…the state does, in the person of Mr. Justice Sumner, that is who owns your body.
Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign
– J.S. Mill, On Liberty, 1859
Given that so many in the ‘free world’ are subject to compulsory educational conscription, how many people are in fact ‘sovereign’ over their own minds? And in an era in which the state can force you to put certain chemicals in your body regardless of your wishes, are you sovereign over your own body? If you are a child, clearly not… and even if you are an adult, clearly not.
The mothers, the sole carers of their daughters, argued that immunisation should be voluntary and it was not right to impose it against the wishes of a caring parent and it would cause them great distress.
The elder girl had asked not to be given the MMR jab but had asked for meningitis protection. Some parents fear the MMR vaccine could be linked to autism, even though doctors and most experts say there is no evidence of a link.
Mr Justice Sumner decided both children should receive the jab because the benefits outweighed the risks.
But her views obviously count for nothing. If you do not truly own the insides of your body, then what are you? “The elder girl had asked not to be given the MMR jab”. Is she a slave? A serf? A chattel? I have fulminated before on that particular issue when confronted with people arguing for mandated mass medication… the issue is not one of health but rather ‘who owns your body’. What the judges and doctors who would use the violence of state to force other people to change the chemistry of their own bodies show us is not that they care, but rather their totalitarian mindset.
Can it really surprise us that the state does not respect individual property rights or the right of self-defense if it does not even respect the right of individuals to judge what chemicals should or should not be put in your own body? This is not a minor issue because it goes to the very heart of whether your perception of freedom is an illusion or not.
Similar in principle to the Jehovas Witnesses who choose to refuse medication if it involves blood transfusions. Fine until it involves a child and requires parental consent. Who, then, “owns” the child? Who indeed?
Children are not considered to be capable of making informed decisions for themselves. That is why their parents generally get to decide for them. If the decisions made by the parent pose a threat to the child, however, I see no inherent problem in overruling the parent. Children are “proto-individuals”; parents are their temporary caretakers, not their owners.
An example: suppose a mother wanted to give her child poisoned ice cream? And suppose the child said “I want to eat the ice cream!”. Would it be proper for the state to intervene? I think that it would. The mother is murderering her child, and the child almost certainly doesn’t understand the implications of her desire for ice cream.
There is no link whatsoever between immunizations and autism. The mothers are being superstitious, and have infected their children with that superstition. In my opinion, the right to hold an irrational belief ends at the point where it causes you to harm other people.
Furthermore, [against Mill] I think there are major benefits from people being viewed as not owning bits of their own body.
Just as long as it is clear that no-one else owns it either.
Perry, although I agree with the principle, there is more to this story than meets the eye.
The case was taken to court by the fathers of the respective children who both thought that they should have the MMR jabs. Now just because the mothers are the main carers this does not mean that the fathers’ views should be ignored. (Been there myself and it is not nice I can assure you.)
The children are minors and the opinion of the older daughter has clearly been strongly influenced by the mother.
The court has not decided against the children but with the fathers over the mothers. I am not saying this ruling is correct but it can not be used as an example of state interference over someone,s sovreign rights. Which is a shame……
What is extremely annoying about this case concerning the MMR vaccine – is that it would almost certainly never have come to court if separate vaccines were “allowed” to be made available.
Most people would still take the MMR so there would be no great problem caused by doing this.
This ruling shows a worrying absense of reason on the part of the Judge concerned. Considering there is this shadow of a possibility of an autism link to this specific vaccine… that the Judge has not seen fit to question the government’s wisdom of removing the alternative individual vaccines and making only the MMR vaccine itself available without more definitive proof than is currently available shows that he has not fully considered the case nor its implications (beyond what he has been told by some “EXPERT” witness I presume?)
You would think that until they find exactly what causes autism they would err on the side of safety – but no- they know better… I hope that for the childrens sakes the government’s guesswork remains lucky and the kids suffer no future ill effects if this enforced vaccination goes ahead.
I know that the latest studies concluded that there is no evidence of a causal relationship between MMR and autism; but the fact that Rubella infection of pregnant women is a known cause of autism surely flags up a definite case for greater than normal concern about this.
While the government, health authority and Judiciary act in this tyrannical manner it is difficult to trust them and their “scientific” studies in any shape or form… it feels too much like they decide on the result in advance and arrange the data to their own ends.
