California Measles Outbreak + Anti-Vaccination

Started by TheGlyphstone, February 04, 2015, 07:53:08 PM

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Beguile's Mistress

I recall hearing about a person whose daughter came down with chicken pox and sent her to school when she was contagious because "the kids are going to get it anyway so they should get it over with." 

I kinda hope the woman gets shingles.  I know that mean but she's set a lot of people for that.

Caehlim

Quote from: Inkidu on February 04, 2015, 09:08:57 PMIt has some credence because he was an identical twin, but looked drastically different from his brother (he was short and squat and his brother was much taller and not nearly as squat).

Autism Spectrum is not associated with any alterations to a person's outward physical appearance.

Monozygotic twins also only have a 60% concordance rate for Autism Spectrum. (source)
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Kythia

Also, an identical twin that looked drastically different from his sibling?  Is that possible?
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Chaosfox

Quote from: Kythia on February 07, 2015, 06:04:17 AM
Also, an identical twin that looked drastically different from his sibling?  Is that possible?

It is Depending on the choices of the twins. I had a college professor who had  twins they where Identical up until they hit puberty  due to one using weight at an early age  made him a bit stouter and had more muscle than his brother. Out side of that they looked  the same. Don't know if that is what you would call drastic but it's a difference.

As to the topic Yes I think that people should get there kids vaccinated. On the other hand I say if they don't then they need to keep there kids away from others because of the risk to the other kids and the risk's to their own kid's though personally I think if a parent does not want to do something that could help their child the parent deserves the suffering they have to go through when dealing with what happens. NO the kid does not deserve what happens but the parent deserves what ever suffering happens to themselves.  (That may or may not sound cruel but hey if you want to do something you should be able to accept the consequences)
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ReijiTabibito

Vaccination is absolutely important.  As the son of a physician AND a nurse, the brother of a medical student, and a science teacher myself, I feel I can state that with knowing quite a bit about how vaccines work.  Of course, the crazier anti-vaccination speakers out there would probably say that that just makes me complicit in the conspiracy.

The idea behind a vaccine is simple: you take a very small sample of a deactivated (IE: dead) virus and inject it into the body of a human being.  While the virus itself poses no threat to the person (it being dead and incapable of replication), the body recognizes the presence of the virus and produces antibodies against that specific virus, so that if you do catch it in the future, then you already have a pre-prepared first line of defense to help you fight it.  When had, this vaccination ranges from being helpful when the time comes around (such as for chicken pox) to highly necessary for survival (see smallpox).

Jon Stewart was actually talking about the anti-vaccination movement this week, and how it's seemingly brought elements of both sides of the political spectrum together in their stand against the practice.  And that's because the rhetoric against vaccination has components that can appeal to both sides.

For the right, you've got the 'I Hate You, Big Government' angle.  The government tells us to vaccinate our kids, to do this and do that, well I'm not gonna do it because it's Big Brother and all of that.

For the left, it's more the 'I Hate You, Big Business' angle.  One of the more common things you hear in the anti-vaccination movement is about how Big Pharma is making money hand over fist over all these vaccinations that we don't need anymore because we wiped out the diseases and they're not around anymore so why are we still putting money in their pockets?

Both sides ignore one simple fact.  When you stop vaccinating your kids, and you do it on a large scale, you lose herd immunity - which is the thing that prevents big-scale outbreaks from pulling a Black Plague.  One of the major concerns by the Continental Army during the Revolution was the presence of smallpox - Jenner hadn't invented his cowpox vaccine yet (and wouldn't for a full decade until after it was over) - so all that was available was inoculation, which still incapacitated people.  It just had the more generous benefit of them mostly not dying.  Washington himself had the pox (pre-Revolution), and he was looking for the right opportunity to inoculate his army because he knew that one errant smallpox outbreak could wreck the colonials.

The British regulars, on the other hand, had no such problems, their armies were largely immune to the pox - most people who needed inoculation were Loyalists who had grown up in the colonies rather than the UK proper.  During the siege of Boston, for example, the citizens were wracked with smallpox, but the British dismissed it because most of their troops weren't susceptible to the disease.  Herd immunity.

