Why do you have mixed feelings? As P.Z. said recently in another context, when the blood is so red, some things have to be black and white, with no shades of grey. Doesn’t your second clause convince you that you’re mixed feelings are just as delusional as the beliefs of the antivaxxers?

When science and libertarianism are in conflict, science wins, every time. Get used to it. Get over it and move on.

Next thing you know, Jenny McCarthy will be saying “even Phil Plait has mixed feelings about forcing kids to get vaccinated”.

The only reasons for not vaccinating should be valid medical reasons.

A follow-up on the Houston case–the case apparently was contracted elsewhere while traveling, and the baby was too young to have been vaccinated under normal guidelines.

Yes, the child got it at Orlando, FL. There have been more who took measles home as a souvenir. The Orlando Sentinel had an article called “Health officials investigate measles outbreak in Orlando tourists.” The article says:

Three tourists from Texas, Michigan and Minnesota who traveled to Orlando in the past month have come down with the measles — leading health authorities to investigate how they caught the disease and from whom.

I agree the situation is wrong. Your point about have to versus should is, in this case, semantics as that was the point I was attempting to make.

@36

The problem is that not always the case with religion. Parents are freely allowed to inflict their views on their children not just in raising them but also in choicing, or refusing, medical care. They are endangering public health in this situation but until it gets to a court where a judgement to that effect is made, anti-vaxxers are going to keep insisting it is their right because it only affects their child.

@37

We have yet to see an anti-vax parent brough up on charges of child abuse or negligent homicide. I WOULD LOVE TO SEE THIS. That would be the nail in the coffin of this particular issue. The reason the law-suit matters is because schools do everything they can to prevent them even if they are shaky or unfounded. They don’t have much of a legal defense budget or a desire for that sort of publicity.

A follow-up on the Houston case–the case apparently was contracted elsewhere while traveling, and the baby was too young to have been vaccinated under normal guidelines.

Yes, the child got it at Orlando, FL. There have been more who took measles home as a southerner: Health officials investigate measles outbreak in Orlando tourists.

I have mixed feelings about forcing kids to get vaccinated, but in the end we simply cannot have schools be breeding grounds for diseases which are trivially easy to prevent.

Thank you. Half my sister’s family got pertussis last year – brought home by my niece from someone at her High School. They were all vaccinated, but the pertussis vaccine is only about 85% effective and wanes over time; so unless you have a very high vaccination rate, you can still have outbreaks – even among the vaccinated.

I’d argue that we not only need a high vaccination rate, but we could do with a little more research into making the pertussis vaccine more effective.

-S

I understand your concern about anti-vax doctors, but from what I can tell there really are very few of them. I come from a medical family, and I myself am an attorney with a wife working in cancer research, so I’ve come to know a very large number of people in the medical community. I can tell you (and I know this is anecdotal evidence, so not particularly effective) that I do not know a single physician who buys into the anti-vax nonsense. I’m sure that they are out there, but I really believe that they aren’t as prevalent as you seem to think they are.

If that is true, will keeping unvaccinated kids away from school help? Maybe instead, let them go to school, but parents should not let their kids play with unvaccinated kids.

That sounds kind of mean but it if it works better than keeping them out of school … at least the kids gets an education. The state can’t force kids to have friends. (if it did us socially awkward nerds would have been better off )

While almost anything will give someone a reason to sue, the results of that aren’t anywhere near set in stone. People who let their kids die of easily curable diseases because “doctors are a sin, we prayed for him instead” tend to get arrested for child abuse, neglect, murder, what have you.

@24
1. Education is mandated by the government until the age of 18.
2. In America, you have a protected right to freedom of religion.
3. You have to pay taxes that fund education in your area. Whether you have children or not.

If the family’s religion prevents them vaccinating, then their children should still be allowed to attend public school without being vaccinated first. If not, then the family has an open course to sue for religious discrimination.

Perhaps that is the situation that exists now.

It should not. No-one should be allowed to use their own personal superstitions as an excuse to endanger public health.

Now that being said, it has been found in the past that freedom of religion does not necessarily guranty the free *practice* of religion, just belief. However a case usually has to go all the way to the Supreme Court for a judgement of that caliber to made.

Yeah, the freedom to believe whatever you wish should end at your own skin. It should not extend to your beliefs impingeing (sp?) on other people.

It’s literally like my taking my right to own a firearm and running around the neighborhood shooting the thing. Guess what? It’s illegal for obvious reasons. So should the anti-vax nonsense be illegal, save for the very few whose religion forbids it OR for those who DO have a reaction and there is no alternate vaccine available

I agree, apart from the religious exemption.

After all, would you allow someone to go around their neighbourhood indiscriminately firing a gun at people because their religion demanded it?

At the time, before Jenny McCarthy, this seemed to be a perfectly natural and normal thing to do.

“Out of ten vaccinated children, three will develop autism and two others will face significant developmental challenges”

Are people just randomly making these things up, now? She’s actually attempting to claim that fully half of all vaccinated children either end up with autism or developmental challenges?????

I think certain choices need to be taken out of parents hands, and vaccinations is one of them. Parents who do not vaccinate their children are guilty of intentional neglect, in my opinion.

Here’s an interesting idea. Take the numbers for cases of autism in Canada (where we’re required to be vaccinated), per capita, and compare it the same in the US. I’ll bet there’s very little if any difference. Any takers?

I think I need to see some verification of that requirement to be vaccinated. Because near our neck of the woods there was a mumps outbreak. An interesting bit in that article:

Medical officials say its spread has been aided by conservative Christian groups that are against vaccination of all kinds.

Well, at least they are not like the Sons of Freedom, a subject of many interesting family stories at a few holiday gatherings (from my in-laws as bemused bystanders).

We have freedom of religion here, too. I don’t know how things work in the States, but up here, you have the option of home schooling your kids if you want. Sure it’s expensive, since one parent will probably have to stay home, but it is a choice if the state system is not to your liking.

Regardless of differences between laws in different jurisdictions, however, I strongly disagree with the idea that unvaccinated children SHOULD be allowed to attend school as long as there is a religious reason for it. Maybe they’ll HAVE to be allowed to attend because of the wording of the law, but I don’t believe that is the way it ought to be. If something is against the law (for a good reason, not just for reinforcing trivial social conventions), simply saying “it is against my religion” should not automatically exempt you from that law.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/51585608-78/measles-health-department-immunized.html.csp?page=1

The evidence is that the kids are getting immunized. When the first warnings went out in February, it was to 4850 students, On Monday it was 795, and on Tuesday that number had dropped to 290.

Granted, there could be some doctors notes in there, but the anti-immunization movement doesn’t have that much traction here.