I’m willing to be persuaded that I’m all wrong, but I am in favor of vaccinations to prevent diseases that are easily cured – by those vaccinations.
The world ridded itself of small pox and polio, though there have been disturbing reports that polio-like illnesses are returning to the stage. Still, those were massive achievements, brought about by international cooperation insuring that people were immune. Take one look at somebody with polio or small pox and you’d really want to be immune. Small Pox, for example, wiped out roughly half of the American Indians in the 1700-1800 timeframe. It’s no small thing.
When I was a kid there was no vaccine for measles, chicken pox, mumps, etc. and the diseases ran rampant through the ranks of elementary schools. I had Rubella once and red measles twice, chicken pox once as a child (and again as an adult at age 30). It would have been a good thing if I hadn’t had any of it.
I don’t believe that the State should force vaccinations, but if a child wants to attend public school, they need to have their shots. You can home-school if you want to spin the wheel and dodge that bullet, or you can send your child to a private school that doesn’t require them. But are you really helping your children out?
Adult chicken pox is something to be dreaded because it comes at you like a freight train. Trust me. My face is scarred by that encounter with chicken pox, and when my wife took me to the hospital, I was sitting in a wheel chair and they asked if anyone was with me, she denied that she was my wife because I looked so bad. True story. I’d rather have had the vaccination. But that’s me.

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8 COMMENTS

  1. I still can't believe there is a vaccine for Chicken Pox. I can only guess what people who were around when polio, mumps, etc were around, feel like.

    The government has some specific, limited, purposes – this is one of them. As is quarantining people who come from countries infected with ebola…

  2. Public health is clearly a legitimate function of government when it comes to "plagues" – and measles can be quantified in that way the same way the ebola can be.

  3. Small pox and polio are terrible diseases, and I would wish them on nobody other than ISIS and the Taliban. And Boco Haram. But when we give the government the power to jam stuff into our veins by force, a slippery slope has been created.

    I am torn. We are (still) a free society, but when we let the government cram stuff into us, God knows where that will end.

    I am truly torn. Small Pox, Polio, the Ham Fisted Government….I fear them all.

  4. I understand your concern. If you don't take all PRUDENT measures, you end up with a lot of broken or dead people to show for it. A free people need to decide for themselves, but if children want to go to public school, they should be vaccinated appropriately.

  5. I was in elementary (we called it grammar) school for 1950 to 1957 and had to chicken pox (a tapping several times with a needle – not a shot – and got a scab, what we were told was Cowpox), Salk Vaccine, and all the other shots. I did have the mumps, red measles, and more colds than a body should endure. But nothing much sense… more so now in my old age than when younger.

  6. I went to elementary school in the 60's and there was an expectation that children would miss school for weeks at a time because of the standard plagues that would sweep through classrooms. Most adults were immune because they had those diseases as children. If they didn't get them when they were young, they'd often die as adults (Rubella) or be rendered deaf or impotent as a result of the disease. Today you get a vaccination…

  8. We could help those things along. It's not like we haven't tested it. The problem is never starting it — it is stopping it.

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