Elli got a note from school this week telling me that she is going to be suspended unless I get her vaccinations up to date. Unsurprisingly this is just a paperwork / bureaucratic error as she has had all of her necessary shots. I got updated paperwork and resolved everything so no suspension is forthcoming but I did have a bit of a fit when reading over the notice that was sent to me about this whole mess. It read
"if this student needs an exemption from immunization against any disease listed for medical, religious, or conscience reasons"
This blew my mind. Obviously there could be medical reasons why a particular child couldn't have a vaccination and that seems perfectly reasonable to me. The point of vaccinations is to improve medical care after all! The idea that you can get a child out of immunizations for 'conscience' reasons seems utterly absurd to me though. So what, your conscience tells you that you should expose children to deadly, sometimes fatal, diseases because you don't like exposing your child to a momentary bit of pain? Deal with it, life is full of pain and we are in the business of minimizing it. Your conscience doesn't like putting things in your child's body? Have you managed to get them to give up eating and breathing then?
If you really, seriously want an exemption from getting vaccinations then feel free to pull your kids out of school. We can't force you to get needles but we can tell you that you aren't allowed to put everyone else's kids at risk just because you can't wrap your mind around the moral imperative of avoiding terrible plagues. If you want to put a word out there for people who want to skip vaccinations on the basis of "I don't feel like it" then use selfish instead of conscience. That pamphlet should read "medical, religious, or selfish reasons" instead. That would frame it in exactly the appropriate way.
Religious reasons, obviously, is exactly the same as conscience reasons except that you have an organization standing behind your selfish behaviour couching it in terms of obedience to God. The only practical difference is political clout.
"If you really, seriously want an exemption from getting vaccinations then feel free to pull your kids out of school. We can't force you to get needles but we can tell you that you aren't allowed to put everyone else's kids at risk just because you can't wrap your mind around the moral imperative of avoiding terrible plagues. "
ReplyDeleteThe general concern with this is not schooling the children of the stupid will have negative effects on society down the road.
Kilan
They, at the very least, could put, "For medical reasons or because you think vaccines are a conspiracy."
ReplyDelete"for medical reasons, religious reasons, or for reasons of scientific ignorance"
ReplyDeleteDon't agree with anonymous above. I suspect that vaccine denialism doesn't coorelate with most kinds of what we call "intelligence". Lots of very capable, smart people are vaccine deniers. I suggest that it's a more specific ignorance or 'purity' ideology rather than blanket 'stupid'.
Although I choose to vaccinate my kids, I would also be willing to defend other parent's rights to make a different decision. There are specific scientific reasons I made my choice, but who am I to decree what others must use to make theirs. I may try to convince others, but I would certainly be opposed to government mandate in this area. They've made poor choices about needles in the past
ReplyDeleteThe part about your story that bothers me is the implication that she would be suspended, that's trying to use lack of information to bully you into vaccinating when really it's "either vaccinate, or sign this piece of paper", not "vaccinate or go home".
sSs
I'm more than willing to say that people are able to forgo vaccinations if they choose to... it's the same right that I will use to tell people to shove it if they criticize how I choose to raise my children. Or when I decide that the proper way to take my baby through a grocery store is having him stand inside the cart while bouncing up and down.
ReplyDeleteDeclining vaccinations is really only an issue if there is a large percentage of people who decline... public safety isn't an issue.
LeBKC
But BKC, the problem is that because of anti-vaccine campaigns there have been a large number of people declining and diseases that were mostly under control as making a comeback. The numbers measles cases in the US in 2013 is so far about triple the annual average. Now, that's still a very small number, but that doesn't mean it can't get bigger, and a lot of anti-vaccine stuff is still based on a fraud.
ReplyDeleteThe rules around this are obscenely inconsistent, but if your kid ended up at the hospital with a serious head wound after that grocery store bouncing it is not impossible they would call the Children's Aid Society to investigate. It's a risk you can just run, but we can't appeal to an inviolable right to do what we want with our kids.
The other problem is that vaccines aren't 100% effective. If I could vaccinate Elli and be completely sure that she wouldn't get sick then I would be far less concerned but that isn't how it works. If some people elect to not vaccinate then they act as vectors for the small group that got vaccinated but is still vulnerable anyway. Those who do not vaccinate their children actually present a significant threat to all other children, even those who did get the vaccine. Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins, and in this case because not vaccinating threatens all children with things like polio they all need to be vaccinated.
ReplyDeleteAnother problem is for the poor kids who have a legitimate medical reason to not get vaccinated. If everyone else was vaccinated then having those be the few who don't is probably fine. But when a growing number of people skip vaccinations the diseases make a comeback and then the sick kid is in big trouble.
ReplyDeletePublic safety is an issue because of the growing number of people skipping out. Skipping out because of a doctor in the UK who submitted a fraudulent study linking the MMR vaccine to autism. He was paid off by lawyers who wanted to sue vaccine creators.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy
There is bad information leading to part of this problem (as Nick points out), but in my opinion we should fight bad information with good information, not with government mandate (or bullying in implying it's not a choice which is what I feel the schools attempt to do).
ReplyDeletesSs
Should we fight people who want to send their kids to school with handguns by telling them it is a bad idea? Perhaps let them do it so we don't appear to be bullying them? Shall we grant them the freedom to parent the way they see fit?
ReplyDeleteNo. We should tell them that they are welcome to risk their own health but not the health of others - bringing loaded guns to school is dangerous to everyone and so is having people not be immunized to common, dangerous illnesses.
Governments can and should mandate tactics to stop negative externalities, which is exactly what refusing to vaccinate is. When allowed to make decisions that screw over absolutely everybody else people do so (even when they stand to gain nothing) and the only way to stop them from screwing us all over is to step in and make it a law. You are right that the schools shouldn't be saying "we might suspend you except you can make up a story to get out of it". They should be saying "unless you have a physician's note, you absolutely 100% are not welcome at school if you aren't immunized".
I agree that fighting bad information with good information is the right way to fight most fights. I also think the negative consequences of this particular fight are negative enough to justify government mandate. This is exactly the sort of situation where I want government involved because if everyone works together these diseases can be eliminated but when enough people break from the pack they get to stage a comeback.
ReplyDeleteOf course I'd want to go even further than Sky. I don't think they should be allowed/forced to take their kids out of schools. The kids are still an unnecessary danger to society in that case. I'd force them to get the needles.