Now that the decision has been taken out of their hands it leaves parents in the unenviable position of having to cross their fingers and hoping that for once the government’s choice is a good one.
Mike: but it can not be used as an example of state interference over someone,s sovreign rights. Which is a shame…
I have this notion that children are in fact people and the fact they are young does not give another person the right to require them to stick chemicals into their body against their will. Convince them by all means but force them? No.
According to the BBC today, the major organised crime activity in Europe is becoming human trafficking. Often just children for the age-old reasons of slave labour and prostitution, now joined by the the growing need for a steady supply of organ transplants.
Is this a direct result of the ‘pioneering’ surgery of Dr Christian Barnard, the South African heart-tranplant self-publicist who having gone on to insert a baboon’s heart into one of his patients (with total disregard for the possibility of viral jumps between species) then happily decided to live on his fame and party the rest of his life away, amongst the plaudits of the stupid?
The world medical fraternity are clearly totally out of control, and years ago far overstepped the bounds of human decency with the seductive and self-enriching mantra that anything can be justified in the profitable cause of the prolongation of life.
For me this never was nor ever could be true. As a newspaper editorial recently so aptly put it “if when you hear a new medical procedure, your reaction is ‘ugh’ then it shouldn’t be allowed”. In that instance, I believe, the topic was harvesting the eggs from unborn female aborted foetuses…for me a triple ugh.
Compulsory jabs for adults or children are the first step to the nightmare of Huxley’s ‘Brave New World”.
Those who choose to die in an epidemic situation should be allowed to do so as long as adequate space for quarantine facilities remain and parents are always the best arbiters for their children’s well-being as it is their gene pool which is at stake and will be scarificed by choosing the wrong course.
For an interesting view on the western younger generations craze for body piercing, I invite you to my blog http://ironies.blogspot.com for a post made earlier, prompted by Perry’s item.
Just a thought – but if our body no longer belongs to us- how soon before we have to start paying rent?
Bodytax!!!
If you dont pay – its eviction +brain in a jar time 😉
Perry,
My son doesn’t like cough mixture but I just cajoled him to take some. Has this father had the chance to sit down with his daughter and rationalise the argument? Who knows?
I quite agree that the girl should not be forced into having the jab and short of tying her down I don’t think that will happen but that is not the point of this case. The case was about the rights of an absent father with parental responsibility to influence the health care of his own children. Thankfully the fathers won or the precedent would have been set to allow the rights of all absent fathers to be ridden roughshod.
The decision to vaccinate is one for the father, mother and if old enough to come to rational conclusion, the daughter. The mothers in this case were seeking to exclude the fathers from the discussion.
In real terms it probably makes little difference as nobody is going to force the mother to follow the court order. The publicity would just be too bad…
Mike: the only person whose right are at issue here as far as I am concerned is those of the child who is going to have a court ordered jab.
Perry,
You can rest easy then because there is no way anybody is going to do the jabbing without the consent of the child. What are they going to do, tie her down whilst beating back the hundreds, nay thousands, of protesters who will come out to support her?
It is just a complete shame that thousands and thousands of pounds of taxpayers money has been wasted taking this case to court when a little bit of common sense was all that was needed. Mummy and daddy need to stop fighting and start getting along for the sake of their children. If both parties had had to pay to go to court it would never have gone there.
By the way, if they do try to force the issue I will be there protesting with you.
Public health is a problem. It is a collective problem which may not be totally amenable to individual solutions.
Think of it in the way that you might think of stream pollution. One polluter can ruin the stream fo everyone.
Vaccination used to be easier when the diseases were more rampant. The 1 in 100 chance of dying from disease was easily factored against the 1 in 100,000 chance of vaccination gone bad. Either was a risk. The odds and experience made it easy to decide.
Now the experience is gone.
On top of that the PHS complicates all decisions. The parent no longer decides which risks to accept. The state because it pays decides.
In the community of Boulder, Colorado hundreds of well-off, well-intentioned crunchy (that is, health nutty) parents have refused to give their children the MMR. Result: quite virulent (sometimes drug-resistant) strains of Measles are popping up in the local schools each year. Children who HAVE been vaccinated are infected by children who have not; some die. Your child’s right to be “protected” from your paranoia ends where my child’s well-being begins. And, yes, I’d have the child restrained and jabbed.
