Discussion for article #232776
Failure to vaccinate should be considered child abuse and CPS should remove the children from the homes. These are unfit parents.
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I think the fine for not vaccinating your child should be more like $10,000 instead of $5,000!
And increased as others are exposed and contact the disease due to not ensuring a child is properly vaccinated.
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There should be a penalty, but it shouldnāt be monetary. Thatād just allow rich anti-vaxers to not vaccinate their kids, while forcing everyone else to vaccinate. Great recipe for everyone hating a law.
Just make it mandatory for everyone without a compromised immune system. Period. Simple. And if they donāt vaccinate, they canāt go to schools or colleges.
Maybe having to home-school their rich brats all the way through college will finally make even the crazies out there vaccinate.
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A $5000 fine isnāt going to bring back the kids who die from these revived diseases.
If people donāt want to vaccinate, they should live in non-vaccinated colonies to contain their idiocy and disease.
I suspect the parents of unvaccinated kids are so into themselves, their smartphones and their high paying high tech jobs, they wouldnāt have time for home schooling, and so it would be left to the housekeeper. Which might be cool since sheās probably a foreign worker and could also teach the kid her language.
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I agree. Do not let them attend public schools without a medical certification from a school-approved doctor that they cannot be vaccinated (allergy or compromised immune system). This is a public health issue. If they do not want to be vaccinated, that is fine, but they should forfeit some of the privileges that come with living in an industrialized society. By the way, the top independent schools in Los Angeles cost over $30K per year, per child for kindergarten, and it goes up from there. So, this is a pretty significant financial incentive as well unless they are already going that route.
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ya knowā¦ if this sort of magical thinking worked then this childhood diseases wouldāve never been a problemā¦ how much more ānaturalā and āholisticā could lives have been before the development of vaccinesā¦ Louis Pasteurās work wouldāve been in vainā¦
no smallpoxā¦ no chicken poxā¦ no measlesā¦ no mumpsā¦ no tetanusā¦ on and onā¦
if magical thinking worked then we in California wouldnāt be in the middle of a droughtā¦ weād either be washing our cars 24/7ā¦ going on picnicsā¦ or prayingā¦
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Yeah, unfortunately, Iāve know several of these parents and they were neither rich, much less particulary well off, and none of them had domestic help.
I also donāt like how the article frames the subject, as those non-vacc parents Iāve argued with didnāt come from a standpoint of boundless narcissim, but unfettered fear of their kids getting autism. In their minds, you have to now prove the vaccinations wonāt give their kids autism, despite the fact that you canāt logically disprove a negative. This is the same fear that prevented my father from using a seatbelt with me as a kid, convinced that if we got into a wreck it would trap me in the car and burn me to death instead of letting my fly to safety out the window.
I do agree with needing a legal remedy to solve the issue. You just canāt argue with this kind of fear.
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If parents make the choice not to vaccinate, then society needs to make the choice to not let their kids anywhere near a public school. It might not solve the problem, but it will help.
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Not only fined, but quarantined for at least 28 days. Anyone in the family that hasnāt been immunized should be quarantined. This might prevent measles from spreading as much.
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You canāt yell fire in a crowded movie theater because it endangers those around you, not vaccinating for a required vaccination is the same thing, except the potential for injury and death are greatly increased.
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See Pox, by Michael Willrich.
Why not just round up all the non-vaccinated children and then quarantine them? Iām sure that in the interest of keeping their children āpureā the parents would agree. Also, since it was a choice, why not charge the parents for the care. (yes, tongue in cheek ā¦ but not exactly too far from what Iāve heard from some of the anti-vaccine idiots.)
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For all those folks deliberately exposing kids to chicken pox? After you are dead, and your children are experiencing shingles as a result of your choice, Iām sure theyāll thank you. Unless theyāve recovered from the insanity you are imposing on them, and got the vaccination for shingles.
Also?
I cannot imagine a less helpful post than this for this health issue: TPM publishes a piece that argues for fining parents for not vaccinating children?
I guess it must be another example of the āSpeaking truthā genre that I just do not have the sophistication to grasp.
I canāt think of anything more that would spur people to refuse vaccinations than fining parents.
So, congrats!
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Thereās the heart of the problem. Youāre not dealing with reasonable people with a well-founded objection, rather, itās the anti-government/science crowd that listens to the Michelle Bachmannās of the world and who fully buy in to the paranoia. I donāt think a monetary fine would work. Actually, I think it would probably have the effect of further deepening their general distrust of government.
Iām not sure there are really any good options here. I wasnāt aware that there were states that allowed children to go to school (at least public ones) without full immunization. That may be a start for places where itās not mandatory. Here in MN your child is required to have proof of immunization starting with kindergarten and on through middle and high school.
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For crying out loud, why arenāt science-denying anti-vaxx parents being treated across the board like the pariahs they should be?
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Many people, including me, hold the pharmaceutical companies, and their growing list of vaccines, up to a very skeptical light. I worked in the industry, and it is far from perfect, as is the list of mandated vaccines. Iām not rich, or elite or a snob, and Iām not in the Jenny McCarthy camp or the autism camp. These are easy mischaracterizations of many people who donāt feel like running headlong like a lemming toward every needle the industry dreams up to stick in our arms and increase their stock price. Pharma isnāt making any next generation antibiotics (not profitable enough) which we desperately, desperately need, but they love vaccines, and they wonāt stop dreaming up new ones whether we need 'em or not. Amanda, your opinion piece, and all the comments below it, fit better on Breitbart.com or Fox and Friends. Surprised to see all this lynching talk on TPM. Really surprised.
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Yeah, unfortuantely this very perspective has driven a wedge in what I thought were solid friendships. If you want to be irrational with your selection of a sports team, OK fine. You want to go to church on Sunday and believe in metaphysical beings, no problem, bring it on. The lack of immunization poses a very real threat to me and my family, which causes me to take a step back and question the rationality of folks.
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and they wonāt stop dreaming up new ones whether we need 'em or not.
OK, so youāre in the corporate conspiracy crowd. Big Pharma is a bunch of corporate bastards? Yep, no argument there. We arenāt talking about the flu vaccine, but who am I trying to convince? If youāve had kids, just please move up to a mountain cabin in the Rockies and stay well away from me and mine. Iād say nothing personal, but Iāve worked in Public Health before and have seen the very real risks your philosophical/conspiracy theories inflict on people.
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