Is it time to consider compulsory vaccinations?

Not when it so directly endangers others in society.

You have the right to be wrong. You don't have the right to do wrong. Your right to self-determination ends at the tip of somebody else's self-determination.

Those are my sentiments as well. Our society has often put medical decisions on a different level than required seat belts or a ban on drunken driving. Perhaps that view will change with time, and we will view vaccinations like we do shelter and food. We take children away from parents if they parents don't give them food, so could we say the same for vaccinations? Maybe.As you hint at, there is a part of us that has an irrational fear of things we don't understand. Government enforced medical procedures evoke a very basic fear in humans, IMHO. It is no wonder that this forms the basis for many sci fi horror films.

I disagree. There is a small risk associated with getting a vaccination. In an immunized population I understand that risk to be appreciably lower than the risk of complications from measles (e.g.) and it would not be a good decision to forgo the vaccine.However, in a highly immunized population it is possible that for a select individual the risk of the shot might be greater than the risk of measles and for that individual it maybe a rational decision to go unimmunized.However, there are some individuals in a population who can not be immunized (e.g., those undergoing immunosurpression for organ transplants or those with compromised immune systems for another reason) and if you are not in that group and are not immumized you have made the rational decision that you would rather risk their life than the life of your child.The question is: are you a member of this society? Are you a compassionate christian who cares for others? Or are you a selfish asshole?

Society is a much greater threat to the individual then they are to it. Probably the greatest threat after having no society at all. Society is a much greater threat to me when I drive down the road than I am to society. Society threatens my unvaccinated children much more than they threaten it.

Yes that is right. How then can we demand that someone take a vaccine against their will in order to safeguard our own health? It is the disease that poses the threat and not the unwilling carrier. Compulsory vaccination is saying that my natural state is a danger to you and I must therefore change.

Failing to vaccinate a child against a perceived threat is not the same as failing to give them food is it? Should we vaccinate all children, under penalty of law, against Japanese encephalitis? As much as I support widespread vaccination it bothers me that it is a multi billion $ business and that the people who make the money are the same people who tell me that the drugs are safe as well as being responsible for reporting any problems. Not an entirely irrational concern.The thing about self-determination is that it be self-determined and not that it be rational.

Have you gone Ted Kaczynski and secluded yourself in a backwoods cabin? I'll assume not. Why are you a part of this society? All of human culture shows an evolution toward greater and larger communities. Why? The benefits to the individual, to the family, of a congregate social structure far outweigh any purported dangers, yes? The rules of social living keep many more people a hell of a lot safer, fed, clothed, healthier and happier then social anarchy, right?You may see yourself worse off in a society than out, but if you look at all the advantages (like having a grocery store to hunt in rather than a dark forest or having hundreds of dentists' offices scattered around for when you get an impacted molar rather than having to go it alone and hope you can survive the pain and the infection, like having a shelter with an up-off-the-floor bed, a refrigerator, furnace/AC and internet rather than trying to maintain a leaking mud hut, sleeping on the ground in the damp cold and having to scrounge roots and berries under the snow every morning) you may see that you and most others around you in society are still comfortably alive rather then being carrion left in the open.In exchange for these advantages you have social obligations. Do not kill, do not steal, drive on the right side of the road and get your kids vaccinated. Lawless, greedy, narcissistic, unvaccinated, disease ridden ... you are, by far, a much greater threat to this society than it is to you. Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

It is not a question of compassion. People do not get vaccinated to protect society. They do it out of self preservation and rightly so. If being vaccinated presented a danger to the unvaccinated do you think that people would elect to not get them out of compassion? If we call for compulsory vaccinations is it for the protection of others or for our own benefit?Selfish asshole might be a bit strong but yes I would risk anyone's life instead of my child's. I do not feel any shame for saying so nor do I fault my wife for being motivated the same way. The problem is that she is mistaken in her risk assessment when it comes to vaccination as are most other people who reject them. The question is how do you get them to appreciate where the real danger lies.

