Should parents be held legally responsible for not vaccinating their children?

[jigger]

Re: Should parents be held legally responsible for not vaccinating their children?

No they shouldn't.

[TheAnimus]

No they shouldn't.

Care to elaborate? As I mentioned above it is in a way a kind of prisoner's dilemma, one hand there is a tiny, tiny, tiny risk to healthy children becoming sick (0 known link to autism), but without the hurd been immunised there is a very significant risk of death, long term illness and sickness.

As such when someone doesn't immunise their children, they are robbing from society.

[jigger]

Hmm. I'm not 100% sure they should be forced, although I can see a good case. Perhaps if kid is asked 'do you want the jab' they can override their own parents' stupid choice? Difficult to do in pracitce I know... Perhaps if they become ill with something they could have been vaccinated against, then hospitals should be perfectly within their rights to tell them to clear off when they get ill.

Hmm. I'm not 100% sure this is meant to be serious.

[dcwt2010]

Would you refuse treatment to those who have heart disease or lung cancer because they chose to smoke, over-eat, or develop schizophrenia or other mental illnesses through drug abuse, or liver disease through alcohol abuse?

To be honest, the nhs doesn't have infinite resources so I would consider that, yes.

[jigger]

Care to elaborate? As I mentioned above it is in a way a kind of prisoner's dilemma, one hand there is a tiny, tiny, tiny risk to healthy children becoming sick (0 known link to autism), but without the hurd been immunised there is a very significant risk of death, long term illness and sickness.

As such when someone doesn't immunise their children, they are robbing from society.

It's a very topical question for sure but the answer has to always be no. You simply can't force mass injections on people with the backing of the law.

[TheAnimus]

It's a very topical question for sure but the answer has to always be no. You simply can't force mass injections on people with the backing of the law.

Why not!

We force so much already. People can not do with their children completely as they would wish. They must have schooling of some kind, not be put to work before certain age etc.

We force people with the law to pay council tax, income tax etc, because otherwise many people would simply not pay and let everyone else pay, hell you often see people saying as much "I shouldn't be taxed, company XYZ should be, because they get all their profits from the unicorn rainbow factory".

We force parents to feed and clothe their children too, despite the fact they might not want too. What is the difference?

[Smudger]

I don't think you can blame the parents in S Wales for this one. There was a sustained campaign against MMR by the local and national press, they possibly wouldn't have access to medical papers, and then when it was discredited, there wasn't the same campaign to get people immunised.

[TheAnimus]

I don't think you can blame the parents in S Wales for this one. There was a sustained campaign against MMR by the local and national press, they possibly wouldn't have access to medical papers, and then when it was discredited, there wasn't the same campaign to get people immunised.

OK, so how do you fix it? Short of walling of S wales and letting them die out of simple curable diseases?

We actually do force vaccination in many ways already in the UK, people coming from certain areas must have yellow fever before they can get a visa. That is the only one I know for a fact first hand, but I'm sure there are others.

[jigger]

Erm, well, It's probably beyond the scope of a forum to discuss all the why's and why not's but in simple terms what you are arguing is for placing a monetary value on life.

[pp05]

Why not!

We force so much already. People can not do with their children completely as they would wish. They must have schooling of some kind, not be put to work before certain age etc.

We force people with the law to pay council tax, income tax etc, because otherwise many people would simply not pay and let everyone else pay, hell you often see people saying as much "I shouldn't be taxed, company XYZ should be, because they get all their profits from the unicorn rainbow factory".

We force parents to feed and clothe their children too, despite the fact they might not want too. What is the difference?

Forcing injections via state sanction is a slippery slope. The repercussions are far reaching.

If people want to go down the forced route then the state should start explaining to people any kids they have are property of the state.

[TheAnimus]

Erm, well, It's probably beyond the scope of a forum to discuss all the why's and why not's but in simple terms what you are arguing is for placing a monetary value on life.

No, nothing to do with monetary values, the vaccinations costs are minimal.

It is about fairness and equality. Otherwise the incentive for one to 'cheat' is too high.

Forcing injections via state sanction is a slippery slope. The repercussions are far reaching.

If people want to go down the forced route then the state should start explaining to people any kids they have are property of the state.

We already force them for visa applicants.

Any kids are technically subjects of the crown as is.

[jigger]

What is your point of this thread? What is the reason behind you starting this topic?

[BobF64]

OK, so how do you fix it? Short of walling of S wales and letting them die out of simple curable diseases?

Sounds a good plan to me.

And to stop the risk of infection spreading, cull the lot, just like you would cattle or sheep.

[TheAnimus]

What is your point of this thread? What is the reason behind you starting this topic?

Because we have seen a sharp rise in serious illness due to an extreme parental ignorance of the issues at hand, or at best a level of chronic selfishness.

Imagine if people had said "oh no, I'm not having my child vaccinated against polio". Polio was a horrific disease it claimed the lives of thousands, a quick extrapolation from the worst UK outbreak to todays population would be about 12,000 deaths in one year. That is not counting the people left crippled for life, that is only counting the dead.

Sure the BCG vaccine wasn't a great success, it wasn't until later ones that it became wiped out. But Britain only became free of it because of the majority of the population becoming vaccinated. (That isn't to say there are also other factors which reduce the spread of illness, but it was the herd immunity that stamped it out.)

If we are letting this come back, due to shocking decisions by people who shouldn't be making them. (anyone who believes in homeopathy is either very uneducated or very brain function limited (Is that ok peterb?))

As the PR machine for homeopathy, which has never, ever in its entire history been shown to have cured something, been shown to be more effective than a placebo, but is an industry worldwide worth billions of pounds, gears up for homeopathic week, even people from that industry which turns water into gold are having to speak out against it.

[Smudger]

OK, so how do you fix it? Short of walling of S wales and letting them die out of simple curable diseases?

We actually do force vaccination in many ways already in the UK, people coming from certain areas must have yellow fever before they can get a visa. That is the only one I know for a fact first hand, but I'm sure there are others.

Stop giving column inches to that Andrew Wakefield, and get the press to extoll the virtues of MMR, or else the Leveson recommendations get implemented fully...

[Smudger]

Was it Dara O'Breien who said 'the bits of homeopathy that work are called medicine'?
Or more accurately:

I'm sorry, 'herbal medicine', "Oh, herbal medicine's been around for thousands of years!" Indeed it has, and then we tested it all, and the stuff that worked became 'medicine'. And the rest of it is just a nice bowl of soup and some potpourri, so knock yourselves out.