millions mourn the demise of reason
...immigrants ask if they can fill the upcoming vacancies
...then find that their doctors refuse to see them
...Doomsday Clock moved closer to midnight
...last surviving Iron Lung users gather to protest rally
I was going to add:
...pastor tells them to “stop being stupid”
But that one actually happened after a measles outbreak in Texas a few years back. The pastor who pushed an anti-vaccine agenda thankfully had the sense to tell everyone to go get vaccinated once the people in their community were getting sick, since the immediate harm was of significantly and obviously greater concern than the fictional harm they were all worried about.
Health & diet nursing sunlight exercise sleep (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe we should mandate all of these things too? Because there are hundreds of communicable diseases that all those protect people against -- not just measles.
https://www.drfuhrman.com/shop... [drfuhrman.com]
"In Disease-Proof Your Child, Dr. Fuhrman details how a Nutritarian [vegetable-emphasizing etc.] diet increases a child's resistance to common childhood illnesses like asthma, ear infections, and allergies. He explains how eating a high-nutrient diet during childhood protects against developing chronic illness includin
Ah good, we don't have to round them up (Score:2)
Quarantine those nasty buggers and give them their shots, while we have them together.
Re:vaccines are compromised, now (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No thank you (Score:5, Informative)
Re: No thank you (Score:2, Insightful)
No point in trying to educate people who have been told by authorities they trust that education is dangerous.
Re:This is what happens when you cut fed funding (Score:4)
Re: This is what happens when you cut fed funding (Score:2)
I guess you missed the previous slashdot story [slashdot.org].
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Anti-vaxx disease is most prevalent amongst well-educated, highly-paid Whites. This is not an education problem that money can fix.
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The federal funding to schools should be cut to zero. Also the federal control over schools. That should be entirely a state or local matter.
Part of the problem with schools is, indeed, underfunding, but centralized collection of funds and redistribution of them didn't do anything to improve matters. At all. And it allowed the feds to stick ridiculous testing requirements on top of the load. A common test once a year is reasonable. Twice a year is justifiable. Anything more frequent is onerously intr
Re: This is what happens when you cut fed funding (Score:2)
But we know in general that rich people donâ(TM)t take care of poor people out of the goodness in their heart. So we form groups, we form governments. The government is not just some asshat. It is a system of people. It takes real work and leadership to change it for the better.
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Family emphasis on scholastics outweighs all other factors in predicting scholastic success, including dollars per pupil and class size and days in school per year.
Arguing about this stuff misses the point. Better to look at media crapping on helicopter parents and tiger moms.
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Mortality improved for lots of reasons, "Total Food" likely not being any one of them. Things like ventilators, dialysis, antibiotics, and recognition of quarantine practices all improved mortality in the early 1900s. But just because you can save a person by spending huge amounts of money and ventilating them in the ICU doesn't mean that's the best way to manage an illness. Pretty sure those kids would prefer to have never gotten sick in the first place.
Re:Easy solution to the problem: end public educat (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm all for vaccinating children, but forcing it on parents is wrong.
Public safety has to be forced on people for their own good. Things like speed limits and lane markings actually work to cut down traffic accidents. Just letting people drive however the hell they want is dangerous. Things like how to wire your house and building codes actually work to reduce avoidable fires, building collapses, health problems, etc. Just letting people build a house however the hell they want is dangerous. Likewise vaccines. No, it's NOT up to the parents. It's public health policy. You don't like it - tough. It's not all "my rights". It's rights AND RESPONSIBILITIES.
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Umnh...you think you have infinitely fast reaction time? That you can miraculously kill momentum without skid marks? Or what is the basis for your belief about highway speed limits?
P.S.: The autobahn has (had?) more serious accidents than other roads per mile driven. They were talking about imposing speed limits on it (in the interest of uniformity in traffic regulations across Europe). I don't know what decision they made/are making.
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Children are not property. Parents a guardians, not owners.
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It stands to reason that a parent, rightfully, has a right to determine the environment in which their child is raised, but in a civilized society, that right should exist only to the extent that the there is some empirical evidence that how they are raising the child is not objectively harmful to the child nor objectively potentially harmful to that society.
There are two general classifications for objecting to vaccinations: one is for medical reasons, and the other is on philosophical grounds. Vacc
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They just pray over their sick kids until they die. It costs very little.
And they have twelve more kids, so it's not that big a deal anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If you are talking about tetanus, then you've got a point. Measles isn't usually that deadly.
License to have kids (Score:4, Insightful)
You have to have a license to have a dog. Why not a license to have a kid? The application should have some questions like.
There is ___ magical sky fairy?
The magical sky fairy will ___ save my kids?
Science ___ the magical sky fairy.
Some think like that?