Get kids vaccinated or go to jail | All American Blogger

Liberty is not only dead in Maryland, they’re defiling the corpse too.

Two months into the school year, more than 2,000 students in this suburban county outside the nation’s capital had yet to get the shots they needed to attend class. So the school system decided it was through playing nice.

Parents in Prince George’s County have been ordered to appear at a special court hearing Saturday where they will be given a choice: Get their children vaccinated on the spot or risk up to 10 days in jail and fines.

It is one of the strongest efforts made by a U.S. school system to ensure its youngsters receive their shots.

Prince George’s County school officials and prosecutors said parents have been duly warned about the need for vaccinations over the past year. They said the goal isn’t to throw parents in jail but to protect public health and get kids who have been barred from school back to class.

“How can you in good conscience allow your child to miss school and their education for no particular reason?” said John White, spokesman for the 132,000-student school system. [source]

For me, the question is, “how in good conscience can you throw parents in jail for choosing not to vaccinate their children?”

It seem like the mentality here is that the citizens of this county are like cattle owned by the government rather than independent people with rights and liberties guaranteed by our constitution. The school has every right to not allow children to attend classes if they haven’t been vaccinated, but to threaten the parents with jail time is a bold leap over the line.

DRW

While I am sympathetic to the notion that the government has no business compelling health care, in this case the government is quite correct. Let’s run the logic stepwise.

1. The childhood diseases that are prevented by immunization are easily communicable.
2. No vaccine is 100% effective.
3. Very few vaccines work for longer than 20 years.
4. Many of these diseases can have catastrophic effects on children. Some of them even on adults.
5. Children who have not been vaccinated are a reservoir and vector of infection.
6. Thus, to not vaccinate your children is to increase the health risk for the population at large.
6a. The recent spread of measles (or perhaps mumps, I forget which) in Britain in the wake of the now-discredited autism scare suggests that even a small reduction in the percentage of children vaccinated can radically increase the incidence of a given disease.
7. Thus the state, in its role of preventing epidemic disease has a perfect right to ensure that people receive vaccines.
8. Further, given point 6a, a relatively small number of objectors can raise risk dramatically, compulsion is in order.

Now, for isolated religious communities (I’m largely thinking the stereotypical Amish), this may not be a problem since they do not interact with society at large often enough to pose a substantial risk. However, even home-schooled children have public interactions (the library, dance lessons, soccer practice, the park, etc.) and thus are liable to spread airborne disease.
DRW

While I am sympathetic to the notion that the government has no business compelling health care, in this case the government is quite correct. Let’s run the logic stepwise.

1. The childhood diseases that are prevented by immunization are easily communicable.
2. No vaccine is 100% effective.
3. Very few vaccines work for longer than 20 years.
4. Many of these diseases can have catastrophic effects on children. Some of them even on adults.
5. Children who have not been vaccinated are a reservoir and vector of infection.
6. Thus, to not vaccinate your children is to increase the health risk for the population at large.
6a. The recent spread of measles (or perhaps mumps, I forget which) in Britain in the wake of the now-discredited autism scare suggests that even a small reduction in the percentage of children vaccinated can radically increase the incidence of a given disease.
7. Thus the state, in its role of preventing epidemic disease has a perfect right to ensure that people receive vaccines.
8. Further, given point 6a, a relatively small number of objectors can raise risk dramatically, compulsion is in order.

Now, for isolated religious communities (I’m largely thinking the stereotypical Amish), this may not be a problem since they do not interact with society at large often enough to pose a substantial risk. However, even home-schooled children have public interactions (the library, dance lessons, soccer practice, the park, etc.) and thus are liable to spread airborne disease.