In medicine today you hear a lot about 'preventative medicine' - ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure and stuff like that.  Herd immunity, and vaccination, are probably the ultimate examples of that - stop a disease before it starts, before it becomes a full-blown outbreak like at Disney.

And as for Jenny McCarthy and her stupid idea about how a vaccine caused her kid's autism?  Autism is a neurological disorder.  While the exact cause remains unknown, research shows that there is a strong component of genetics involved, and there might be a handful of environmental factors involved.  Some of the environmental factors claimed to cause autism include chemicals like phthalates and phenols, which are used in the manufacture of plastic water bottles; diesel exhaust; and alcohol.

But I'm not hearing Jenny McCarthy campaigning against disposable water bottles, the use of diesel fuel, and drinking.

Lustful Bride

Quote from: ReijiTabibito on February 07, 2015, 11:08:52 AM
Vaccination is absolutely important.  As the son of a physician AND a nurse, the brother of a medical student, and a science teacher myself, I feel I can state that with knowing quite a bit about how vaccines work.  Of course, the crazier anti-vaccination speakers out there would probably say that that just makes me complicit in the conspiracy.

The idea behind a vaccine is simple: you take a very small sample of a deactivated (IE: dead) virus and inject it into the body of a human being.  While the virus itself poses no threat to the person (it being dead and incapable of replication), the body recognizes the presence of the virus and produces antibodies against that specific virus, so that if you do catch it in the future, then you already have a pre-prepared first line of defense to help you fight it.  When had, this vaccination ranges from being helpful when the time comes around (such as for chicken pox) to highly necessary for survival (see smallpox).

Jon Stewart was actually talking about the anti-vaccination movement this week, and how it's seemingly brought elements of both sides of the political spectrum together in their stand against the practice.  And that's because the rhetoric against vaccination has components that can appeal to both sides.

For the right, you've got the 'I Hate You, Big Government' angle.  The government tells us to vaccinate our kids, to do this and do that, well I'm not gonna do it because it's Big Brother and all of that.

For the left, it's more the 'I Hate You, Big Business' angle.  One of the more common things you hear in the anti-vaccination movement is about how Big Pharma is making money hand over fist over all these vaccinations that we don't need anymore because we wiped out the diseases and they're not around anymore so why are we still putting money in their pockets?

Both sides ignore one simple fact.  When you stop vaccinating your kids, and you do it on a large scale, you lose herd immunity - which is the thing that prevents big-scale outbreaks from pulling a Black Plague.  One of the major concerns by the Continental Army during the Revolution was the presence of smallpox - Jenner hadn't invented his cowpox vaccine yet (and wouldn't for a full decade until after it was over) - so all that was available was inoculation, which still incapacitated people.  It just had the more generous benefit of them mostly not dying.  Washington himself had the pox (pre-Revolution), and he was looking for the right opportunity to inoculate his army because he knew that one errant smallpox outbreak could wreck the colonials.

The British regulars, on the other hand, had no such problems, their armies were largely immune to the pox - most people who needed inoculation were Loyalists who had grown up in the colonies rather than the UK proper.  During the siege of Boston, for example, the citizens were wracked with smallpox, but the British dismissed it because most of their troops weren't susceptible to the disease.  Herd immunity.

In medicine today you hear a lot about 'preventative medicine' - ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure and stuff like that.  Herd immunity, and vaccination, are probably the ultimate examples of that - stop a disease before it starts, before it becomes a full-blown outbreak like at Disney.

And as for Jenny McCarthy and her stupid idea about how a vaccine caused her kid's autism?  Autism is a neurological disorder.  While the exact cause remains unknown, research shows that there is a strong component of genetics involved, and there might be a handful of environmental factors involved.  Some of the environmental factors claimed to cause autism include chemicals like phthalates and phenols, which are used in the manufacture of plastic water bottles; diesel exhaust; and alcohol.

But I'm not hearing Jenny McCarthy campaigning against disposable water bottles, the use of diesel fuel, and drinking.

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TaintedAndDelish

From a parent's perspective, when you have a small child that means everything to you and you are hearing all this scary talk about vaccinations possibly causing harm to your child, being "forced" to make a choice that you are ignorant about (vaccinate) is rather unsettling. You are put in a situation where you feel like you must blindly comply and put your child at risk. If you are not well read on the matter, it can be difficult to know who to believe and trust. 