If you want to raise your children in the wilderness, go ahead. If you choose to be a member of society, abide by its public health mandates. How hard is that?
Kelli
Perry sez: “I have this notion that children are in fact people and the fact they are young does not give another person the right to require them to stick chemicals into their body against their will.”
This position raises very difficult issues under the law of informed consent to medical treatment. The general rule is that any one who is “decisional” (that is, able to comprehend and make decisions for themselves) has the right to consent to, or to refuse, any kind of medical treatment. Treating someone without their consent is assault. Exceptions are made when the patient is unconscious in an emergency, etc.
Children are not deemed to be decisional until they are of age, and consequently they do not have the legal ability to consent to their own treatment. I don’t think anyone would argue that a 5 year old lacks the mental capacity to give truly informed consent. That means someone has to have the legal authority to give consent on their behalf – generally, their parents. The same rules apply to other people who aren’t decisional, only you have to go to court to get a guardian appointed, or they appointed someone to make these decisions for them before they lost capacity.
Perry seems to be taking the position that people who aren’t capable of giving informed consent should nonetheless control their own treatment. This strikes me as a very dangerous position – lots of kids would rather not have any shots at all, lots of Alzheimers patients want nothing to do with therapy and meds, etc., even though every rational person would say to give them the treatment.
I think that it boils down to whether you believe somebody’s will or desires only deserve recognition if they meet some minimum standard of rationality.
“I have this notion that children are in fact people and the fact they are young does not give another person the right to require them to stick chemicals into their body against their will”
Try it another way:
“I have this notion that children are in fact people and the fact they are young does not give another person the right to require them to abstain from sex against their will”
A cornerstone of libertarianism should be that people are treated as adults who are free to make their own choices. This does not mean that we should treat children as adults. Just as a child cannot give proper consent to sex neither can a child be relied on to provide sole consent for medical treatment. This child’s mother persuaded her of the dangers of the treatment. Another child’s abuser might have similarly persuaded that child to “consent” to the abuse, that “consent” is worthless.
I think that Perry has been seduced into “adult-omorphism” analogous to those animal rights activists who would have us treat animals the way we treat humans.
Note that, although I agree that the mothers are making a superstitious judgement, I too am uncomfortable about state-coerced medical treatment, I just think that any argument based solely on the child’s wishes is necessarily weak.
The notion that children are incapable of rational behaviour is quite wrong… at least they are no less rational than many adults, they are just less experienced. We do not prevent stupid or irrational adults from voting or driving cars or having sex… the underage sex issue is a canard. I had sex first when I was 13 and you will be hard pressed to convince me it was a bad thing for me, so forgive me if I am not swayed by the notion that a child cannot be persuaded to do something that is in its interest and not be persuaded if it is not, any more than an adult can be wisely or unwisely.
The debate about compulsory MMR is an important and interesting one and as long as there are people like Kelli around (see her comment above), libertarians need to be on their guard – particularly in the U.S.A. where the MMR is a legal requirement for school attendance in some states. However, this is less of an issue in the U.K. at the moment.
Actually I would say that the real issue in the case is not the MMR, but rather the question of whether the State should micro-manage the upbringing of the children of divorced parents in cases where the primary carer (usually the mother) and the absent parent (usually the father) disagree on what is to be done about some aspect of the child’s upbringing.
Personally this strikes me as nuts. I have every sympathy with divorced fathers who seem to get a terrible deal.
But it is disastrous statist nonsense for the Court to make decisions on such matters.
I can quite see that if the mother intends to do something obviously bad for the child’s health, then somebody must be entitled to step in. But if the mother’s upbringing decision is not obviously unreasonable, then it should be no business of the State
And whatever the scientific merits of the MMR debate, no one in their right mind could call a mother’s decision not to give her child the MMR either obviously bad for the child or obviously unreasonable.
Ergo the State should keep out.
Perry,
I don’t know if you are old enough to remember the Paedophile Information Exchange, but they used similar arguments to yours.
John Durkin: So? What is your point? Mussolini made the trains in Italy run on time, does that make all people with views on how to run railways fascists?
