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To Protect His Son, a Father Asks School to Bar Unvaccinated Children

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Re: To Protect His Son, a Father Asks School to Bar Unvaccinated Children

#81

Post by Spooky23 »

smuss77 wrote: post #27

If it was my son and he couldn't be vaccinated for a few months I'd simply hold him out of school until the vaccinations could be administered. I feel for the child and his family, it's a horrible thing that happened to them, but talk about solving a simple problem with an activist response. This is how we end up with a ridiculous number of laws and regulations. If we should legislate that every kid in a public schoo…

Why does your personal preference with any basis in fact or reasoning allow you to trump some sick child's ability to attend school?

Where does preference end? If there's a boy in a kindergarten with severe peanut allergy, should the class snack be peanuts one a day week? After all, the kid can stay home that day?

Read the story of FDR's struggle with polio. Or the death and disfigurement dealt out by smallpox. Or the kids bedridden for weeks with measles in the 50s. Taking safe, effective measures to eradicate these things isn't "ridiculous regulation"... It's a service to humanity.

Re: To Protect His Son, a Father Asks School to Bar Unvaccinated Children

#82

Post by shirro »

chrisau wrote: post #42

One thing confuses me. Why are parents of vaccinated kids so terrified of unvaccinated kids?? Does vaccination work or not? If my kids are vaccinated, doesn't that mean they won't catch the disease if they encounter it? Or, at the worst, get a mild dose. If vaccination works, why do we care that a small minority aren't vaccinated?

Imagine someone you love has a chronic auto-immune disease like MS, arthritis or even psoriasis and they are taking a drug to depress their immune system like a TNF inhibitor or something like methotrexate or cyclosporine. Or they have cancer and on chemotherapy that depresses their immune system. Or they have had an organ fail and they need to take drugs to stop their body rejecting the replacement. Or they have AIDS or any other disease that damages their immune system. Or they are old. Or they are very young, perhaps even unborn.

They did the right thing and unless they had some medical reason not to at the time they got vaccinated. Now what good will it do them with a damaged immune system? What good will it do them if they have not been vaccinated yet due to age.

Then we have a perfectly healthy family who decided that based on advice from their chiropractor/homeopath or some actor that vaccination is a conspiracy by evil big business and government. Besides it is their right not to give a fuck about anyone else. They get a mild sickness from some disease that was effectively non-existent a decade ago and can't understand what the fuss is about as their slightly spotty kids wipe their snot on the door handle. Then your immune compromised loved one comes along.

Re: To Protect His Son, a Father Asks School to Bar Unvaccinated Children

#83

Post by smuss77 »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #48
smuss77 wrote: post #27

If it was my son and he couldn't be vaccinated for a few months I'd simply hold him out of school until the vaccinations could be administered. I feel for the child and his family, it's a horrible thing that happened to them, but talk about solving a simple problem with an activist response. This is how we end up with a ridiculous number of laws and regulations. If we should legislate that every kid in a public schoo…

I believe nearly every university requires proof of vaccination/immunity for a variety of standard immunizations for attendance. It's pretty standard. I don't know if it's some federal law, or just good public health practice. Are you upset about this? I'm not sure why the anti-vaccination crowd isn't more upset about this -- but bite my tongue, I'm sure it'll be coming next. You can always make a slippery slope argu…

I'm not upset about that. Personally, I think vaccines are a minuscule risk, and worth taking, but that's me.

The "why not," for me, is if someone truly believes a vaccine is harmful, maybe due to religion or because she's a researcher that believes there is some second order risk (founded or not), it's immoral to force them to do so.

Re: To Protect His Son, a Father Asks School to Bar Unvaccinated Children

#84

Post by Spooky23 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #73
haiguy wrote: post #19

Do any of you religiously stay up to date on your boosters to stay fully immune to these diseases? Do you advocate shutting down the borders, prosecuting people to the fullest extent of the law that are found illegally in this country, and overall taking every effort to prevent illegal immigrants into the country where we can't control their movements amongst the population and have no history of their medical condit…

> If third world diseases are popping up again in this country, maybe we should be looking at the unregulated flow of immigrants, and not generally shitting all over affluent, intelligent individuals with healthy children. I don't think it was impoverished illegal immigrants spreading it around at Disneyland. Wealthy LA schools' vaccination rates have gone lower than South Sudan . Folks from Mexico etc. have seen the…

The guy you're responding to is right and wrong. There are many medical issues related to the immigrant flow, but mostly things like TB, scabies and stuff related to sanitation.

Locking them up in confined detention facilities for months on end to fuel some political game doesn't help.

