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My feelings on parents refusing to vaccinate their kids

So you want to put people in prison for making someone else sick on accident. Ok.

You know, intent matters in law.
 
CriticalThought said:
I think enough people go to prison or lose their livliehood and the anti vaccination movement will die out. What can they argue?
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Why win by reason when you have a club? :lol:
 
UtahBill said:
If you are an insurance company and your clients are engaging in dangerous activities, they can refuse coverage for the results of those activities, or drop the policy completely. It isn't much different than a criminal insisting that the company pay for treatment as a result of committing a crime.
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it's not illegal to refuse to get a vaccination... it might be stupid, but it's not illegal.

and now you are saying it's ok for a corporation to break a contract over a customer engaging in perfectly legal activities?
hell man, they don't even do that for customer engaging in illegal activities that result in treatment costs.(IE : drug rehab)

I think people are going too far with the vaccination stuff.... the vast majority of the country is vaccinated, there's no reason to get draconian about it.
 
CriticalThought said:
I feel that parents should absolutely have the right to refuse to vaccinate their kids but if their kids contract a disease that could have been avoided by vaccination then the parents should be held criminally negligent. I also think that if as a result of their choice other vulnerable people in the population contract the disease then the parents should be civilly liable for the pain and suffering and any health costs.

You should be free to practice your beliefs but you should also be held accountable for the consequences of acting on those beliefs to the endangerment of your own children and community.
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Accountability is great, but putting a parent in jail after their child is dead does little for the child. Flagrantly irresponsible parenting decisions should be prevented, not punished. We are more than capable as a democracy of weighing the benefits of discrete individual freedoms, on the one hand, and the potential costs of that freedom, and deciding that certain choices need not be condoned. The decision that the costs outweigh the benefits doesn't make us tyrannical, it makes us rational and practical.
 
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Thrilla said:
it's not illegal to refuse to get a vaccination... it might be stupid, but it's not illegal.

and now you are saying it's ok for a corporation to break a contract over a customer engaging in perfectly legal activities?
hell man, they don't even do that for customer engaging in illegal activities that result in treatment costs.(IE : drug rehab)

I think people are going too far with the vaccination stuff.... the vast majority of the country is vaccinated, there's no reason to get draconian about it.
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they had to incarcerate Typhoid Mary....
 
CriticalThought said:
I feel that parents should absolutely have the right to refuse to vaccinate their kids but if their kids contract a disease that could have been avoided by vaccination then the parents should be held criminally negligent. I also think that if as a result of their choice other vulnerable people in the population contract the disease then the parents should be civilly liable for the pain and suffering and any health costs.

You should be free to practice your beliefs but you should also be held accountable for the consequences of acting on those beliefs to the endangerment of your own children and community.
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Fair enough. So if I get a vaccine, such as the flu vaccine, and then get the flu anyway (this year's batch was only about 25% effective) who is paying for that? The vaccine costs $25, I make $100 an hour and work 10 hour days. So I get the flu, miss 3 days of work plus the cost of meds and doctor's visits, am I getting that back? Now, if the government mandates vaccines, are they paying for the failures, or is the manufacturer? Because at that rate the manufacturer would go broke very quickly.
 
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Fearandloathing said:
We can end every problem this way!

Teens who get pregnant.....no health care for them will end that for sure.

Alcoholics and drug addicts have co-morbidities and fall down a lot, they made that choice so they live with it....and then there are those dregs on society, the colesterol criminals who are walking heart attacks from eating fast food. Ban them from health care.

This is the path to the new utopia and a super race!
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And affordable health care. Brilliant!
 
Thrilla said:
yup.. until she died... 30 something years.

is that you next idea on how to handle folks who don't get vaccinated?..lock em away until they die?
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if they are highly contagious, yes.
 
tech30528 said:
Fair enough. So if I get a vaccine, such as the flu vaccine, and then get the flu anyway (this year's batch was only about 25% effective) who is paying for that? The vaccine costs $25, I make $100 an hour and work 10 hour days. So I get the flu, miss 3 days of work plus the cost of meds and doctor's visits, am I getting that back? Now, if the government mandates vaccines, are they paying for the failures, or is the manufacturer? Because at that rate the manufacturer would go broke very quickly.
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Are you a child? If not, then what does your post have to do with this thread?
 
Thrilla said:
it's not illegal to refuse to get a vaccination... it might be stupid, but it's not illegal.

and now you are saying it's ok for a corporation to break a contract over a customer engaging in perfectly legal activities?
hell man, they don't even do that for customer engaging in illegal activities that result in treatment costs.(IE : drug rehab)

I think people are going too far with the vaccination stuff.... the vast majority of the country is vaccinated, there's no reason to get draconian about it.
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Some diseases could be eradicated with population wide vaccination. Measles in particular should no longer exist.
 