It may be a convenient fiction that we become sexual beings at the age of 16 (or whatever your local age of consent is), but the truth is rather messier than that. Certainly I do not see the attraction of having sex with children (or guys or goats for that matter) but I have met sexually mature 14 year olds and sexually immature 25 year olds. It may not be nice to have to deal with the fact some children are perfectly capable of making those sort of decisions but that is the reality. To my mind, the issue law should pertain to should be acts of abuse, not sex acts per se. One rule does not fit all. After all, an American girl from New Jersey who happens to be 16 on holiday in London can get laid and no laws are broken… so there is nothing objectively evil about her doing the same in Hoboken, which would indeed be illegal. Sure, more care is needed the younger the people involved are but surely the issue should be coercion and abuse not just the fact of sex.
I have this notion that children are in fact people and the fact they are young does not give another person the right to require them to stick chemicals into their body against their will
Scenario: a five-year-old girl slips and badly cuts herself. As she will undoubtedly bleed to death without immediate medical attention, she is rushed to a nearby doctor. The doctor takes out a hypodermic (all that’s available on short notice) to apply anesthetic to numb the pain.
“No!!!!!” says the girl, who is afraid of needles and doctors. Well, so much for that — we’re not allowed to give her painkillers, she told us no.
So the doctor begins to stitch her up without painkillers.
“Stop!! That hurts!!!” says the girl.
So the doctor stops stiching her up. Shortly thereafter the girl bleeds to death. But on the plus side, she retained full control of her own body until the day she died.
Children are not capable of making adult decisions, Perry. If they were, we’d call them adults. The known risk of autism from MMR is zero; the risk of death from refusing MMR is nonzero. As an adult, that child will be thankful to the state for having forced the issue. Partly because she’ll be that much more likely to live to BE an adult, because the state forced the issue.
Dan: the issue there is not foremost ‘is there consent?’ but rather ‘is there abusive use of force?’… context does matter. Obviously in an emergency saving a person deranged with pain may require you to ignore their pleas but that is regardless of whether they are an adult or a child. However that is very different to imposing what you think is best regarding injecting MMR. What makes your view that MMR is harmless give you the right to use force to compel a person to have an MMR injection if they do not think it is harmless? Certainly in Britain force is what will happen if the court orders the injection.
I regard socialist economics as demonstrable nonsense based on theories rooted in complete fantasy… does that mean I can use force to prevent it being taught as the truth by collage professors (i.e. should I vote to lock up all socialist collage professors who might spread dangerous ideas)? I mean, what about the damage that could be cause to society by spreading lies? Do you see where I am going with this argument? Everything we know is a theory… so people should not be so fast to use the state’s force to impose their theories on other people who disagree.
Kelli:
Do you have a link for that MMR story in Boulder? I live in the Denver metro area (of which Boulder is a part), and graduated college in Boulder three years ago and I’ve never heard this story.
The problem with preventable disease is how do you get the kids who are not vaccinated for any disease they spread or help to acquire drug resistance to pay for their decision?
If responsiblity could be absolutely determined then the risks could be insured and handled by torts.
But we are not there yet.
This is in fact a breakdown of the commons and I have seen no libertarian answer so far.
Kelli deserves an answer. Do you have the right to pollute the commons with your preventable disease?
Perry, I take it you are against the draft of young, able men in the defense of their country as well?
I think this is a parallel issue to the draft. The subjugation of the individual will for the lives of their fellow citizens.
If you are against a draft as well, then at least you are consistent. But I would argue that pure individualism is not always appropriate, particularly where it endangers the very existence of your people.
Of course, subjugation of the individual is always very dangerous ground to tread on. It must be very carefully considered and proven to be an overwhelmingly beneficial trade-off.
Public immunizations are nothing like collectivist economic experiments or nanny-state “public safety” regulations to protect people from themselves. They are just like a draft, a duty to your country and your fellow citizens, except the war is against micro-organisms.
All scientific evidence available suggests that the benefits far outweigh the risks. To put the world once again at the mercy of smallpox, polio, measles, &c. for the sake of individualism is nearsighted, in my opinion.
