The vaccination "debate"

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."

Carl Krawitt provided me with Superintendent Steven Herzog's response. Herzog didn't directly address their query, instead saying: "We are monitoring the situation closely and will take whatever actions necessary to ensure the safety of our students."

More here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/01/27/381888697/to-protect-his-son-a-father-asks-school-to-bar-unvaccinated-children

What do you think of this? I don't think we've had a thread about this but since the personal freedoms and beliefs are something a lot of users on this forum appreciate, I feel like vaccinations are an interesting area to discuss. Especially since there are posters here that are parents.

bonus article: Parents who oppose measles vaccine hold firm to their beliefs (LA Times)

If you don't immunise your child, and they are healthy enough to be medically vaccinated, you are fucking mental

That's what the government wants you to think.

I'm okay with requiring vaccinations for those who are healthy enough to have them.

Good

It's all part of the government's plan to spread autism and make people stupid and more compliant, right?

Thank you Andrew Wakefield...

@lostrib: Who?

EDIT: Ah, I googled it. Yep, no shortage of delusional quacks...

Yeah, he's the guy who started all of the Vaccines cause autism crap

You wouldn't believe me if I told you.

No, I probably wouldn't; sorry. It's nothing against you, though.

I also don't believe that there are nanobots in my eyes and tongue from the water I drink.

If they don't exist, how do you know so much about them?!

@SolidSnake35: Someone (maybe you? Can't remember) posted a link about it not long ago =)

Might have been government sponsored. Don't trust it.

So this guy is trying to protect his unvaccinated kid from other unvaccinated kids?

If you don't vaccinate your kids then you're a dumbass.

Your kids coming down with measles or polio isn't going to teach science much of a lesson.

Read the entire post before jumping to conclusions, it helps.

his child cannot be vaccinated at this moment because of medical reasons

I understand where the Dad is coming from and I think he is right to request that the school make sure every kid that can be vaccinated should be vaccinated.

i read on a blog that vaccinating your kids is bad. plus michelle bachman told me it made a child retarded once. so i'm against it

I bolded the relevant information when I made the thread. It's not that hard to read it all before replying.

Yep.

I am on the fathers side on this 100%

You have the freedom to not get vaccinated. That should NOT entitle them with the right to attend the school if they choose to not get vaccinated. The school system there should ABSOLUTELY mandate vaccinations for those who attend school there. Those who don't want to get vaccinated can get home schooled or something.

Who the hell are all these retards who don't get vaccinated.

I'm completely okay with a school requiring its students who are medically able to get the vaccine, to get the vaccine to be eligible to attend.

she was said child

That's not fair, Chess. You can't disparage parents behind their back for wanting to do what is best for their kids. They've spent hours... HOURS!.... researching everything they could find on the internet about how vaccinations work, how they prevent illness, what their side effects are, what the effects of the illnesses are, the rate of communication of these illnesses, and how much evidence there is stating that vaccinations cause autism.

Then they threw that all out the window and decided to, "think for themselves."

So don't call them selfish. And don't call them stupid.

At least not behind their backs. Tell it to their faces. They probably still won't learn, but maybe.... just maybe.... they'll be embarrassed enough get their children vaccinated and thus stop putting their own and other peoples' children at risk

I completely think anti vaccination people are crazy, but I also think that if you're that concerned about your child then you need to take them out of school and get them a private tutor or something until they are able get the vaccination. It's not the rest of the worlds responsibility to make sure your kid is healthy, if your concerned do something about it don't try and force everyone else to do something about it.

Vaccines SHOULD be required to attebd school. I also think that people who are against vaccines should be sterilized...

The thing is...if anyone should get taken out of school and get home-schooled instead, it should be the people who deliberately CHOOSE to be a public health risk. This kid CAN'T get vaccinations. Like it or not, we as a society generally tend to be more understanding of those with no choice in the matter. Scenario A involves effectively making a kid drop out of school because he got sick and can't get immunized. Scenario B involves a kid deciding to be a walking disease factory, and not being allowed in school untiol he gets vaccinated. If someone's gonna lose out on going to scdhool, I tend to think it should be the kid who has so little regard for public health that he CHOOSES to not get vaccinated. You could perhaps argue that it's better to not let ANYONE go to school without being vaccinated (regardless of it's their choice or not, but society usually tends to cut a little slack for the people who don't have a say in the matter. This kid isn't getting vaccinated because he CASN'T, not because he just chooses not to and doesn't give a shit about public safety.

