Is it time to consider compulsory vaccinations?

In my early grade school years, we lined up on school registration day to demonstrate our vaccinations, either via scars or documents: no vaccine, no school. I cannot recall any protests, aside from wailing children. In fact, even some of the youngest of us were happy to receive the polio vaccine in the mid 50s: we had seen the withered limbs, the sudden absence, the kids who couldn't come out and play anymore...We all but sang hosannahs in the street when the polio vaccine was announced.We benefited so much from our 20th century trust in vaccines. I particularly appreciate the polio vaccine, because I managed to contract many childhood diseases before I could be protected: smallpox (Variola minor, apparently from its last American stronghold in Appalachia); measles; mumps; a life-threatening bout of influenza in the Asian flu pandemic of 1957 that progressed to rheumatic fever, tetanus, etc.I think my parents were just waiting for polio to join my party. That 1957 flu pandemic also struck my pregnant mother, and some research suggests a link with my younger brother's schizophrenia. I get my flu vaccine...religiously ...and I wish we'd had it then.The growing resistance to vaccines now explicitly threatens herd immunity, as shown in the graphic below, one I find particularly frightening: The associated editorial from the LA Times: Vaccination doubters are endangering more than their own childrenPersonal liberty? Social responsibility? Should we compel vaccinations against the most serious threats?I say yes.Social Issues, I think.Edited by Omnivorous, : verbs are good

Thread copied here from the Is it time to consider compulsory vaccinations? thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

And what should we do with about that pesky little fourth amendment?

I'm headed out the door, but for now I'd simply say that what I propose is not unreasonable.Let me clarify what I support: A federal law requiring major vaccinations. The current pastiche of state laws allows concealed-carry pathogens to cross state lines--I'd rather they carried guns than measles.What specific problems do you think the Fourth Amendment presents?

I don't see how the 4^th. Amendment is at all relevant. We require driver licenses before someone is allowed to drive, marriage licenses before getting married, a passport to enter or leave the country, why not immunization before being allowed to go to school or work?

I'm in your age cohort, Omni. My mother died of polio in 1952, a bit before Dr. Salk came out with his vaccine. I had measles, whooping cough, chickenpox, etc., as a kid before they found effective protection against those.I enthusiastically support compulsory vaccination with only legitimate medical exemptions.

The "Good Old Days" were not always that good and it's amazing how much things have improved just in my lifetime.The time was the early 50's.David was the fastest kid in our gang, even faster than his sister and she was really, really fast. He could run faster, climb higher in trees, jump all the way across the stream in the woods and he always made sure everybody got to play and nobody picked on the little kids.One summer they called off the carnival, shut down the theater, canceled the 4th. of July parade and closed the swimming pool.And David wasn't there anymore. His sister cried a lot. She even hit one of the kids one day.Fewer and fewer kids showed up at the playground.One night Mom and Dad sat us down and told us that David had polio. We knew about polio, my great aunt had it when she was little and one leg was shorter than the other. She had to wear special shoes and a metal brace on her leg and a cane we had all learned to fear. He was in the hospital but I really wanted to go see him.We all dressed and I got in the car and Dad drove us into the city to the hospital. When we got to David's room it was filled with really big cylinders with people inside and just their heads sticking out. They were all lying on their backs looking up at a big mirror. The tanks made wheezing noises with a clunk then a whir then whoosh then clunk then ...David's mom and dad and his sister were there and all stood up when we arrived. David smiled but it was all crooked. He was drooling and his sister reached over and wiped his face. As the tank went whoosh David said "Hi". Then a pause and when the tank went whoosh again he said "for coming o...", pause, clunk, whir, whoosh, "...ver".His dad explained that the machine was breathing for David and when it went whir it pulled air in and when it went whoosh it was pushing the air out. David could only talk when it was pushing the air out.I looked at David and all I could say was "Wow, that's neat!". He smiled again but his mom cried.His dad said that he was getting better and they thought he would be able to leave the tank (it was called an Iron Lung) one day soon. I said I couldn't wait for him to get home and I'd tell everybody that he'll be back soon.A nurse came by and said it was time for his bath and exercise and so we all said goodbye for now. David died a few days later and he didn't get to come back.A couple years later Dad took us to Doc Jerry for the first Polio Vaccine trial and David was one of the last kids in the US to die from polio.

^ That.Fortunately, that is all expunged from my memory. But I have seen some photographs.

I also lived through all that, had measles, mumps and chicken pox, had an older cousin who had polio and had to be carried everywhere by her husband for the rest of her life, and she did live to a good old age in spite of it. I also heard the story many times about an aunt I never knew who died of diphtheria at age eight. The polio epidemic was very scary and when Salk's vaccine came out I saved news clippings about it.So I'm all in favor of vaccinations. But I also hear from the younger generation that today's vaccinations have additives that they don't want to risk giving to their children because they supposedly cause medical problems of their own. I haven't researched this but since this is the reason they resist vaccinating their children these worries have to be answered better than they have been so far.

The younger generation needs to get more of their information from, y'know, medical professionals instead of actresses and random internet posters. That's from the Centers for Disease Control, and it indicates that the Scary Additive thimerosal was what you and Omni and I got in our vaccines, not what kids today are getting.Vaccine Information and Safety Studies | Vaccine Safety | CDC is a fine place for new parents to start. Send it on...

Those worries have all been answered, they just don't like the answers and so they should simply be ignored.They should be free to think or believe that vaccines are harmful but they should not be free to not get vaccinated.

Multiple independent studies have concluded that there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that vaccines cause autism or any other "medical problems." Exactly how much better answered can a worry be?

I think with most issues like this it does tend to bring out those who are more dogmatic than rational. Vaccines save lives and anyone who wishes to forgo them should be euthanized for non compliance.Ok maybe not that.

To be sure no injection is without risk.
But I have to laugh at times at all the hooplah over "additives"
Back in the day we ran behind the mosquito sprayer and ate paint chips like potatoe chips.
Errrr. this explains alot.

Indeed.I recall watching a program where one anti-vaccination mother was complaining about the mercury that was used in certain vaccines. Of course, she could not answer whether or not the quantity of mercury was in any way dangerous. She just blindly assumed it was 'bad' because Jenny McCarthy said so.You should have seen the expression on the lady's face when the doctor who was also participating in the discussion told her that if she added up all the vaccines she had in her life time, tallied up the total mercury used, that it was actually less than the amount of mercury one consumes from a single tuna-fish sandwich.Oh, and judging by the rather 'rotund' appearance of the mom in question, my suspicion is that she has consumed more than one tuna fish sandwich in her lifetime.