Should Vaccinations Be Enforced? Options

[Comptine]

California recently had a huge flux of whooping cough and it's been linked to parents who refuse to vaccinate their children.

Do you think it should be mandated that all children, except those with valid religious beliefs, be vaccinated? Even if the parents do not want their child vaccinated?

This post has been edited by tokyo-rose: Jul 2 2010, 09:40 AM

Reason for edit: Fixed topic title's spelling. :) - Cristy

[brooklyneast05]

would it be considered medical neglect to not vaccinate your kid against something serious

[Blyat]

would it be considered medical neglect to not vaccinate your kid against something serious

I think only if the kid is already sick and a vaccine would help the child to get better and the parents still did not help treat them.

[datass]

I think only if the kid is already sick and a vaccine would help the child to get better and the parents still did not help treat them.

uhm, a vaccine isn't like a drug, it doesn't treat a kid who's already sick. a vaccine is like a weakened or killed version of a disease that stimulates the body's immune system to destroy and recognize it, so that when the same disease infects the body again the immune system would be able to react faster.

i suggest people have a look at this

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/ff_waronscience/all/1

Before smallpox was eradicated with a vaccine, it killed an estimated 500 million people. And just 60 years ago, polio paralyzed 16,000 Americans every year, while rubella caused birth defects and mental retardation in as many as 20,000 newborns. Measles infected 4 million children, killing 3,000 annually, and a bacterium called Haemophilus influenzae type b caused Hib meningitis in more than 15,000 children, leaving many with permanent brain damage. Infant mortality and abbreviated life spans — now regarded as a third world problem — were a first world reality.

Today, because the looming risk of childhood death is out of sight, it is also largely out of mind, leading a growing number of Americans to worry about what is in fact a much lesser risk: the ill effects of vaccines.

And he wants Americans to be fully educated about risk and not hoodwinked into thinking that dropping vaccines keeps their children safe. “The choice not to get a vaccine is not a choice to take no risk,” he says. “It’s just a choice to take a different risk, and we need to be better about saying, ‘Here’s what that different risk looks like.’ Dying of Hib meningitis is a horrible, ugly way to die.”

Getting the measles is no walk in the park, either — not for you or those who come near you. In 2005, a 17-year-old Indiana girl got infected on a trip to Bucharest, Romania. On the return flight home, she was congested, coughing, and feverish but had no rash. The next day, without realizing she was contagious, she went to a church gathering of 500 people. She was there just a few hours. Of the 500 people present, about 450 had either been vaccinated or had developed a natural immunity. Two people in that group had vaccination failure and got measles. Thirty-two people who had not been vaccinated and therefore had no resistance to measles also got sick. Did the girl encounter each of these people face-to-face in her brief visit to the picnic? No. All you have to do to get the measles is to inhabit the airspace of a contagious person within two hours of them being there.