Is it time to consider compulsory vaccinations?

Of course, everybody has some responsibility for his/her own safety at all times. The mother may well have taken all reasonable precautions for her safety and her children's. The driver who drove willy-nilly into an intersection because of some fictitious "right-of-way" did not. He should heve looked to see if somebody else was operating under a different fiction and didn't intend to honour his.

The right of way is not fictitious. If we have a right to be where we are this changes the burden of responsibility for any nasty things that may happen when we are there. Assuming that we have the right to exist we shouldn't be held responsible for bad things that happen simply because we exist. Refusing vaccination is not like running the red light and more like proceeding on the green without double checking.I think that vaccination is a clever trick and should be employed but I, almost completely, disagree with making it mandatory. I am willing to jeopardize my own health to some degree in order to preserve a person's right to self determination. I think that the dangers of relinquishing that right are far greater than those presented by infectious disease.It is an interesting philosophical question. If society creates a benefit that I can not avoid (like herd immunity) am I then obligated to participate in it's continuation?

No, of course not. You are welcome to live in the jungles and fight it out with the lions.This is the basic contradiction of libertarianism. The libertarians like to sound righteous about their beliefs. But, in reality, they are parasites, leeching of the benefits provided by a complex society, yet refusing to pay their fair share of the costs.

So your real answer is yes we are obligated to participate. It is all or nothing.

If you want to be able to enjoy the ice cream, you first have to eat some spinach.

So those of us who do not use the bus should be fed to the lions? Seems a little severe.If I support the idea of a police department is it antisocial to reject the idea of unlimited use of force to enforce the law?When autonomous cars become available will I be irresponsible if I chose to continue driving myself?

Of course it is. Who has a "right" to be in an intersection at any given time is entirely arbitrary. The rule could be, "go through when the light is red." Or purple. Or blue. The problem is that other people also have the right to exist in the same place at the same time, though possibly at higher speed. Society is all about mixing our rights to exist with the least amount of disruption. As I've said earlier in the thread, I'm against mandatory vaccinations too - but not because of any woo-woo "rights" issues. You do not have a right to carry dangerous diseases around with you. I just think a carrot is more effective than a stick. If society creates a benefit that you can not avoid (like roads) are you then obligated to participate in its continuation? Yes.

Sure it could be but after it is established then it is no longer arbitrary. If you have the green then you have the right of way and anybody else who is there is in the wrong.Even so, I counsel my children that having the right of way will not necessarily stop a cement truck so make sure you look first. It wont matter that everyone agrees that you had the right of way when they are scraping you off of the pavement. You mean like religion or a belief in unfettered capitalism? What about working the night shift? These are dangerous legal things that people do by choice. What about unprotected sex? Should that be illegal? we don't charge people for spreading stds if they are unaware that they are doing it. We are in agreement there. So has society failed at convincing these people to make the right decision or does the fault rest solely with the individual? So being born a Canadian obligates me to support everything that Canada does?

Like any substance, toxicity is tied to dose. As discussed previously, exposure to small doses of mercury causes no discernable harm. We ingest small amounts of mercury all of the time.What you quote does is prey upon the idea that any mercury is bad. It uses nonsense statements like this one:"Despite of that, as described above, levels of ethyl mercury found 8 days after vaccination [33] leads to 50% inhibition of methionine synthetase (MS) in vitro [13,30]."Any real scientist would also include the concentration of methionine synthetase. If the amount of MS tested is less than the amount of MS in a single cell, then it is a worthless statement. They are measuring activity outside of the body in unknown protein concentrations. That statement can't be used to make any conclusions of what damage mercury may or may not do in the body.The second scare tactic is to show that mercury concentrates to specific organs. Again, are the concentrations caused by thimerosal enough to cause damage? Your quote certainly doesn't say, and as mentioned earlier, the amounts of mercury in a vaccine is less than the mercury found in the a can of tuna.

If you want to put it in those terms, sure. Those who avoid dying in a war but still reap the rewards of winning a war are cheating in that sense.

We do and have been for hundreds of thousands of yrs. Injecting it into newborns is a more recent development. Is it really crazy to think that there may be some difference between the two? Perhaps it is mentioned in the actual study that the review paper refers to. I can't get at it. In any case, you are suggesting that all of these guys are a bunch of scare mongering quacks too? Christ, they are everywhere.

quote:

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Joachim Mutter*, Johannes Naumann*, Rainer Schneider*
1
, Harald Walach*
1,2
& Boyd Haley
3
* Institute for Environmental Medicine and Hospit
al Epidemiology, University Hospital Freiburg,
Germany
1
Samueli Institute, European Office, Freiburg, Germany
2
School of Social Sciences, University of Northampton, United Kingdom
3
Department of Chemistry, Lexington, University of Kentucky, USA

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I quoted it because it seemed to be in opposition to what you claimed about mercury excretion. As is likely very obvious I do not really know what all of this stuff means but how many 6 month old babies are eating tuna from a can or would otherwise be exposed to these levels in their first yr of life?As I gain an appreciation for the sheer magnitude of things that I do not understand about the issue I begin to see the futility of even trying. I do understand that we often see what we want to see and I think that this applies to all of us to some degree. Certainly it is less for those who employ the scientific method but I don't think that it is completely absent.I have made an honest effort in this thread to take a position that I do not actually hold. I think that we should continue to promote vaccination but I also think that we have a lot more to learn about it. I think that there is a real danger in thinking that we fully understand anything.

Yes, it is crazy. The route doesn't matter for mercury. As your other post shows, it ends up collecting in specific organs. It really doesn't matter how it gets into the blood. They make up a tiny fraction of the scientific and medical community. The vast majority (>99%) of pediatricians, immunologists, and other experts say that vaccines are safe.I am also showing you how the quacks dupe the public. They say things that seem scary but really aren't. They do so by leaving facts out.

I was trying to get away from arguing the science with you as it is like bringing a spoon to a gun fight but this statement doesn't seem right. Without looking at who said the following would you say that these people are also a bunch of quacks?

quote:

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The health effects of elemental mercury depend on the length and type of exposure. For example, if you were to accidentally swallow liquid elemental mercury from a broken fever thermometer, little mercury would be absorbed. However, if you were to inhale the vapour from that mercury spill, it would be more easily absorbed into your body, potentially causing health problems.

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This seems to indicate that eating some amount of mercury would have a different effect than injecting that same amount. Anyway, if I wanted to get a grasp on what we know about mercury poisoning which studies would you refer me to?

The other guy is only arbitrarily "in the wrong". That doesn't give you the right to crash into him. If you proceed without due caution, you are in the wrong regardless of your "rights". Did you read the sentence before the one you quoted?

quote:

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As I've said earlier in the thread, I'm against mandatory vaccinations too - but not because of any woo-woo "rights" issues.

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I have not suggested charging anybody for anything. Society is responsible for informing the individual. That's been done. The individual is responsible for the consequences of his actions. Haven't you heard? Everybody in the world wants to be an American. Feel free to go there - and take your plague with you.

Like I admitted in my first few posts in this thread, I cannot imagine something that much worse than someone holding me down and injecting me with something that I do not want them to. And in that since, I don't like mandatory vaccinations either.But the herd immunity is an important aspect of all this. And it outweighs the unwarranted fears that people have against vaccinations. In that sense, making them mandatory is a worthy cause.I won't advocate holding them down and shooting them up, but we do need to pressure these people into accepting the program.