I'm saying this over a decade or so after my first child needed to be vaccinated. Over time, I've come to realize that McCarthy's nonsense about Thimerisol causing autism was rubbish and that she was just a pretty puppet who was paid to repeat and endorse this bullshit. At the time though, we knew nothing about all of this, were younger and were not as wise. Neither of us had any medical background at the time and to be honest, we were not very good at separating bs from truth. Being more inclined now to check and question the sources, I think the choice to vaccinate would be have easier.

That said, I don't think its sheer stupidity that drives parents to want a choice in whether or not they should vaccinate, but rather it may come partly from their desire to protect their child given what limited knowledge they have and from their need to feel in control about protecting their child.


ReijiTabibito

Quote from: TaintedAndDelish on February 08, 2015, 07:46:12 PM
From a parent's perspective, when you have a small child that means everything to you and you are hearing all this scary talk about vaccinations possibly causing harm to your child, being "forced" to make a choice that you are ignorant about (vaccinate) is rather unsettling. You are put in a situation where you feel like you must blindly comply and put your child at risk. If you are not well read on the matter, it can be difficult to know who to believe and trust.

Not necessarily as difficult as some people want it to be.  The issue with 'who to trust' ultimately comes down to things that have nothing to deal with the matter at hand a good number of times.  I'm sure there are plenty of MDs out there to refute the naysayers who decry vaccinations and that they can explain how vaccinations work and the risks associated with not having them.  The issue is that the naysayers simply cry "Of course they'd say that, they make money off of it!" or some other ridiculous garbage to cast doubt on the motives of the medical profession.  If the matter was purely one of expertise and information, the docs would win.  Because they go to 4 years of college, 4 years of medical school, and then a residency before professional practice.  Whereas a lot of the naysayers probably have...high school biology under their belt, in which they got a C.

Quote from: TaintedAndDelish on February 08, 2015, 07:46:12 PM
I'm saying this over a decade or so after my first child needed to be vaccinated. Over time, I've come to realize that McCarthy's nonsense about Thimerisol causing autism was rubbish and that she was just a pretty puppet who was paid to repeat and endorse this bullshit. At the time though, we knew nothing about all of this, were younger and were not as wise. Neither of us had any medical background at the time and to be honest, we were not very good at separating bs from truth. Being more inclined now to check and question the sources, I think the choice to vaccinate would be have easier.

Causes have been using celebrities for years.  Years to gain traction for their particular ideologies.  Tom Cruise and Scientology is perhaps the best known example, but this was going on at least as far back as the 80s.  The problem with most celebrities is that they don't necessarily understand the field as well as the experts, who are far less-well known.  And when you involve personalities who are charismatic enough to have their own cult (which is technically what all those screaming fans are) of personality, the experts tend too get drowned out.

Quote from: TaintedAndDelish on February 08, 2015, 07:46:12 PM
That said, I don't think its sheer stupidity that drives parents to want a choice in whether or not they should vaccinate, but rather it may come partly from their desire to protect their child given what limited knowledge they have and from their need to feel in control about protecting their child.

It never is.  People on the whole don't knowingly make stupid decisions.  They make stupid decisions because they lack information and understanding on the subject.  That said, though, it does become the parent's responsibility to learn what they can on the subject so that they can make an informed decision about matters like this.  The problems comes in when either the parent knows about the problems associated with not vaccinating your child - which are quite real and much less made up - and choose not to vaccinate anyways, or they refuse to learn about the subject while professing to want the best for their child.

AndyZ

Quote from: TheGlyphstone on February 04, 2015, 07:53:08 PM
a lot of GOP/right-wing figures decry vaccination

If you don't mind an odd question, which ones?

I haven't spent a lot of time looking into what various GOP figures are saying, but I've only heard talk against forcing vaccinations.  The only ones I've heard actually decry vaccinations themselves are Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey and other such celebrities.

Granted that if we wanted to point out celebrity idiocy, we could go every week.

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Ebb

Quote from: AndyZ on February 09, 2015, 02:48:31 PM
If you don't mind an odd question, which ones?

