There’s another AP story making the rounds about people who don’t vaccinate their kids. And this time it seems Colorado has the second highest unvaccinated rate — 7% — behind Alaska. That’s worrisome for me. My granddaughter is 5 years old and in kindergarten, just the right age for exposure to unvaccinated classmates. My grandson is in the third grade now, and also at risk.
I’ve no sympathy for antivaxxers. If their religious convictions are involved, that’s one thing. But most simply believe they know more about the side effects and risks of vaccinations than all the researchers, scientists, and doctors in the country who have been diligently studying childhood vaccinations for decades.
My position on this is very simple. If you don’t vaccinate your kids, you have no right to send them to school and potentially expose everyone else to god knows what. That’s my rule, anyway; I don’t know about the schools’ rules. Take your unvaccinated kids and go live in the boonies where you don’t endanger everyone else in school and in the neighborhood. You have the right to make your decision, but you don’t have the right to expose others to its consequences.
So that’s my position. Vaccinate your kids. If you don’t, don’t send them to school to mix with and potentially infect others. It’s highly irresponsible.
I’m definitely with you on this Pied. As much as I m for the freedom to choose, this is about as cut and dried as a public safety issue can be. It’s funny, I just watched Monday’s episode of House M.D., which was about a guy so fearful for his family that he maintained a secret arsenal in his home and yet allowed his crazy fear of vaccinations to put him at death’s door with a case of diphtheria!
I watched “House,” too. It’s one of my favorites. It’s no wonder they didn’t think of diphtheria. Thanks to vaccinations, we just don’t see it anymore.
Some aspects of that House episode were included in a rather long post, about paranoia of all things, I was working on the morning, which mysteriously vanished after another of those random PC freeze-ups. 😯
Idiots like Jenny McCarthy based all of their antivax nonsense on a flawed study of TWELVE kids, a study that has since been retracted and the researcher shamed beyond all hope of redemption. But big-titted blonde comediennes know best!
Honestly, I wonder if any study with only 12 subjects can possibly have any credibility at all. At the most, it should only be seen by other researchers to suggest a direction of study.
Wow, PT, you don’t mince your words, do you? ‘Course, I happen to agree with you…..
As a doctor’s daughter who worked as a medical editor, I tend to be rather opinionated in this area. Even without that background, I like to think I’m smart enough to understand the general principles of modern science and medicine, as well as responsible personal behavior.
I suspect most of the anti-vaccine paranoia is due to uncertainty about the causes of autism and asthma, but IMO it is foolish to simply assume vaccines are the cause. The perils of non-vaccination are a known quality, and I fully endorse Pied’s sentiments, but will urge my kids to get the grandkids the HPV shots too. Known dangers trump unknown possibilities every time in my book.
Good post, Pied.
I just think the HPV vax is in a different category from other childhood vaccines. Cervical cancer is a pretty remote risk and certainly won’t be spread in the classroom — unlike measles, mumps, rubella, and polio and their potential for widespread or epidemic outbreaks.