Is it time to consider compulsory vaccinations?

And stood in line at the Thom McAn shoe store to x-ray our feet and watch our toes wiggle.

In almost every state, immunizations are required for attending public school. I had to have immunizations before attending law school. But I am not aware of general requirements to get shots before taking most jobs. So far, only the military has insisted that I be immunized. I don't have to be immunized before coming to your house to tutor your kids in physics.But almost every state allows exceptions (e.g. at least religious exceptions ) and many states allow simple parental objections. In all cases parents can avoid getting shots by home schooling their kids even if they don't qualify for one of the exceptions. I doubt there is any constitutional way to force parents to immunize their kids for mumps and measles if they simply don't enroll in public school.As for the 4th amendment, there is plenty of case law that supports the idea that your 'body integrity' is protected against under the 4th amendment. And there is at least one court ruling already indicating that compulsory vaccinations are unconstitutional. In fact, I suspect that for students that do not enter school, the state has little to no ability to exam the students medical records.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

If you get around to doing that research, you'll find that the answers they already have are fine. Some people are just unable to understand or accept even the simplest information. Let's remember that the answers are scientifically based, and plenty of people have shown an infinite ability to reject that stuff.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

What we could do is extend the requirements for vaccination to many other programs. For example, we could require vaccination in order to get a driver's licences, or to get federal financial aid for college. I remember having to register for the draft in order to even apply for federal financial aid for college. I don't know if that is still the case.

The fact of the matter is that students have a much, much higher risk of being killed or mentally disabled by a car wreck on the way to school than they do by vaccinations.

I'm not happy with "forcing" people to be immunized just because they're breathing - even if it's the only way to keep them breathing. If they want to die, let 'em die.However, I have no problem with requiring people to be immunized before they qualify for jobs where they're in contact with the public - health services, food services, Wal-mart, plumbing, etc. If they want to infect other people, sorry, no.

Yes they should be allowed to be stupid and to inflict their stupidity on their children, they should not be allowed to inflict their stupidity on myself or my hypothetical children.Edited by DrJones*, : No reason given.

So keep challenging the Law until it gets changed."Body integrity" sounds like so much who-haw to me; utter bullshit in other words.I do not think any religious objections should be accepted if the person is going to be out in public, walking the street, going to store, having a job. And yes, if you were going to come to my house to tutor my kids you would have to show you were vaccinated.There are serious threats to the general public that allows individual rights to be overridden.

I'm not particularly happy with people inflicting their stupidity on their children either (though I suppose that can't be avoided in one form or another). No public schools without vaccinations (and no accreditation for private schools that don't require vaccinations), no sports teams, no extracurricular activities of any kind.... There are a lot of loopholes to be filled.

Man, I dunno. Near the top of the list of things that I don't want to happen to me is someone holding me down and injecting me, against my will, with something that I don't want them to. I'm sure it happened when I was a child, but I don't remember it.On the other hand, our population is getting out of control. Maybe some self-eugenics is a way to curb it. Fuck 'em, let them die.Too, I'm typically one who wants to let people raise their kids however they want, as I see your children as an extension of your self, but there seems to be something wrong with letting a kid be exposed to really dangerous but easily preventable diseases.This is a tough one.

Thank you, everyone, for the excellent replies. In particular, jar, thank you for your memories. It's difficult for younger folk to understand the medical terrors of those times. I tried to suggest it, and you did a much better job.Faith, thanks for introducing the objections from younger parents. Unfortunately, most of them have not witnessed the alternative, although increasing numbers of objecting parents now have learned the hard way, as measles, whooping cough and other diseases stage outbreaks in under-vaccinated areas.NoNukes, I see what you mean about the 4th Amendment. On the one hand, I agree with jar: then let's change the damn law; on the other, I ponder the contrary irony of what the state can do to your body; for example, tossing psychotics from institutions into the streets in the name of civil rights, then medicating them back into a semblance of normalcy so that they can be prosecuted for crimes committed in their madness.Women's bodies, of course, remain the playground of bad law.CS, it is a tough one: I didn't reach my position easily or quickly. I'm also inclined to let people suffer the consequences of their own stupidity. But I'm not prepared to watch them beat their kids to death, and I object to giving parents the power to crap-shoot their kids' lives in the face of available, certain protection. And now the harm they do their own threatens mine.I don't want to lose sight of the harm already done. Hundreds of thousands of children are already at higher risk of death and life-long diminishment because of lost herd immunity; it seems likely that some have died. Jenny McCarthy has blood on her hands up to her elbows. Her moral and intellectual peers in Pakistan, the Taliban, have killed vaccine workers and banned polio vaccines in areas they control. Unsurprisingly, polio there is resurgent.It's been a while since we destroyed a disease. How terrible, especially within the amazing medical suite of the 21st century, if we never do again.Not because the pathogen mystified us somehow, not because we lacked the means, but because fear and ignorance won.

Remember that vaccines did not effect the virus, the viruses are still out there and doing jess fine. TB and Polio and Measles and Mumps and Rubella are all still out there and getting stronger day by day. All vccines did was to change how humans responded when exposed to the virus.

Here's one. They were legal and available into the early 70s. I remember: they were intriguing. You just wanted to do it again. From the Museum of Quackery:

quote:

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Brooks Stevens, a noted industrial designer whose works included...an Oscar Meyer Wienermobile, designed this machine.

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So it could have been much worse Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given.Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given.

This is an important thing to remember. The medical community has not said that vaccines are completely and 100% safe, which is not shocking coming from scientific organizations. Nothing in this world, including water, is 100% safe and there is a miniscule risk of adverse reactions from any vaccine. However, the medical community does not hide these risks and they are listed right in the medication information packet that comes with any of these items. Direct from the CDC, with all known possible side effects...ya know, the opposite of what a supplement is required to mention. Yet, many Anti-vax parents will take "natural" supplements, never concerning themselves with those possible side effects.I agree with laughing at the additives part of the anti-vaccination argument. I was a child in the 1980's and our vaccines had more adjuvants for less vaccinations when I received them than children get in the current vaccine schedule. Plus, they get protected from more diseases.My favorite question for individuals is what diseases have the "natural" methods actually cured....and the answer is zero. Natural supplements and remedies have not eradicated any diseases from existence, while in several countries vaccines have done just that. Plus, the papers demonstrating safety are available to anyone who desires to actually read them. The problem with the anti-vaxxers is they choose soundbites over actually learning about the science. Soundbites are great for starting an ideological movement, but are worth jack diddley squat when it comes to actually debating the safety of vaccines.I am guessing that many of the anti-vax people you have heard from, Faith, are basing a majority of their opinions on Andrew Wakefield's thoroughly debunked research claiming a link between Autism and vaccines. First, his paper was flawed in the conflict of interest portion, where he failed to note that he was working with a company to develop a separated vaccine for Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR), rather than it remaining as a three in one vaccine. Add in his faulty methods of using a small sample size and removing anyone from this small sample who did not fit his preconceived notions, and it is no wonder that the United Kingdom took away his medical license after his dishonesty was found out. Article discussing research debunking Andrew WakefieldThe Actual article that hunted down Wakefield's patients from his study by Brian Deer

I do want to clarify that I am addressing childhood vaccinations, which I think you already understood, though others may not have. Children have a right to these protections; once an adult, they can go hang if they like. I suspect herd immunity would do just fine as long as childhood vaccinations are near universal.Also, if I may channel the philosophes of the Enlightenment a bit, whatever rights parents have to endanger their own children and others' children under statute, they have no right to do so under natural law.Perhaps an Ebola outbreak in the U.S. will focus our minds.