I haven't spent a lot of time looking into what various GOP figures are saying, but I've only heard talk against forcing vaccinations.  The only ones I've heard actually decry vaccinations themselves are Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey and other such celebrities.


I'm not sure if I'd call it "a lot", but the anti-vax stuff seems to be on the verge of becoming a political issue in the next round of US presidential elections. Chris Christie and Rand Paul, two of the more prominent GOP presidential candidates, recently made public statements that at best were ambivalent about the science behind vaccinations and at worse were actively anti-vaccination, referring to unknown and unspecified health risks that were generally tied to the sort of autism scares commonly used by anti-vaxxers.

Personally I think it's unclear how strongly these two men hold these opinions or whether (my guess) this is just more of a test to see how much support can be drawn from a general anti-establishment / libertarian segment of the electorate at the cost of general credibility. In other words, running to the right in the primary, which is often considered to be a winning tactic for GOP politicians.

Luckily it seems that there's been a fair bit of backlash to both of these statements, which might have the nice effect of removing this as a football in the next election.

Here's a quick summary of opinions from the major GOP candidates (declared and undeclared): http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/ted-cruz-vaccinations-114862.html

The line you want to look for here, which most of the candidates are unwilling to cross, is a flat-out declaration that vaccinations for children should be mandatory (potentially with religious or other rare exceptions). Note the difference between Ben Carson's response, which is very reasonable and very clear on the fact that vaccinations ought to be mandatory, with the response from Scott Walker, who comes out strongly in favor of his own family getting vaccinations (a subject no-one was raising), but leaves completely unanswered the question of whether the government should mandate them for other people. That's the landmine that many of these politicians are unwilling to touch, for fear that they'll lose a big segment of people who are reflexively against any exercise of government power.


AndyZ

Quote from: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/ted-cruz-vaccinations-114862.htmlOn Monday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a likely White House hopeful, said parents “need to have some measure of choice” on vaccinating their children. The comments sparked backlash as public health officials are trying to contain a recent outbreak of measles, one believed to be fueled in part by many parents opting against vaccines.

Christie’s team quickly issued a statement that he “believes vaccines are an important public health protection … there is no question kids should be vaccinated.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) also weighed in Monday, saying vaccines should be “voluntary” and, defending that position on CNBC, added: “I don’t understand the point of why that would be controversial.” On Tuesday, Paul insisted he wasn’t alleging any causation between vaccines and disorders.

Seems like they're saying that they're useful and important but shouldn't be mandated.  That's very different from either being ambivalent behind the science or anti-vaccination.
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Quote from: AndyZ on February 09, 2015, 03:11:52 PM
Seems like they're saying that they're useful and important but shouldn't be mandated.  That's very different from either being ambivalent behind the science or anti-vaccination.

I think that's true if you look at the letter of what they're saying. But in practice, the public debate isn't about whether vaccines work, it's about whether the benefits outweigh the costs to the extent that their use should be mandatory, and therefore enforced by the government. In this situation a statement to the effect of "Well, vaccines are great and I use them, but it should be up to parents to decide for their own children" ends up being a nice-sounding but ultimately weak middle ground position that doesn't do anything to advance the discussion. It's dodging the question, essentially.

The science that they're ignoring here is the phenomenon of herd immunity, not the efficacy of a particular person getting vaccinated.


AndyZ

Wait, is there actually a debate going on right now about that vaccines should be mandatory?
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Quote from: AndyZ on February 09, 2015, 03:29:11 PM
Wait, is there actually a debate going on right now about that vaccines should be mandatory?

Yes, for certain vaccines (currently measles), and with certain exceptions. That's the context here.

Although in some cases it's not exactly a question of vaccinations being mandated as much as enforced. Policies such as "you can't send your unvaccinated child to public school" are an example of the latter.

AndyZ

First off, thank you for the clarifications ^_^ I would have been using enforced and mandated interchangeably otherwise.

If we're already talking about whether or not vaccines should be mandatory, I would hardly consider it fair to claim a double meaning if they're directly responding to that particular question.