Krhazy said:
Accountability is great, but putting a parent in jail after their child is dead does little for the child. Flagrantly irresponsible parenting decisions should be prevented, not punished. We are more than capable as a democracy of weighing the benefits of discrete individual freedoms, on the one hand, and the potential costs of that freedom, and deciding that certain choices need not be condoned. The decision that the costs outweigh the benefits doesn't make us tyrannical, it makes us rational and practical.
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Their negligence led to the death of their child. Why should they not go to prison?
 
Declan said:
Good luck with "not too difficult". When 80 kids all get measles, determining who is the vector and who is the victim should be a piece of cake.
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Not happened yet. You would be hard pressed to find anywhere in the country where there are that many unvaccinated kids.
 
joG said:
I do not have a problem having vaccinations. I do have one with forcing people to do things that reduce risks only minimally. What is the risk of dying of measles? How bad can be the reaction to the vaccine of various immunizations? Or how high is the rick of infection from visiting the hospital for the shots? How do the risks compare? Do you know? I would want to see much more information.

And even then a conscientious objector should be forced against his religious beliefs by the government? If you want that done, change the constitution.
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Not necessary. The Constitution permits regulations for public health and child welfare. I am not seeking a mandate that people must get vaccinated. I am seeking consequences of negligence for those who refuse to vaccinate their children, and only if their children become ill. You clearly do not understand my position.
 
Paxaeon said:
`
Unfortunately, that will not work. Most of these diseases have incubation periods, polio for example is 7 to 14 days before the disease manifests itself...by that time, it's too late. If your lucky, your child may suffer only permanent paralysis of the spine or appendages. In extremis; Death.

No amount of money can compensate that child or family for what will happen. The same holds true to any of the diseases that can be prevented by vaccinations. If lack of vaccinations turns into a epidemic or pandemic, laws and lawsuits will be useless. Prevention, legally mandated, is the only viable solution to this.
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I think that will be the natural consequences.
 
joG said:
... Or how high is the rick of infection from visiting the hospital for the shots? ....
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Actually my aunt who was a Frontier nurse/midwife in the hills of Kentucky during the late 1930's - 1940s use to travel by horseback to the rural 1-2 room school houses to give the smallpox vaccinations to all the schoolchildren.

In the 1950s public health nurses would go the schools and give all the children their polio vaccination.
I remember getting mine in school.

During the Nixon administration when WHO was worried there might be a swine flu outbreak, schools were opened as clinics so the public could line up for their free swine flu shots.
 
joG said:
I do not have a problem having vaccinations. I do have one with forcing people to do things that reduce risks only minimally. What is the risk of dying of measles? How bad can be the reaction to the vaccine of various immunizations? Or how high is the rick of infection from visiting the hospital for the shots? How do the risks compare? Do you know? I would want to see much more information.

And even then a conscientious objector should be forced against his religious beliefs by the government? If you want that done, change the constitution.
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Actually , the childhood vaccinations are required in Mississippi and West Virginia to attend public school and those states make no exceptions ...not even religious beliefs.

Here is some info on US schools regarding vaccinations.


In 1922 the constitutionality of childhood vaccination would be examined in the Supreme Court case Zucht v. King. The court decided that a school could deny admission to children who failed to provide a certification of vaccination for the protection of the public health.[31] In 1987, a measles epidemic occurred in Maricopa County, Arizona and another court case, Maricopa County Health Department vs. Harmon, would examine the arguments of an individuals right to education over the states need to protect against the spread of disease. The court decided that it is prudent to take action to combat the spread of disease by denying un-vaccinated children back to school until the risk for the spread of measles was confirmed.[31]

Currently, in a push to eradicate Pertussis, Tetanus, Diphtheria, Polio, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Varicella, and Hepatitis B from the population, schools across the United States require an updated immunization record for all incoming and returning students.

While all states require an immunization record, this does not mean that all students must get vaccinated. Opting out is a state-by-state law; some states allow parents to opt out for a variety of reasons, but all states do require an immunization record at schools.


Some of the exemptions for opting out of vaccination is due to medical conditions that increase the risk of having an adverse health effect or reaction due to the vaccine. Other reasons consist of religious beliefs and personal philosophical opposition to mandatory vaccination.

As of 2014, 48 states allow religious exemptions except for Mississippi and West Virginia and some states even require proof of religious membership.


In addition, only 18 states allow personal philosophical opposition to vaccination as a form of exemption.[32]

Overall,there are ethical debates and objections to the required school vaccinations laws because of different religious or philosophical beliefs and the infringement on individual liberties still persist.[33][34]
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Read more:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccination_policy
 
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CriticalThought said:
Not necessary. The Constitution permits regulations for public health and child welfare. I am not seeking a mandate that people must get vaccinated. I am seeking consequences of negligence for those who refuse to vaccinate their children, and only if their children become ill. You clearly do not understand my position.
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Same thing only you eliminate general application of the law. Neat. Sneaky. Not good.
 
joG said:
Interesting again, how selectively the constitution can be interpreted.
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The vaccinations protect our citizens. In the Jacobson v Massachusetts ( 1905 ) case the Supreme Court decided the freedom of the individual must sometimes be subordinated for the common welfare.
 
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