[peck420]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

The two are not mutually exclusive!

Lol, well played.

[Delwin]

I think that almost everyone in the thread is in agreement that getting vaccinated is the correct decision in 99+% of cases and that vaccination is responsible for saving millions (billions?) Of lives.

My argument is a freedom argument and I will almost always argue in favour of greater freedom and greater personal choice. I simply do not like being told what to do by those whom I believe to be acting entirely in their own interest. I have witnessed government after government act with reckless disregard and I personally don't believe that they are in a better position to make decisions for my personal set of circumstance.

I also don't want misinformation to be any part of what decisions I make with regards to my personal safety. I am vaccinated and will vaccinate my kids because I have weighed the risks and benifits. If you choose not to, I believe that is your right. If your kids aren't and I feel their presence at my kids school is a threat, I will send my kids to a school with stricter policies or home school them. I will not hold your kids down and inject them with vaccines. I promise.

[OnTheIce]

Delwin Delwin:

My argument is a freedom argument and I will almost always argue in favour of greater freedom and greater personal choice. I simply do not like being told what to do by those whom I believe to be acting entirely in their own interest. I have witnessed government after government act with reckless disregard and I personally don't believe that they are in a better position to make decisions for my personal set of circumstance.

This doesn't apply to vaccinations.

The choice to vaccinate was easy for governments. It cost hundreds of millions of lives before we started to vaccinate and that wasn't a self-serving cause.

While governments often do things for their self-interest, vaccinations isn't one of them.

[Zipperfish]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

I don't see the risk justifying the action.

Because, as you said, you don't know what you're talking about.

And I still know more than you!

I defer to your vast knowledge of Slurpee machines though.

[andyt]

Andre Picard (globe and mail health columnist) has suggested that children who are not vaccinated not be allowed in schools or day cares. I agree with this. Do what you want with your own kids, but don't expose others to the risk. No vaccine is 100% effective. Some people don't have an immune response to the vaccination. Also at risk are children that are too young to vaccinate and pregnant women - rubella can cause miscarriages. So if some parents want to be wild eyed libertarians, let em, and let em also home school their children. Safer for an unvaccinated child anyway.

[Delwin]

My point is, yes vaccinations have saved millions of lives and began doing so at inception because they are effective. Your argument relies entirely on a herd immunity mentality. The premise that if everyone is vaccinated, you are even safer than if you get vaccinated alone. Too fucking bad. You get to make personal choices for your own safety. You don't get to make them for me. If I am walking around with meningitis and you get it, then your vaccine failed. That is not my fault and maybe it wasn't the miracle breakthrough you thought it was.

The risk of the vaccine failing AND you being exposed is so minimal that I don't believe it is worth the loss of my personal freedom.

[andyt]

Go ahead, don't get immunized. Just don't infect other people then if it could have been prevented- that's on you.

[Zipperfish]

andyt andyt:

Andre Picard (globe and mail health columnist) has suggested that children who are not vaccinated not be allowed in schools or day cares. I agree with this. Do what you want with your own kids, but don't expose others to the risk. No vaccine is 100% effective. Some people don't have an immune response to the vaccination. Also at risk are children that are too young to vaccinate and pregnant women - rubella can cause miscarriages. So if some parents want to be wild eyed libertarians, let em, and let em also home school their children. Safer for an unvaccinated child anyway.

Captain Picard would need to demonstrate some math to me first. "Safer" doesn't cut it. I would need to see some numbers applied before that type of intervention. There's a thing called "reasonableness."

[Zipperfish]

andyt andyt:

Go ahead, don't get immunized. Just don't infect other people then if it could have been prevented- that's on you.

The only other people it is going to effect are those that also aren't immunized, so...social Darwinism really.

[andyt]

Safer applied to the unvaccinated child being kept at home so it won't be exposed to the diseases that it was not vaccinated against.

[peck420]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

The only other people it is going to effect are those that also aren't immunized, so...social Darwinism really.

That's not entirely accurate.

Inserting a viable host into a sea of non-viable hosts is one of the ways pathogens are able to adapt and evolve.

The absolute worst case would be having an immune carrier inserted into a sea of non-viable hosts. That would allow the pathogen to persist until it found away around the non-viable circumstances of the non-viable hosts.

Darwinism works both ways.

[andyt]

$1:

Carl Krawitt has watched his son, Rhett, now 6, fight leukemia for the past 4 1/2 years. For more than three of those years, Rhett has undergone round after round of chemotherapy. Last year he finished chemotherapy, and doctors say he is in remission.

Now, there's a new threat, one that the family should not have to worry about: measles.

Rhett cannot be vaccinated, because his immune system is still rebuilding. It may be months more before his body is healthy enough to get all his immunizations. Until then, he depends on everyone around him for protection — what's known as herd immunity.

But Rhett lives in Marin County, Calif., a county with the dubious honor of having the highest rate of "personal belief exemptions" in the Bay Area and among the highest in the state. This school year, 6.45 percent of children in Marin have a personal belief exemption, which allows parents to lawfully send their children to school unvaccinated against communicable diseases like measles, polio, whooping cough and more.

Carl Krawitt has had just about enough. "It's very emotional for me," he said. "If you choose not to immunize your own child and your own child dies because they get measles, OK, that's your responsibility, that's your choice. But if your child gets sick and gets my child sick and my child dies, then ... your action has harmed my child."

Krawitt is taking action of his own. His son attends Reed Elementary in Tiburon, a school with a 7 percent personal belief exemption rate. (The statewide average is 2.5 percent). Krawitt had previously worked with the school nurse to make sure that all the children in his son's class were fully vaccinated. He said the school was very helpful and accommodating.

Now Krawitt and his wife, Jodi, have emailed the district's superintendent, requesting that the district "require immunization as a condition of attendance, with the only exception being those who cannot medically be vaccinated."

As people are asking, if schools can ban peanuts to protect children with allergies, why not ban disease carriers too?

[Public_Domain]

[andyt]

Measles infections worry mom of vulnerable 3-year-old
Riley Olsheski had heart transplant at 5 months and is on immune-suppressing meds

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/measles-i ... -1.2946697

[andyt]

And if that's not enough, this is about puppies too:

4 unvaccinated puppies euthanized after getting canine distemper in Dawson Creek, B.C. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-c ... -1.2946677

So if you won't think of your own kids, at leas think of the puppies.