You seem to have missed the part where I said 'Probably the greatest threat after having no society at all.' Of course I benefit from being a member of society. Why else would I participate? As I send my healthy kids off to school do they present a threat or are they threatened?

Yes, that is the case. If you are sure they are healthy and will not catch measles they only represent a potential threat and not a real one. However, they are a path for measles to get from an infected kid to one who is compromised and could easily be killed by measles. In that way every unvaccinated kid is a threat.Once the level of vaccination drops below that required for heard immunity they become a very significant threat. They may be healthy when you send them off to school but you can't be sure they will stay that way.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Fix quote box.

Hidden threats as well. Infected people can spread measles to others from four days before to four days after the rash appears.

Why do you see a dichotomy there? The whole concept of less than 100% effectiveness/herd immunity renders the two inseparable.

I don't mean this to be personal, ProtoTypical. I understand you're between a rock-and-a-hard place. But the following got rant-y.
Please try to understand that I'm using your personal situation to spring-board into a general public-service-type announcement I understand the desire, but as NoNukes pointed out... she's not being selfish, she's taking quite a gamble. This approach has a fundamental flaw. It assumes the current trend of almost-everyone-is-vaccinated will stay the same for the lifetime of your child. The vaccination is a life-time protection plan. Non-vaccination is a life-time open season ticket to mumpsville.What's actually happening is a gamble and using this statement as a rationalization.
Like NoNukes said, if she really wants to be selfish, she needs to pursue the likelihood of a number that probably doesn't exist.
However, it is extremely likely that this number-that-doesn't-exist is either equivalent or worse than getting the vaccination. And it is most certainly on-the-decline.She didn't just think of this non-vaccination plan on her own. She's thought of it because more and more people are thinking about it, considering it, and doing it. Many of them will not-get-vaccinated and still tell everyone else that they are, actually, vaccinated. On top of this, the children-yet-to-come (a few years younger than yours, and up to 20-30 years younger than yours, probably even more than that...) are going to be faced with the same decision. More and more people are not getting the vaccination. This adds more and more risk to those without the vaccination over the course of their entire lifetime.The risk of non-vaccination is much greater than the risk of vaccination, unless you're able to guarantee that your kids are the only ones not being vaccinated in their social circles... for their entire lives.Add in the dire consequences and the very easy method to avoid all of it... and you definitely do not have anything resembling a mother being selfish about her child's health.All you have is a mother being selfish about her own responsibility towards her child's health.
If the vaccination causes a problem -> mother may not be able to live with it.
If non-vaccination causes a problem -> well, it's nothing the mother did directly, it's from someone else, and only in-directly the mother's fault.None of this has anything to do with the child's best interest. Which (unless your able to guarantee the health status of their social circle for their entire lives...) is clearly on the side of getting vaccinated.Even waiting until they're 12 or 18 or 21... that's a number in years for which the open-season time bomb is constantly ticking away.

As Nosy and jar said.Which is to say they are both threatened and they are a threat.They are threatened by other unvaccinated kids who are pre-symptomatic for a disease because their parents could not understand the reality or would not follow through on their obligation to the well being of the rest of the kids in the school. If they then contract the disease they become threats to the other unvaccinated kids in the same way before you even know they got the bug.The threat is not so much to the usual kids in school who have grown enough to successfully ward off the disease as most of us old guys did when we were kids before there was a vaccine, but to those too young to be vaccinated yet and would be in mortal danger from contracting the disease. Same for the elderly who have not had the disease or the vaccine.BTW, if any of you adult types around here cannot remember having either measles, mumps, rubella or the vaccine you need to be vaccinated. Not because you are a threat but because you are in grave danger if you get one of these things. These are "childhood" diseases where kids can slough it off by playing hooky and staying in bed a few days. Adults do not do so well. Secondary infections and pneumonia are killers.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.