“In the community of Boulder, Colorado hundreds of well-off, well-intentioned crunchy (that is, health nutty) parents have refused to give their children the MMR. Result: quite virulent (sometimes drug-resistant) strains of Measles are popping up in the local schools each year. Children who HAVE been vaccinated are infected by children who have not; some die. Your child’s right to be “protected” from your paranoia ends where my child’s well-being begins. And, yes, I’d have the child restrained and jabbed”
Kelli is quite right: refusing vaccination results in outbreaks of illness, and puts multiple children at risk, including a small number who HAVE been innoculated. In addition, those children whose parents refuse to innoculate cost us all cold, hard cash inasmuch as medical treatment is required when those children, and the others they’ve infected, get ill. As a teacher, I know quite a few parents who make use of the religious exemption (USA) to avoid innoculations, parents who ‘get religion’ for the 3 seconds it takes to sign the waiver form. Please note too, that adults are NOT all innoculated, and are therefore vulnerable too. I wonder how this debate would proceed were we discussing a threatened outbreak of smallpox?
Listen, forced vaccinations is simply a horrible precedant, not to mention a horrible idea. I understand Kelli’s argument, but we’re not talking about anthrax here. Can measels turn fatal? Sure, and so can the flu.
First off, to say that the chance of an MMR shot causing autism as being zero is putting way too much trust in the medical establishment. Not to mention that until fairly recently a lot of these vaccinations contained mercury which is a toxin and can cause autism like symptons. But, while there doesn’t seem to be any substantiated link, there is certainly enough people across the world who are concerned enough to make a big deal out of it. You may mock them as superstitious, but it’s their frickin right to think that. My wife and I did lots of research and thought long and hard about some of our vaccination choices. We ultimately went with the doctors recommendations but I can’t tell you the guilt we have felt when wondering if our child had autism (fortunately, he doesn’t though he has other issues).
I think the precautionary principle is usually horrible when it figures into state policy but there is simply not a damn thing wrong with it when an individual is using this principle to make a medical decision.
I have seen enough doctors misdiagnos many things for myself, my wife, my child and my friends and family for me to put 100% trust in their hands. It’s called being an educated consumer. If you do enough research and you come to a conclusion that such a vaccination is not necessary given the risk that you perceive, as an individual decision maker, then that should be your prerogative
If it’s a large enough health risk, then you can quarentine people. But again, we’re not talking biowarfare here.
Kelli the argument of “Your child’s right to be “protected” from your paranoia ends where my child’s well-being begins” is one that rings awfully familiar to one put forth by many gun control advocates (and I’d wager anti-tobacco groups and probably the creeping totalitarians in MADD as well).
As for Perry’s insistence on the child as the primary decision maker, I don’t think I can go that far. They should have some say over their body obviously, but I think most of the decisions regarding their life should be left up to the parents. Sure, there are lots of gray areas and exceptions to this rule, but I think it should be the guiding principle. But, in this case with a dispute between the mother and the father, perhaps the kids decision can be a tiebreaker, I don’t know.
Lastly, in the US at least, vaccinations are a big growth market. I’m not one of those people who thinks pharmaceutical companies are evil, but I don’t doubt their desire to exploit the system in place and if you set the precedant that people must take every vaccination for any remotely dangerous desease, then those companies are only encouraged to buy off politicians & doctors (which they most definately do here). That’s why giving the consumer the choice to not only shop around but to say no is so important.
What is it about health care that causes people to throw out principles and beliefs that they would normally hold dear in any other situation?
In Boulder, the outbreak was (and is) whooping cough. An article from the Atlantic shows the consequences for the community as a whole, due to the selfish actions of a few who refuse to vaccinate: article.
2 infants have died in Boulder (as of September 2002) from whooping cough.
Perry, I would agree that your body is your property. But consider if you use your property to inflict damage on the property of others then should the state intervene? Be clear that immunisations are about *protecting* property, i.e. other peoples bodies.
It happens that I had measles before immunisation (MMR) was widespread. Not only is measles dangerous and can cause long term health problems or even death, it is also extremely painful and unpleasant.
IMHO in this case (immunisations) the state is not sufficiently vigorus in defending people’s most valuable property – their bodies. And should punish free-loaders who refuse immunisations severely. I think forcing them to be infected with the relevant diseases and isolated at their expense for the duration of the infection to ensure they can not be an infectious vector, would be appropriate.
Anyone who has read the history of public health and disease knows that there are strong, in fact, overwhelming reasons for certain coercive acts by the government in this regard.
