Is it time to consider compulsory vaccinations?

In my early grade school years, we lined up on school registration day to demonstrate our vaccinations, either via scars or documents: no vaccine, no school. I cannot recall any protests, aside from wailing children. In fact, even some of the youngest of us were happy to receive the polio vaccine in the mid 50s: we had seen the withered limbs, the sudden absence, the kids who couldn't come out and play anymore...We all but sang hosannahs in the street when the polio vaccine was announced.We benefited so much from our 20th century trust in vaccines. I particularly appreciate the polio vaccine, because I managed to contract many childhood diseases before I could be protected: smallpox (Variola minor, apparently from its last American stronghold in Appalachia); measles; mumps; a life-threatening bout of influenza in the Asian flu pandemic of 1957 that progressed to rheumatic fever, tetanus, etc.I think my parents were just waiting for polio to join my party. That 1957 flu pandemic also struck my pregnant mother, and some research suggests a link with my younger brother's schizophrenia. I get my flu vaccine...religiously ...and I wish we'd had it then.The growing resistance to vaccines now explicitly threatens herd immunity, as shown in the graphic below, one I find particularly frightening: The associated editorial from the LA Times: Vaccination doubters are endangering more than their own childrenPersonal liberty? Social responsibility? Should we compel vaccinations against the most serious threats?I say yes.Social Issues, I think.Edited by Omnivorous, : verbs are good

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