[Wondergirl]

I was a child before there were vaccines, even before the polio vaccine was developed and put into popular use. I spent many weeks in bed and missing school because I got measles multiple times, mumps, rubella, and chicken pox. Thankfully, I never got whooping cough. No one knew yet what caused polio. Public pools were closed during the summers in hopes of avoiding contagion. People even suspected stray dogs (of which there were many) of being polio carriers. I was scared and didn't want to spend the rest my life in an iron lung (please Google Images for that). Thankfully, I was spared that too.

Years later when I had children during the '70s, I made sure they were inoculated against those diseases I had endured and those I had escaped.

[J_9]

I support the right to refuse treatment if only their own health is at risk, but not when it becomes a risk for public safety. There are cases when the greater good outweighs individual freedoms. For example smoking is no longer allowed in public areas and workplaces when it was a generation ago.

Yes, Earl, smoking is prohibited, but you aren't forcing people to take a medication that they aren't willing to take.

In the medical community, and I am a registered nurse, to force a person to take medication/vaccines against their will constitutes assault.

[smoothy]

You can't FORCE someone to be vaccinated. There is a form called an AMA form (Against Medical Advice). They can simply sign that to opt out of the vaccination. To force someone to do something against their/their parents will is called assault.

Erythromycin ointment in the eyes of a baby during the first hour after birth is a law in many locations, yet many parents have refused that simply by signing the AMA form.

Clearly that is correct... I personally was just musing a "what if" type situation. I'm guessing some others were doing the same. Being this is the Current events forum....where the discussions aren't bound by the constraints of reality or the law most of the time.

[earl237]

People seem to be getting dumber every generation. I grew up during the 80s and I don't remember any of this anti-vaccination garbage back then. It was seen as something as routine as going to the dentist and no one questioned it. Watch the 2006 movie "Idiocracy". It was supposed to be a satire and science fiction, but it is becoming a reality.

[smoothy]

People seem to be getting dumber every generation. I grew up during the 80s and I don't remember any of this anti-vaccination garbage back then. It was seen as something as routine as going to the dentist and no one questioned it. Watch the 2006 movie "Idiocracy". It was supposed to be a satire and science fiction, but it is becoming a reality.

Becoming Reality? There is more reality in that movie than most people are willing to accept.

[paraclete]

Yes a great deal of idiocy and we can put it down to getting our facts from video games

[Wondergirl]

The search is for a reason for autism. During the 1950s, the psychologist Bruno Bettelheim (based on the theories of psychiatrist Leo Kanner) accused parents, in particular mothers, of being cold and unfeeling toward their children who had been diagnosed with autism or schizophrenia -- thus the term "refrigerator mothers" became popular and the accepted cause of autism. Once that theory was disproved, the witch hunt continued, and vaccinations became the culprit. That has now been disproved, but is still a worry among certain groups.

[earl237]

I remember migraines and homosexuality were actually considered mental illnesses as recently as the 1970s, hardly the dark ages.

[joypulv]

Why did you negative me? This is an OPINION post.

[earl237]

Why did you negative me? This is an OPINION post.

It wasn't me, I know ratings are not supposed to be given for opinions. Check with the moderator, maybe they can undo it.

[smoothy]

Wasn't me either...

[paraclete]

wasn't me either what

[smoothy]

Post #29 explains it.

[DoulaLC]

People seem to be getting dumber every generation. I grew up during the 80s and I don't remember any of this anti-vaccination garbage back then. It was seen as something as routine as going to the dentist and no one questioned it. Watch the 2006 movie "Idiocracy". It was supposed to be a satire and science fiction, but it is becoming a reality.

Many of the more "recent" choices for foregoing vaccinations stem from the much publicized MMR/autism connection according to Dr. Wakefield and his co-researchers. It was later refuted, but the perceived connection had already been set in motion and, like most articles that get denounced, it didn't receive as much attention as the original claim. The MMR vaccine and autism: Sensation, refutation, retraction, and fraud

[Fr_Chuck]

You know, while we are forcing health care, over population, families on welfare with more kids than they can afford. America and Canada, should follow the example of China and only allow one child. After one child they force abortion or sterilization.

Since religious and personal rights have no meaning, we need to do this for the good of the nation.

[talaniman]

You don't have to force abortion in America, just stop the religious ones against it, from try to ban it. My kids got vaccinated because it made common sense to protect them from the ones who don't believe in such things.

[paraclete]

Chuck in case you hadn't noticed China is a godless society, so we won't be adopting any of their values any time soon. Just because they have to cope with a serious over population problem is no reason to use their methods. Look we all know the answer, a television in every room, every woman taking contraception and lots of food, obese women have less children. You want to solve society's problem give them chocolate and Mcdonalds. I'm surprised it hasn't solved all your problems but give it ten years. Now for India we need a different solution, perhaps they have found it for themselves, AIDS but again I recommend chocolate and curried mutton hamburgers

[paraclete]

Australian Vaccination-skeptics Network loses its charity status for fundraising over misinformation claims - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)


Some of the antics of the anti-vaccination lobby can be misleading and one group got away with it for a while but, now the axe has fallen
no more free money, suggest you have your IRS take similiar steps or would that be too political?

[NeedKarma]

much publicized MMR/autism connection according to Dr. Wakefield

Ah yes... him.

Andrew Jeremy Wakefield (born 1957) is a British former surgeon and medical researcher, known for his fraudulent 1998 research paper in support of the now-discredited claimthat there is a link between the administration of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, and the appearance of autism and bowel disease.^[1][2][3][4]
Four years after the publication of the paper, other researchers' results had still failed to reproduce Wakefield's findings or confirm his hypothesis of an association between the MMR vaccine and autism^[5] or autism and gastrointestinal disease.^[6] A 2004 investigation by Sunday Times reporter Brian Deer identified undisclosed financial conflicts of intereston Wakefield's part,^[7] and most of his co-authors then withdrew their support for the study's interpretations.
On 28 January 2010, a five-member statutory tribunal of the GMC found three dozen charges proved, including four counts of dishonesty and 12 counts involving the abuse of developmentally challenged children.

Andrew Wakefield - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[smoothy]

Fr_Chuck raises a good point... if they can FORCE you to buy Obamacare... why shouldn't they be able to FORCE you to get vaccinated too.