There are lots of things that should be done but I don't want to be enforced or mandated by the government, and there are things I think shouldn't be done but I don't want to be criminalized (or other appropriate synonyms) by the government.

As a ridiculous example, there are a plethora of good reasons for living indoors, but if someone really wanted to live outside, good for them.  Similarly, if I ever get married, I intend never to cheat on my spouse, but I wouldn't want jail time or fines for swingers.

Now, measles is a little different in that it can affect others, but it only affects others who aren't vaccinated.  Compare that to smoking, where we allow others to smoke near people out on the street despite knowledge of the dangers of secondhand smoke.  (We do ban smoking in some places, but we're far from consistent there.)

Let's take the pros and cons of  "you can't send your unvaccinated child to public school" :

The pro would be that people who had no good reason not to get vaccinated but who definitely want kids to go to public school would do so.

I can think of quite a few cons:

Either the poor who couldn't afford to do so would be forced to scrounge up the money by cutting back on other necessities, or the government would attempt to give out "free" vaccinations, which we can expect to go about as well as George W. Bush giving out "free" cell phones.

Kids who can't get the vaccine will either not be allowed to go to public school or will have to go through lengthy processes to prove to the government's satisfaction that they can't get the vaccine in order to be allowed to go to school.

Kids who don't want to go to school and parents who don't want to send them there can abuse the system by just not getting them vaccinated, providing more of an incentive not to vaccinate if you want to get around having to send your kid to school.

Already underfunded schools will have to go through a process of either verifying which children have been vaccinated, or just trust parents when they nod and say that the kids were vaccinated and tell their children to lie about it.

We'll have to find a way to educate the poor kids whose parents actually believe that vaccines cause autism and who choose not to send their kids to public school if it means having to vaccinate them.

There may well be other pros and cons that I can't think of off the top of my head; people can feel free to add if they so choose.

Furthermore, school is not a unique place where it's the only time that children could catch measles.  In order to be consistent, we'd have to try to ban the unvaccinated from all public places.

Now, the idea arises: what if Disneyland banned the unvaccinated?  I'm not sure how I feel about it.  You'd have to prove who was and wasn't vaccinated, which would be an unnecessary complication in the present.  (It's more feasible in a possible future, though more terrifying to think that all our medical records could be so easily available.)

I could see a thing where Disneyland sets up a medical center in the lines for the unvaccinated, but that would set up all sorts of a PR nightmare and inevitably lead to a lawsuit in our current society.

But at this point I'm just rambling.  I really feel like I want to agree, though: you should get vaccinated if at all possible, but you shouldn't force people to get vaccinated.  Feel free to try to convince me otherwise.
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Quote from: AndyZ on February 09, 2015, 05:44:19 PM
Now, measles is a little different in that it can affect others, but it only affects others who aren't vaccinated.  Compare that to smoking, where we allow others to smoke near people out on the street despite knowledge of the dangers of secondhand smoke.  (We do ban smoking in some places, but we're far from consistent there.)

...

But at this point I'm just rambling.  I really feel like I want to agree, though: you should get vaccinated if at all possible, but you shouldn't force people to get vaccinated.  Feel free to try to convince me otherwise.

If you're not familiar with the concept of "herd immunity" then I would encourage you to read up on it. It's really impossible to discuss this topic without that bit of important background. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity

The short story is that by not vaccinating your children (the greater 'you' here, not you personally) you are putting innocent lives at risk. People, mostly children, are dying from a disease which is almost entirely preventable. (More on measles from the World Health Organization: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs286/en/) Over 145,000 people died from measles in 2013.

So no, we do not agree. In my opinion, vaccination should be mandatory unless excused for health reasons. Some people can't get vaccinated, such as those with compromised immune systems, infants and pregnant women. The only way to protect them from measles is to eliminate it in those around them. Which is the entire point.




Inkidu

I don't think this whole anti-vaccine brouhaha can be placed at the feet of either side of the political spectrum. This tends to be a more intimate form of strangeness. You could see both the liberal hippies and the conservative Christian Scientists and whatnot going for it. :|
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TheGlyphstone

Quote from: Inkidu on February 09, 2015, 07:57:13 PM
I don't think this whole anti-vaccine brouhaha can be placed at the feet of either side of the political spectrum. This tends to be a more intimate form of strangeness. You could see both the liberal hippies and the conservative Christian Scientists and whatnot going for it. :|

Yeah, I tried to point that out in the OP - it's a phenomenon of ignorance, willful or otherwise, that is pervasive along the extreme ends of both political factions.