Down with Andrew Wakefield

Vaccinations are SMART

Not wanting to have your child vaccinated is STUPID

We need more smarts and less stupidity in this world.

The problem with this is that it's not the kids choice. I would wager that the kids that don't get vaccinated far out weigh the kids that can't get vaccinated. Now, are you're going to punish a whole bunch of kids because their parents are stupid? They will probably choose to home school them rather then give them the oh so horrible autism injection, making it far more likely for them to grow up just as stupid as their parents. Next thing you know, it's 100 years later, and all vaccines are banned forever.

If anyone couldn't tell, this is not a completely serious post.

And i'm pretty sure America is usually in favor letting people get away with stupid shit because freedom, over sick kids. And I do think that if there is going to be a rule that everyone must be vaccinated or not go to public school then it should include everyone, which would again have the kids who can't get vaccinated out of the public school.

I don't want my kids getting mercury from vaccinations. They get it enough from the tuna as is.

Then go ahead and vaccinate them without worry

You clearly missed the joke.

I get it, but there are people who actually believe this kind of stuff

"Personal belief exemption" what a pile of steaming horseshit.

If anything, this goes to show the absurdity and implacability of what so many "social anarchists" advocate, that people are free to put, or not to put in this case, in their bodies whatever crap they want. If you are a member of a social arrangement of any kind you derive some utility out of such arrangement. There's no such a thing as taking without giving: in exchange for that utility you derive you have to give something in return. One form of this giving is to give up some of your liberties, including consuming or not consuming certain substances and items for the well-being of the entire establishment and the greater good in general. This case of "personal belief exemption" is a glaring example of why such anarchism shouldn't be sanctioned and why it in reality is neither practicable nor practiced.

Well said. It should be mandatory for admission into public school.

I thought it was mandatory already. I remember having to get different shots while entering different grades in school

Private tutoring costs shit-tons of money dude (we're talking tens of thousands of $ a year), especially if you want decent quality - and you're still missing out on the myriad of other benefits that kids get from school enrolment and not accounting for the time invested in finding appropriate tutors anyway. Public education and vaccines are generally "free" to "a lot cheaper". Imposing large economic burdens on anti-vaxxer idiots will at least force some of them to join in, imposing those costs on families which already have to pay for chemo is incredibly cruel, unfair and accomplishes nothing at all.

Also, the fact that the "can't get vaccinated" group is much smaller makes them less of a threat to herd immunity.

In certain states it is. New York, for instance, mandates all preschoolers get vaccinated before they start.

Right now we are having a epidemic of measles believed to have been started by all the children that migrated to the US in 2014.

@JimB: From where?

The current outbreak actually seems to stem from exposure at disneyland (California).

There has been an increase in Measles cases in the US. it can be brought from outside the country, and spread due to a lack of vaccination in a population

http://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html

@lostrib: Good info, thanks =)

Rhett Krawitt should stay home until he recuperates.

lulz. one or two generations of people not being subjected to deadly outbreaks of polio, measles, rubella and ect, ect, ect... and everyone forgets what that world was like.

that's how stupid we are as a species.

also, jim carrey and whats-her-face should be publicly flogged.

dumber-er and dumber-er-er part 4.

@Riverwolf007 said:

lulz. one or two generations of people not being subjected to deadly outbreaks of polio, measles, rubella and ect, ect, ect... and everyone forgets what that world was like.

that's how stupid we are as a species.

also, jim carrey and whats-her-face should be publicly flogged.

dumber-er and dumber-er-er part 4.

Jenny McCarthy. From what I remember her son didn't even have autism, he was given a misdiagnosis. Of course she claims that he did get autism from vaccines but was cured.

The boy was diagnosed with leukemia at 2 and half.

You can get your MMR Vaccine as early as six months of age.

My point stands, maybe you should do a little reading before replying

People who don't vaccinate their kids only need to watch this video.