Re: To Protect His Son, a Father Asks School to Bar Unvaccinated Children

#85

Post by dinkumthinkum »

haiguy wrote: post #19

Do any of you religiously stay up to date on your boosters to stay fully immune to these diseases? Do you advocate shutting down the borders, prosecuting people to the fullest extent of the law that are found illegally in this country, and overall taking every effort to prevent illegal immigrants into the country where we can't control their movements amongst the population and have no history of their medical condit…

I think you are just using an anti-science stance to support some either racist or xenophobic political views you have or something like that. The increasing prevalence of antivacinationism is a serious health threat. It will create a situation in which there are significantly more people unvaccinated than there are normally for other reasons.

Re: To Protect His Son, a Father Asks School to Bar Unvaccinated Children

#86

Post by dmckeon »

chrisau wrote: post #42

One thing confuses me. Why are parents of vaccinated kids so terrified of unvaccinated kids?? Does vaccination work or not? If my kids are vaccinated, doesn't that mean they won't catch the disease if they encounter it? Or, at the worst, get a mild dose. If vaccination works, why do we care that a small minority aren't vaccinated?

http://www.cdc.gov/measles/hcp/ >One dose of MMR vaccine is approximately 93% effective at preventing measles; two doses are approximately 97% effective.

Vaccination does not confer effective immunity in all those vaccinated. If an outbreak hits a school or day care, the 4 day period in which the infection is contagious before any symptoms appear means that most of the kids will be exposed, and any who are not immunized (either not vaccinated, or vaccination was not effective) are at risk.

I view those who choose not to vaccinate children who could be vaccinated as freeloaders, depending on the rest of us to provide group immunity to protect their children. For those for whom it is a personal preference or belief, rather than part of a religious practice, I wish they would choose to accept their share of the risks.

Re: To Protect His Son, a Father Asks School to Bar Unvaccinated Children

#87

Post by spdustin »

pstuart wrote: post #30
mayneack wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what the basis is for your statement? Is mockery the best method for changing peoples' behavior here? Probably not, but I'm not convinced that it's counter productive like you assert.

I prefer facts and reason. When those don't work, what's left that doesn't involve force?

Law, and injunctive measures.

Re: To Protect His Son, a Father Asks School to Bar Unvaccinated Children

#88

Post by diafygi »

DanBC wrote: post #4
pstuart wrote: post #2

Mockery and ridicule are powerful tools. This is a good application for them.

Mockery and ridicule do not change people's minds. People who chose not to vaccinate their children only retreat further from vaccination if you use mockery or ridicule. If your aim is to protect children by increasing the numbers of vaccinated children it's important not to use mockery or ridicule. Those are the wrong tools.

I always liked the quote, "You can't reason someone out of a place they didn't reason themselves into."

Emotional influences like skepticism, fear, frustration, and community seem to be the main drivers for not vaccinating your kids. It may be that the best way to combat that sentiment is through emotions. Maybe it takes tactics similar to anti abortion groups? Should we be standing in communities with big posters of dead kids?

Re: To Protect His Son, a Father Asks School to Bar Unvaccinated Children

#89

Post by plink »

shirro wrote: post #62
hackaflocka wrote: post #33

Is it not better for overall herd immunity for nature to take its own course (i.e., let people with poor immunity die off). I mean, if herd immunity is the argument here, then why not go the whole hog?

We tried that approach for millenia but sadly young people with poorly developed immune systems and old or sick people with compromised immune systems kept dying and we decided as a society to do something about it because some of us have kids and parents we love. Then a bunch of selfish ignorant hippies decided, based on their limited experience of living in a society protected by vaccination, that disease was a pro…

There's more to alternative medicine than spoiled hippie-attitude. There's a canonized philosophy behind it with a pantheon of pseudo-thinkers who are assiduously studied in accredited university-like mills where one can become lettered toward a lucrative profession.

Re: To Protect His Son, a Father Asks School to Bar Unvaccinated Children

#90

Post by spdustin »

pistle wrote: post #47

If schools, as the primary concern, were to be lofted into a position of being "disease free" we should see an interesting dynamic in the tragedy of severe infections, but maybe also in what most people consider milder infections, like cold and flu. When your coworkers are sick, they are often are far more considerate than children can be. Full vaccination, with only exceptions for medical needs like in the article,…

My kids' school does require parents to keep kids home if they're vomiting, have a fever, with the additional guidance if "seems sick" which some teachers/administration members use to include excessive coughing and sneezing.

There may be some loophole that makes that unenforceable, but I've been asked to get my kids when a fever had returned after we believed they had recovered.

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