Syene

I don't think it's as much that these people are ignorant as that they're letting their emotions and fears cloud their ability to accurately analyze risks. 

I once considered not vaccinating my cats after reading an article that suggested rabies vaccinations were causing tumors. My rationale was that my cats were indoor cats and thus extremely unlikely to be exposed. Eventually, I realized that I was being pretty hypocritical to consider it given how strongly I feel about people declining vaccinations for their children, but I think it really goes to show how easy it can be for a normally smart and well-educated person to focus on a small risk associated with vaccination instead of the good it does in the great majority of cases.
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AndyZ

Quote from: Ebb on February 09, 2015, 07:46:38 PM
If you're not familiar with the concept of "herd immunity" then I would encourage you to read up on it. It's really impossible to discuss this topic without that bit of important background. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity

The short story is that by not vaccinating your children (the greater 'you' here, not you personally) you are putting innocent lives at risk. People, mostly children, are dying from a disease which is almost entirely preventable. (More on measles from the World Health Organization: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs286/en/) Over 145,000 people died from measles in 2013.

So no, we do not agree. In my opinion, vaccination should be mandatory unless excused for health reasons. Some people can't get vaccinated, such as those with compromised immune systems, infants and pregnant women. The only way to protect them from measles is to eliminate it in those around them. Which is the entire point.

I am familiar with the concept (but thank you for checking ^_^), and don't have any issue with the idea that people absolutely should get them.  It's kinda like, I think you should help someone if you see them getting mugged on the street, but I'd be against laws forcing you to do that.

I meant that I agree with the aforementioned concept of encourage but don't enforce.  We can agree to disagree, though ^_^

Quote from: Inkidu on February 09, 2015, 07:57:13 PM
I don't think this whole anti-vaccine brouhaha can be placed at the feet of either side of the political spectrum. This tends to be a more intimate form of strangeness. You could see both the liberal hippies and the conservative Christian Scientists and whatnot going for it. :|

If you can point out which conservative Christian Scientists, I'd appreciate it.  I kinda want to lay specific names at somebody's feet.

Oh, and stupid question but I'm curious: why is it okay to say Christian Scientist but not Islamic Extremist?
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Caehlim

Quote from: AndyZ on February 09, 2015, 08:43:07 PMwhy is it okay to say Christian Scientist but not Islamic Extremist?

That's an official term, rather than a description of the group. It's a reference to the Christian Science Reading Room practitioners.

They are a sect of people who believe that special techniques of reading the bible and prayer have healing properties and have a tendency to reject modern medical practice.
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Christian Scientists (which are a separate religious group) have a belief that all illness can be cured by prayer alone.  You have cancer?  Forget chemotherapy - get prayed over.  You have diabetes?  Forget insulin - get prayed over.  There have been a number of contentious cases where children with treatable conditions have died because of this practice.
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AndyZ

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TaintedAndDelish

"Christian Science" is a bit of an oxymoron, isn't it?

Given some of the stuff Hubbard's posse has pulled off, it should be "Christian Pseudo-science"



Ebb

Quote from: AndyZ on February 09, 2015, 08:43:07 PM
I am familiar with the concept (but thank you for checking ^_^), and don't have any issue with the idea that people absolutely should get them.  It's kinda like, I think you should help someone if you see them getting mugged on the street, but I'd be against laws forcing you to do that.

I meant that I agree with the aforementioned concept of encourage but don't enforce.  We can agree to disagree, though ^_^

The correct analogy isn't "there should be a law forcing you to help someone who is getting mugged on the street."
The correct analogy is "there should be a law preventing you from mugging people on the street."

People who do not vaccinate their children are actively harming other people.

The principle of individual freedom from government coercion is a fine thing. It's not more important than the principle of not killing other peoples' children. Not by a long shot.

If you can't see that, then I don't think there's much point in continuing the conversation. I'm going to bow out here.