Chris Christie supports a "balanced" approach to vaccination

[dmmidmi]

I agree (can't believe I'm saying this) with Dr. Ben Carson:

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I would never vote for him, but I'm glad to see that he has at least some sense.

From what I've heard and seen in interviews, the impression that I get of Dr. Ben Carson is that he is a very talented, but dangerously insane individual.

With that being said, Dr. Carson is a thousand percent correct here.

[dmmidmi]

People have such short memories

Yes, complications from vaccination are very rare, but so is the probability that I will contract measles. Ultimately, the parents are in the best position to determine which risk they feel is of greater relevance to them. Obviously the former would be a greater risk for smallpox, and influenza is generally innocuous and mutable enough that the former would usually be a greater risk as well (as the article demonstrates). This is not to say that the anti-vaccine crowd isn't populated by peddlers of pseudoscientific drivel that exaggerates the former risk with fictitious causality, but as Deus pointed out, it is preferable to the alternative of using such poor risk assessments as justification for having their spawn forcibly placed under the custodianship of foster parents (who have 0 genetic investment in the child as opposed to 50%).

At any rate, I fail to see a logical reason why such PC outrage is leveled at parents in the Western world who fail to inoculate their children against rare diseases, and not the much more obvious threat to public safety of allowing unknown numbers of migrants in unaccounted for from places where rare illnesses in the Western world are much more common. In fact, such a measure to control disease is considered discriminatory.

Most parents are not public health professionals or epidemiologists. How is someone who isn't one of these things in a position to determine whether or not vaccination is good for public health?

[dmmidmi]

People have such short memories

Yes, complications from vaccination are very rare, but so is the probability that I will contract measles. Ultimately, the parents are in the best position to determine which risk they feel is of greater relevance to them. Obviously the former would be a greater risk for smallpox, and influenza is generally innocuous and mutable enough that the former would usually be a greater risk as well (as the article demonstrates). This is not to say that the anti-vaccine crowd isn't populated by peddlers of pseudoscientific drivel that exaggerates the former risk with fictitious causality, but as Deus pointed out, it is preferable to the alternative of using such poor risk assessments as justification for having their spawn forcibly placed under the custodianship of foster parents (who have 0 genetic investment in the child as opposed to 50%).

At any rate, I fail to see a logical reason why such PC outrage is leveled at parents in the Western world who fail to inoculate their children against rare diseases, and not the much more obvious threat to public safety of allowing unknown numbers of migrants in unaccounted for from places where rare illnesses in the Western world are much more common. In fact, such a measure to control disease is considered discriminatory.

Most parents are not public health professionals or epidemiologists. How is someone who isn't one of these things in a position to determine whether or not vaccination is good for public health?

I should disclose that I am the son of a physician. In any case, where do you draw the line as to which decisions a parent can make for their child and which ones have to be mandated by their local health professional? Is it child abuse for a parent to drive their child to school, given the possibility of a car accident (which, of course, has negative externalities) as well as the greater cardiovascular health that would come from walking?

Keep in mind that I am not opposed to either private institutions or public institutions usurping the duties of private instutitings mandating vaccinations as a precondition to entering their premise. If I were Disneyland or a primary school, I would not allow a child unvaccinated for certain illnesses into the park or the campus, simply due to the Pandora's Box of liability issues that I could be opening. However, simply being honest with parents about which illnesses pose a serious risk to their child's and the public's health and which ones are innocuous or mostly affect IV drug users/sex workers would be very helpful to clearing the pseudoscientific nonsense from the public square.

My point wasn't that decisions about their children's health should be taken out of their hands. After all, there are potential risks in transporting, schooling, and feeding your child.

What I took exception to was the implication that vaccination is something that parents should be deciding upon for themselves--as if the arguments for and against vaccination are equally valid--because that is responsible parenting and the responsible course of action in the best interest of public health and safety. The benefits of vaccination are well-documented. This isn't something that most serious health care providers, public health professionals, and researchers debate.

[dmmidmi]

My point wasn't that decisions about their children's health should be taken out of their hands. What I took exception to was the implication that vaccination is something that parents should be deciding upon for themselves

Did typing this result in any cognitive dissonance?

Are you serious? You took two sentences and pieced them together?

--as if the arguments for and against vaccination are equally valid--because that is responsible parenting and the responsible course of action in the best interest of public health and safety. The benefits of vaccination are well-documented. This isn't something that most serious health care providers, public health professionals, and researchers debate.

Again, you are distorting my position, and obfuscating the issue by referring to "vaccination" as a single issue rather than vaccinations for specific diseases. Given the possibility that illegal migrants or travelers will bring diseases long since eradicated in the United States into the country, the costs of not getting vaccinated for diseases like measles far outweigh the minute risk of having a poor reaction to the vaccine. However, if a disease almost exclusively affects certain high-risk groups whom young children are not especially likely to constitute, then I fail to see the harm in delaying the child's vaccination schedule for said disease until they can decide for themselves. Vaccinations as a precondition for entry into public facilities should be restricted to those diseases which are airborne or highly contagious, unless you think there is a high chance of kindergartners sharing their blood, semen, or IV needles with each other.

And my point was that putting these types of public health decisions in the hands of people who largely do not know any better is potentially very hazardous. You seemed to ignore this.

And are you going to argue that blood-to-blood contact amongst school age children isn't a possibility? Or that they couldn't somehow contact the blood of an adult?

[dmmidmi]

My point wasn't that decisions about their children's health should be taken out of their hands. What I took exception to was the implication that vaccination is something that parents should be deciding upon for themselves

Did typing this result in any cognitive dissonance?

Are you serious? You took two sentences and pieced them together?

There was one sentence in between the two, which was only clarifying your support for the first statement. There is a difference between expressing a nuanced view on something and supporting one statement while rejecting a paraphrase of said statement.

And there was more text after the second sentence, further clarifying my position. You ignored that, or intentionally omitted the spirit of my comments, because it didn't fit your argument.

Yay for honesty.

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Again, you are distorting my position, and obfuscating the issue by referring to "vaccination" as a single issue rather than vaccinations for specific diseases. Given the possibility that illegal migrants or travelers will bring diseases long since eradicated in the United States into the country, the costs of not getting vaccinated for diseases like measles far outweigh the minute risk of having a poor reaction to the vaccine. However, if a disease almost exclusively affects certain high-risk groups whom young children are not especially likely to constitute, then I fail to see the harm in delaying the child's vaccination schedule for said disease until they can decide for themselves. Vaccinations as a precondition for entry into public facilities should be restricted to those diseases which are airborne or highly contagious, unless you think there is a high chance of kindergartners sharing their blood, semen, or IV needles with each other.

And my point was that putting these types of public health decisions in the hands of people who largely do not know any better is potentially very hazardous. You seemed to ignore this.

And are you going to argue that blood-to-blood contact amongst school age children isn't a possibility? Or that they couldn't somehow contact the blood of an adult?
[/quote]

I would think the prevention of using public facilities for those unvaccinated for risky illnesses would incentivize appropriate vaccinations, and as for the nutters, they should not pose a problem so long as they are made to either homeschool or find a private institution that caters to their ridiculousness.

I would not want to send a child to any public facility where a considerable risk of coming into contact with the blood (or worse) of an Hepatitis B-positive adult existed, regardless of whether or not they were vaccinated.

[/quote]

I don't know what your argument is here, and I don't know what you classify as a considerable risk.