The Law and Vaccines

The handful of Americans who read my blogs are aware that I frequently write about basic human rights (Yes, I have a better audience in other countries than I have here).  Remember how I explain them?  Don't I always say that as long as I don't infringe on the rights of others, you don't have the right to tell me what to do?  Implied in this definition of basic human rights is that I have no right to harm my neighbors and they have no right to bring harm to me and my family.  Well, on what planet is it okay to expose others to killer diseases and viruses if there is a way to prevent those illnesses?




Enters the modern parent, the one who heard of a research project that suggested that the MMR vaccine might be the cause of autism.  In comes the paranoid fear of all vaccines.  The parent becomes so fearful that he/she/they refuse all vaccines for the children.




As in many, many situations, it would behoove all such parents to consult their elders.  Take me, for example.  I had measles -- two kinds, apparently.  I had mumps.  I had chicken pox.  A friend and neighbor lived out his years in an iron lung because he contracted polio as a child. A relative had mumps as an adult and was unable to sire children afterward.


There are/were doctors who have dedicated their lives to developing vaccines to keep us from harm.  They have stopped endless itching, threats to our vision, complications of fallen mumps, weeks of isolation, scars and death.  But we won't realize that protection without the vaccines.


It's amazing how many families here refused the vaccines on behalf of their children's health when what they are doing is risking that health.  Until recently, our country has seen few victims of these horrendous ailments, but that is changing.  Indeed, we even have reason to fear that enemies may deliberately expose us to these and worse contagions.


Parents can be vehement about not wanting their children to be exposed to the risk of autism.  But how are they going to feel if it is their child that is the one in a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand that dies from an illness that a vaccine could have prevented?


Each generation becomes better informed, more savvy and more assertive about child care.  We take more and more responsibility over what happens to our children.  But we are not always right!


So, to our government officials, I say this.  It is okay to use the law to protect the country concerning vaccines.  If it were only our own lives or our children's lives we were risking, that would be one thing.  But it is not okay for people to threaten the general population for any reason except for a child's preexisting medical concerns.  No, not even religion should stop you in this cause.


Besides, the results of that first study have been refuted.  Researcher after researcher has discovered that he/she could not replicate the results.  Whether on purpose, or by accident, that doctor got the wrong results.  If it were not so, other researchers would have gotten his results, too.  That means MMR vaccines are not what causes autism.  That cause still has not been discovered.