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I would rather require vaccinations for all children and remove a parent to have any say in the matter. I would also rather have everyone be opted in to become an organ donor upon death with no opt out possible. Sadly, I don’t rule the world.
1. No medicine is 100% safe in all circumstances. Vaccines do have published risk of complications and while tiny are not zero and sometimes are greater than the risk of contracting the disease itself.
2. As a general rule, I don't want any government telling me what to put in my body or my kid's bodies. Why not ban sugar that leads to far more health conditions than some of these diseases? Why not force people to eat the government recommended ratio of fiber, fat, calories, etc.? Sure, people might be physically healthier but at the expense of freedom of choice.
3. The flu and common cold kills lots of people per year yet those vaccines are optional for adults while some are required for kids, why?
4. Vaccines are required for kids to come to public school in CA, but not required to go to placed where they're in even closer contact (sports, pools, etc.), why?
While I think free vaccines, good education and honest dialogue are important, punishing dissent doesn't seem right. I think understanding that non-vaxers have legitimate concerns helps create a better solution than enforcement and blame.
This is a circular argument. In G7 countries with highly developed economies and medical systems, the reason why the risk of contracting a disease like mumps, rubella or polio is extremely rare is because almost everyone is vaccinated against them.
Now, most people should be vaccinated and those few that aren't should hopefully be protected by herd immunity.
To say that the quality medical systems and herd immunity decreasing the risk of those diseases nullifies the dangers of adverse reactions is a bit unfair.
To close, I agree that most everyone should be vaccinated and that philosophical beliefs are not valid reasons to avoid vaccination. I do disagree in that I believe that there are a number of rare situations where vaccination is legitimately more harmful than just relying on herd immunity.
We'd be in less danger if no one did anything dangerous ever, but that doesn't leave much room for freedom.
It's extremely frustrating to see people doing something dangerous you disagree with, but it's likely that we all do it at some point.
The actions of a few can seriously impact large populations. The multiplier effect is, potentially, significantly greater than with guns/alcohol/driving. (And even then, those arguably border on even more divisive debates that we should leave for another thread.)
I think where the point gets contentious with libertarians is that forcing them to do something feels far scarier and authoritarian to them than forcing them not to do something.
I agree that we're all connected though and the decisions we make impact those around us no matter how individual we think our actions might be.
When you run into stiff resistance like the anti-vaxx movement, which has little economic incentive (I can't think of who profits by a kid not taking vaccines), it helps to be able to understand where their points make sense even if you don't agree.
Once you're that beyond right and wrong, then you can educate more effectively. I've had much more constructive dialogues with anti-vaxx people once they know that I understand how scary it is for a government to tell you you have to inject your kid with something you don't understand and doesn't feel necessary and might have risks.
I think if you grant them the courtesy that they could be right (which science and medicine has examples of being highly confident and then being wrong), that then they are more open to at least getting the highest recommended vaccines on their own volition.
Yes, so the selfish will avoid the risk and free-ride on the herd immunity. In a society that is irrationally selfish, the government may reasonably choose to give incentives to vaccinate. For example, the vaccinations might be required for admission into government-paid health care, or the government could compensate victims of the side-effects with care, cash, etc.
Yes. But the risk of a pandemic is the risk you are to compare with. Not the 1% risk of a side effect compared to a 0.01% risk of contracting the disease. Also: herd immunity means that those who can't take the vaccine are protected. Anyone who doesn't take e.g. the smallpox shot, is getting a free ride on those of us who DO take the shot. The reason they could dodge any side effect and STILL run almost 0% risk of getting smallpox, is because everyone else took the shot. I think this is what is lost on antivaxers. They think that the vaccine protects THEM and that they can thus weigh that benefit against the risk on THEM. But that's not how it works. Their shot protects ME.
> As a general rule, I don't want any government telling me what to put in my body or my kid's bodies.
As a general rule, I want my government to ensure the society is vaccinated. Government already tells you a lot of what you can and can't put in your body. Having them say you HAVE to put something is going one step further, but I don't see how it's a very big one.
> Vaccines are required for kids to come to public school in CA, but not required to go to placed where they're in even closer contact (sports, pools, etc.), why?
Presumably because of how laws work and how it might be legal for a school to require vaccines, but not another public location (perhaps because the school isn't a public place at all?).
> punishing dissent doesn't seem right.
Excellent point. Give a tax break to those who vaccinate etc. instead.
> I think understanding that non-vaxers have legitimate concerns helps create a better solution than enforcement and blame.
I think it's important to meet their concerns with information. But we can never ever give parents the idea that vaccines are somehow a controversial idea. It's not.
For example, many countries began vaccinating young female children against HPV on the rationale that understanding of cervical cancer says if we prevent HPV infection we prevent almost all of this type of primary cancer, and the vaccine seems to prevent infection with some strains of HPV implicated in cancer.
Now, you can immediately see that vaccinating their male colleagues could induce herd immunity, this is almost always an STI. But ethically that doesn't justify classes of boys.
What did subsequently cause some countries to vaccinate boys was the fact that HPV also causes cancer in other places, and vaccinating the boys protects them against that. It's a narrower call (fewer cancer cases prevented) but for a relatively safe vaccine it can still make sense.
Edited to add: This gets interesting for a "Chickenpox Vaccine". The virus that causes Chickenpox in children (Varicella-zoster) has much nastier consequences in adults. So if we vaccinate children so they don't a nasty but rarely deadly illness, but as a result more adults get infected without prior exposure, that might suck... Different countries have made different choices about what to do here.
Just to be clear, herd immunity protects those who aren't vaccinated. If you are vaccinated, your community's vaccination or lack there of doesn't affect you.
> Give a tax break to those who vaccinate etc. instead.
Yes, despite all the down votes my comment isn't about who is right or wrong, it's about respecting the other side. Just because you want your government to make laws about having to put medicine in your body there are millions of libretarians that would disagree on principle no matter how glaring the health benefits. It's less about taking the vaccine and more about the judgement and punishment if they don't that actually makes them resist more, not less.
You can't get rid of guns by deamonizing those that own guns and you can't increase herd immunity by deamonizing anti-vaxxers.
So I really like your idea. Offer carrots and respect, not sticks and judgement.