First, there hasn’t been a single case of smallpox in 30 years. So yeah, not vaccinating for a disease that only exists in 4 labs in the world makes sense which is why, we don’t vaccinate children anymore for smallpox. And we never vaccinated people using the smallpox virus. Originally it was cowpox which did have too high of a mortality rate, but and now it is vaccinia which has a 0.0001% mortality rate, is almost never contagious (100 reported cases in the last 100 years) and biggest side effect is a small rash.
20 million people worldwide get measles every year. When it goes away, then by all means, stop vaccinating for it.
That’s been part of the problem since my child was diagnosed with nut
allergies… I feel like an anti-vaxxer, and not in a good way.
Same deal here - I have a daughter with severe nut allergies and I have no love of feeling - and looking - like a half crazed overprotective helicopter parent with a collection of medical superstitions. And that cartoon - I suspect more by clumsiness than intent I suspect - makes me feel I’ve just been classified as a related species of the anti-vaxer as well. Eek!
… And how many cases of contagious vaccinia have gone unreported? I know mine wasn’t reported, because I was too sick to see a doctor, and this was no small rash, this was pockmarks spreading from the insides of my elbows and the backs of my knees to cover most of my body.
It depends. I know parents who have set rants about how peanuts/shellfish/[insert allergen here] should be banned outright because their kid happens to be allergic to them. At the lengths they go to, they’re not being “helicopter parents” – they’re just being boorish, full stop. Sadly, they make life more difficult for parents who are just trying to make sure they’re kids aren’t exposed to stuff they’re allergic to.
Personally, I’m allergic to coffee – I haven’t gone into anaphylactic shock from exposure to it (um, yet?), but even a sip of hot chocolate with some coffee in it will make me pretty ill. I don’t want to think what the world would be like if we tried to ban coffee, and I don’t want to think of the backlash I’d have to endure if I tried to get people to stop drinking coffee anywhere near me.
There is a strong strain of anti-intellectualism (=dumb) going around in the US: anti-vac, global warming deniers, creationism etc.
As I’m not living in the US (thanks jebus for that): Let them stop get vaccinated and Darwin sort them out. Kill two birds with one stone: Prove evolution and get rid of the dumb. There will be collateral damage but that never seems to bother the US public.
Good sentiment, but dreadfully hard to implement. The unvaccinated have no scarlet letter indicator upon them, and the parent’s motives may not include admitting the child’s status if inconvenient. Schools can insist on this because of the lengthy notice and established paper trail. That just doesn’t appear cost-effective or even feasible for most businesses.
Businesses also cannot risk saying they are ‘vaccinated only’ & open themselves to lawsuits when infections occur because of their imperfect screening process.
I agree with the notion of raising the societal cost of such behavior, but the ‘how’ remains elusive.
Not to minimize your own personal experience, but given the extremely low number of reported cases, how many of such additional outliers do you expect exist?
Ah, eugenicism. Letting disease kill off the allergic-to-certain-vaccines, the immunocompromised, and the ‘dumb.’ Letting police kill off disabled people is also popular.
I know I’m not the only one with an unreported case. I know that not all cases get reported, and not all severe to am-I-going-to-die cases get reported. I don’t know what an appropriate ratio of unreported to reported cases would be, though: 1:1, 2:1, 4:1?
As I’m aware lately it seems like US police is at it already. I don’t think I need to bring examples. Just look at the BB archive (or your local news channel).
No! No! No! There is this modern belief prevalent among Americans in particular that litigation is that answer to everything and a suitable financial settlement is adequate compensation. It is not! These are not just minor diseases. You’re not just getting sick from measles or polio. Your life is at risk and if you are unvaccinated it will be a life changing experience (to use another modern euphemism). My generation is one of the first to get the full vaccine but my parents and their siblings did not and they all bear the scars in one way or another. This should be treated as criminal reckless endangerment with far more sever consequences than an insurance premium hike.
I’m sorry, I still don’t understand. If you are “too sick to see a doctor,” you are sick enough to go to a hospital.
Also, hospitals are for people who are sick. There is no minimum amount of sickness required to go there. Maybe you don’t go the emergency room for a headache, but an appointment? In a doctor’s office?
For goodness sakes, I go to the doctor once a year for a physical. Surely I can’t be the only one.
This logic escapes me. If you are so sick you need an ambulance to get you to a doctor, you are too sick not to see a doctor.
I mean, if someone is totally unable to move to get into a car/taxi/whatever, who thinks to themselves, “well, $1000 for that ambulance is quite a bit, let’s just wait and see if they die or not instead.”
At the very least, a call to the doctor would probably be in order… there are most likely options beyond an ambulance if you’re that sick but not in an emergency. Especially if it’s something possibly dangerously contagious.
Different people have different circumstances, however, so I wouldn’t get judgmental about it.
This discussion you have going there makes me suspicious that one of the deeper roots of whole vaccination craze is the health care system the US has (“best in the world” as they like to call it themselves). Don’t vaccinate because you are afraid of probable side effects making a visit to a doctor necessary. Damed if you do, damned if you don’t.
Ah … the joys of socialized (communist as it is called over there) healthcare. Get vaccinated, get ill, visit a doctor or call an ambulance - whatever is necessary - no biggie.
