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

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Originally Posted by Smudger

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...

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No, he has the right to be published and his voice, the freedom of speech works both ways. However, people should be more aware of what major institutions say and not just listen to one misguided doctor.

Part of the problem is that we have been so long without a major outbreak of these diseases [yes, because of vaccination!] that society forgets how serious they actually were,
and it opens the floodgates for people to concentrate on any possible vaccination side effects instead, and say

"why vaccinate, no one dies of TB or measles now anyway"

:surprised:

He's not a doctor any more...

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Originally Posted by dcwt2010

No, he has the right to be published and his voice, the freedom of speech works both ways. However, people should be more aware of what major institutions say and not just listen to one misguided doctor.

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He has the right to free speech. People have the right to ignore him. Putting him on the front page of a national paper makes this harder.

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Originally Posted by TheAnimus

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.

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So you want to save the children from fiendish parents, I see, well good look with that but you might save more (children that is) by increasing the amount of funding to Social Services than forcing mass immunisation and punishing parents.

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Originally Posted by jigger

So you want to save the children from fiendish parents, I see, well good look with that but you might save more (children that is) by increasing the amount of funding to Social Services than forcing mass immunisation and punishing parents.

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Sorry, but stats show you're wrong.

According to the World Health Organmization 'In 2011, there were 158 000 measles deaths globally – about 430 deaths every day or 18 deaths every hour.'

Now this is largely in places that don't have jabs, but it shows that this is potentially fatal on a mass scale. And that is just measles.... I'm old enough to be pre vaccine age so had measles and stuff about age 7, so apart from being a bit itchy for a few days as a kid, meh. However that doesn't mean it is the same for everyone.

The state forcing stuff on people really is a dangerous precedent and should only be done IMO in extreme cases. On the other hand I have to weigh it up against parents forcing bad stuff on their kids. Either way, the actual person affected is having a life-threatening decsion taken out of their hands. Personally I'd make it VERY clear that if kid goes on to die of M,M or R then parents are going to jail for manslaughter / negligence.

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Originally Posted by Smudger

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

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No bits of homeopathy work, that is the issue.

Or rather a fairer thing to say is no bits of homeopathy have ever been shown to work. No credible theory of how they could possibly work has been proposed. Those who propose the discredited theories have never explained why water would remember something, but not something else, we flush our loos with water, surely it would remember that.

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Originally Posted by Smudger

He's not a doctor any more...

He has the right to free speech. People have the right to ignore him. Putting him on the front page of a national paper makes this harder.

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Yes, he got struck off and rightly so. I'm surprised there isn't criminal proceedings against him given the suffering he's now caused (indirectly, of course).

While I largely agree with the OP, I can see why it's quite debatable and could write arguments either way (not that I'd agree with all of them).

Most people are not medically trained, and although a lot of people have a basic understanding of medicine and trails, many do not, so seeing some complete BS scare story on the front of a newspaper is enough to make them fear for the safety of their children. That in mind, I find it hard to criticise them too heavily.

Maybe adding some sort of education on the matter to the curriculum would be a good idea, to avoid having everyone believe every word they read in the tabloids? Not that that would make much of a difference right now. Or just education in general, like more documentaries on the matter, assuming people would actually watch them. But then you have the thing about people calling propaganda on anything they don't agree with. No, there doesn't seem to be an ideal solution.

In this country, we're somewhat shielded from some stuff the general public shouldn't be relied upon to fully understand. For example, pharmaceutical companies aren't allowed to advertise medication directly to the public (unlike the US), and no-one can make false claims *in paid adverts*. However, it's still legal for companies to work with some completely uneducated journalist and get them to write a column on it, claiming all sorts of unproven benefits.

Ben Goldacre's book Bad Science is a great read on subjects like this, and covers everything from homoeopathy to nutritionism to the MMR hoax.

Back to the OP subject, I'm not sure where I stand in regards to legally forcing injections, but certainly think some serious effort should be made to properly educate parents who refuse it. Or, maybe if the parents could come up with a decent reason, in writing, or a doctor's note, for exemption?

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Originally Posted by Smudger

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

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Homeopathy isn't herbal medicine.

Homeopathy is water dripped on sugar pills. Just water.

Herbal medicine contains actual herbs...

One of the biggest issues we have when people pay attention to the media is "false balance".

Take a topic where 99.99% of informed people believe on way - let's say that people need food and water to live - and a tiny fraction of fringe loons believe another - let's say that people can exist on sunlight alone.

Media outlets give a 50-50 share of column inches to representatives of camp A and camp B, and call the issue "controversial", falsely giving the impression that the issue is 50-50 rather than totally settled.

For every word of Wakefield's in a newspaper, where should be thousands of words from real doctors. That's *real* balance.

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Originally Posted by directhex

One of the biggest issues we have when people pay attention to the media is "false balance".

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I think whats worse is when something is printed and later retracted or disproved, people only remember the initial press coverage as any sort of later reversal isnt as sensationalised.

Not one person in this thread so far has suggested anything outside the extreme end of the scale. The middle ground would be that all child related allowances claimable from the government are withdrawn if you don't get your child vaccinated.
That leaves the mentally subnormal the choice. Be mentally stupid and don't go for the vaccine and lose money or be smart and get the vaccine, make the world a safer place and maintain your entitlement to child related allowances.

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Originally Posted by wasabi

Sorry, but stats show you're wrong.

According to the World Health Organmization 'In 2011, there were 158 000 measles deaths globally – about 430 deaths every day or 18 deaths every hour.'

Now this is largely in places that don't have jabs, but it shows that this is potentially fatal on a mass scale. And that is just measles.... I'm old enough to be pre vaccine age so had measles and stuff about age 7, so apart from being a bit itchy for a few days as a kid, meh. However that doesn't mean it is the same for everyone.

The state forcing stuff on people really is a dangerous precedent and should only be done IMO in extreme cases. On the other hand I have to weigh it up against parents forcing bad stuff on their kids. Either way, the actual person affected is having a life-threatening decsion taken out of their hands. Personally I'd make it VERY clear that if kid goes on to die of M,M or R then parents are going to jail for manslaughter / negligence.

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Well we are not talking global so it shows nothing and measles is way down the list of treats to children worldwide.

But lets forget about everything and look at this from just a financial prospective how will we administer this mass immunisation?

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Originally Posted by jigger

But lets forget about everything and look at this from just a financial prospective how will we administer this mass immunisation?

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MMR is already in effect. Stable door - horse - bolted.

Ok, this is the data your taking to parliament to argue your case for measles control.

http://www.hpa.org.uk/web/HPAweb&HPA.../1195733835814

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Originally Posted by jigger

Ok, this is the data your taking to parliament to argue your case for measles control.

http://www.hpa.org.uk/web/HPAweb&HPA.../1195733835814

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By the same logic we should allow people in the UK to carry rocket propelled grenades because the stats for deaths by that are low too?