Just added a slight edit in bold. Otherwise, I completely agree.
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If the mere existence of current restrictions justified new restrictions, jailable offenses would multiply towards infinity.
Do you have evidence to suggest that they aren’t?
Serious question, because there doesn’t seem to be any tendency not to constantly increase the number of offences for which we can be imprisoned.
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As a member of the human herd the anti-vaxxers really piss me off since they are fucking up the herd’s resistance to disease and helping to create new vaccine resistant viruses.
For that reason alone I find this woman’s jail time sort of amusing.
Do I think jail/prison time ever helps a situation? No, not really.
Still, it has a karma-ish feel to it. 
Yes… but with the caveat that the internet also makes it easier to form and maintain communities of the insane out of a much smaller and more diffuse potential population than in the past. Back in the day most people talked to maybe a few hundred people on a regular basis, and broadcast news came from only a few sources. Today an idea can spread to a viable self-sustaining population even if only 1/100,000 (note: made up number) of those who encounter it are susceptible.
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First, because it would be hard, expensive, and unnecessary given how cheap and reliable normal vaccines are. Second, because that would be an essentially irreversible choice - if we ever decided it was a bad idea, for whatever reason, we and our descendants couldn’t take it back. It’s like the difference between somatic cell gene therapy and germ line gene therapy, or the discussion not too long ago of using gene drive technology to eradicate mosquitos in the wild - these have vastly greater implications than ordinary medical interventions. I honestly have no idea what standard of evidence I would need in order to accept that a transmissible vaccine was a good idea.
Note, though, that some vaccines historically (and maybe currently for some? I don’t think so but IDK) have been based on live but weakened infectious agents. The first vaccine, for smallpox, came about because Edward Jenner realized milkmaids who had gotten cowpox didn’t get smallpox, and then found that infecting people with cowpox prevented smallpox.
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I’m just pointing out that there is considerable precedent for jailing a parent for willfully failing to do something that we deem important for the child. By putting teeth behind the threat, the hope is that the threat will be effective in other cases. Perhaps throwing this entitled idiot in jail for a while will scare other anti-vaxxers out of behaving the same way, and save a few lives.
It is silly, but it’s almost exactly what @Magdalene is saying. I just changed “contempt of court” to “armed robbery” for the benefit of the people who failed to see the silliness in the original.
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No, it wasn’t.
My initial comment was only a reaction to the idea of compulsory vaccinations against the threat of jail. It was never meant as a defense of this specific case or whatever stupidity these two parents are playing at, although I did take issue with the some of the speculations that were being made. And as the replies began to pile up, my intent no doubt appeared all the more murky.
Alas, after the pitchforks were leveled and the mob had charged, it was clear that people were a great deal less interested in what I actually meant than they were in having a target for their anti-vaxxer contempt.
So it goes.
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I’ve been staying out of this thread because it’s a pure-D shit show of snide self-righteousness and just straight up nastiness… but I agree with you about not adding to the already excessive incarceration numbers of the US prison system.
Personally I had my kid vaccinated, and I believe in “inoculating the herd,” but I don’t agree that the threat of jail time is any kind of reasonable solution to the problem of antivaxxer parents; especially not when it already seems like a nefarious not-so-covert plot is in place to incarcerate as many non-wealthy citizens as possible.
I think some kind of monetary fine would be far more viable as an effective form of deterrence, but that’s just my opinion.
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No, as @Magdalene said, it isn’t.
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Yes, 100% agree!
A fine, or an insurance penalty. In the other direction, an insurance or tax break for individuals or cities with a certain level of partcipation.
There are all kinds of possibilities that don’t involve incarceration.
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Fucking A; I have to really wonder about some people when their first instinct is to imprison others as a way of ‘solving problems.’
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The first course of action wasn’t imprisoning the woman. The first course of action was ordering her to vaccinate her children, an action to which she agreed, and then ignored.
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Miss me; that’s not my argument, and I’m not interested in resuscitating the fucking dogpile.
Thanks.
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Cc @Melz2 concur that I’ve kind of stayed away for every reason you stated.
This line of thinking intrigued me. At my work. We have our own cafe and we have various meal choices. If it is a healthy “fit” meal it’s price is significantly reduced (80% or something like that). If it is a non fit meal it’s cost is bumped up by like 20%.
Give the breaks to those that choose to eat turkey on whole grain and financially punish those who want a steak n cheese.
That sort of model could work also. Or am I way off base?
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Absent a major public health emergency, I tend to err on the side of economic and social incentives and disincentives rather than state-imposed fines or time behind bars for not vaccinating one’s kids (which, again, was not the reason this particular woman ended up in the clink*).
The most powerful disincentive for most responsible parents is having their child missing out on a quality education, which is the solution currently in place in most states. It seems to be very effective, and from what I’ve seen in California the non-medical waiver rates have dropped dramatically as the state responded and tightened things up since the programme began. On the incentive side of things, schools with the resources should offer on-site vaccinations for kids whose parents want them.
I also have no problem with schools making public the names of any parents seeking a non-medical waiver, complete with stated reasons. Parents of other children, especially those who can’t get a vaccination for valid medical reasons, have a right to know if a potential disease vector is coming into the home. If general public shame comes along with it because they subscribe to superstitious or other woo, such is life.
Health insurance penalties are another avenue: if the parents don’t get their kid vaccinated for whooping cough and the kid gets whooping cough, the parents pay full freight out of pocket. By the same token, insurers should subsidise vaccinations for those parents who want them. Given the rules regarding attendance at public schools, this kind of rule could also potentially be applied in single-payer universal healthcare systems.
Bottom line: a parent is entitled to believe in whatever religious or pseudo-scientific nonsense he wants regarding vaccinations, but that belief doesn’t come without a price. Unfortunately, as our society tries to make sure that the price doesn’t involve violations of bodily autonomy by coercing vaccinations, the children of those idiot parents may end up bearing the brunt of the suffering.
[* I know you understand this, but it’s worth repeating for the benefit of those who are understandably confused or to counter those anti-vaxxers who less understandably try to confuse the facts]
Yep, that’s exactly what I was getting at.
I think it’s also important for people to understand that vaccination rates are also affected by poverty levels. People with out insurance access and support systems are also missing vaccinations.
"Another major contributor to vaccination noncompliance is the lack of access to health care due to socioeconomic and other factors. Many parents go through hard times because of job loss, divorce, home foreclosure, or other financial hardship. Some parents are single, overwhelmed, and overworked, and not able to keep up with their children’s vaccinations and well-child visits. If they lose their jobs and health insurance, some parents don’t know that they could qualify for Medicaid to maintain their health care. Families may also have inadequate access to health care because of lack of transportation or inconvenient clinic hours. Additional problems that hinder access to vaccinations include child care for children not being vaccinated, lack of knowledge, and difficulty in reserving an appointment.
It is well known that vaccination rates are influenced by poverty level."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4927017/
Last year I actually HAD to get a vaccination waiver so that my kid could start school because my insurance wouldn’t pay for the injections outside of a doctor’s office, and the office couldn’t get us in until after the start date. Even getting them from the state health department would have cost me 300 dollars out of pocket, which I was not willing to pay.
I made sure to get the vaccinations when I could because it was important to me. But I can imagine that other people might just forget about it.
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It’s a testament to the broken state of American health care that insurance companies and the government both make it difficult and expensive for a parent like yourself to get vaccinations. Public schools should offer on-site vaccinations administered by staff or travelling nurses to any kid whose parents request them, and insurers should subsidise if not entirely pay for the vaccinations.
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The core vaccines - MMR, IPV, and even Hep B - are provided free under the Vaccines For Children program, so poverty isn’t an issue there, though finding the time to get to a physician or public health clinic can certainly be an issue. When I was in school we were immunized in school – all these years later I still remember lining up for the Sabin polio vaccine – and that should be the norm.
Science blogs looked at the media coverage of this story:
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