For example, if you have drug resistant TB, you can be locked up forever. If you have treatable TB and do not take your medications, the government can and does force you to take your medications under supervision or be confined.
There are provisions for the government to forcibly quaranteen individuals and populatiions in the event of disease outbreaks – such as a terrorist release of smallpox or (heaven forbid) a lethal flu like the 1918 strain.
Vaccination derives from the same reasoning. There is no doubt that people should keep a close eye on government vaccination requirements, because governments tend towards incompetence. But there are very strong reasons that vaccinations are involuntary in many circumstances.
If you can’t find a libertarian solution to the problem, then you have discovered a flaw in libertarianism! Because the problem is real, has long been recognized, and only recently have people resisted, because of mass hysteria (like the phoney link between autism and one vaccination) and hyperbolic individualism, combined with ignorance.
A key difference between a libertarian and an anarchist is that a libertarian recognizes some need for a government – one which has the capability of using deadly force against its citizens or enemies. The single most important rationale for giving this grave power to a government is for the protection of its citizenry and is no doubt how government arose in the first place.
This sort of thing (I am not familiar with the details of this particular case) is an example of what governments are for: preventing infected citizens from harming other citizens. Mandatory vaccination is the mechanism in this case.
I believe that one reason we have a huge AIDS epidemic today is that normal public health measures (contact tracing, making the disease reportable, quarantine of presistent spreaders of the disease) were not followed when it first hit the United States (where it was greatly amplified and spread). This was due to primarily to the fear of offending gays (the primary victims), and also because epidemic deadly diseases were perceived as a thing of the past.
Blind adherence to individuality and privacy in this case ultimately hastened the deaths of tens of millions, so far. That same blind adherence is present in many of the comments in this thread.
If I may repeat what I suggested earlier, before the debate entered areas such as the sexual age of consent, the measles/whooping cough outbreak in Boulder etc:-
“Compulsory jabs for adults or children are the first step to the nightmare of Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’.
Those who choose to die in an epidemic situation should be allowed to do so as long as adequate space for quarantine facilities remain and parents are always the best arbiters for their children’s well-being as it is their gene pool which is at stake and will be sacrificed by choosing the wrong course.”
It seems to me if we give parents the absolute right, in all but the most extreme situations, of determining what is best for their children, whether they be married/co-habiting/divorced or whatever then the problem is solved.
The courts would not presume (I hope) to arbitrate between a married couple disagreeing over MMR so why should divorce change the situation.
Similarly, while agreeing with Perry over protecting against abuse, it is parents (using their own experience for their genetically similar offspring) who are far better to guide their child regarding first voluntary sexual encounters.
If you are the child of parents who refuse to have you immunised that seems a great deal less of a misfortune than being born to parents of let us say as an example, considerably below average IQ. Who would suggest that such a child is loved any the less for the fact that his parents may not be particularly astute, or to my mind suggest that such lack of mental agility should preclude them from taking the decisions as to what they thing best for their child.
Kelli’s arguments sound persuasive and have seduced practically the entire western world, that does not make them correct nor any the less dangerous.
Any really interested in compulsory mass vaccination programmes are recommended to read Edward Hooper’s book “The River” about compulsory polio immunisation schemes in (mainly French speaking) African colonies, where the disease was hardly known. It also has some interesting theories regarding the beginning of the Aids epidemic.
To put this in perspective, I read “Earth Abides” when I was 10, and “The White Plague” when I was 14. Both books have instilled in me a concern that human civilization could be wiped out by disease.
What we’re talking about here is an airborne contagion and a vaccine that is mostly but not completely reliable. If everyone is vaccinated, the vaccine is sufficient to prevent outbreaks. If, however, a significant portion of the population is not vaccinated, an outbreak can occur.
These airborne contagions are dangerous and deadly. I have the best personal defense available (the vaccine). I have taken the best steps I reasonably can to protect my own body. However, I have no real way of knowing if someone else is rolling the dice for me.
If someone wishes to engage in unprotected sex with total strangers, that is no concern of mine (so long as they keep their fluids off of me). I cannot very well demand that someone else not breath the same air as me. In this regard, I am in fact hostage to your choices. By choosing not to get an MMR jab and continue to breath the same air we all breath, you are actually choosing to expose me to a risk I do not wish to take. You are imposing your choice on me. If you choose not to take the MMR jab, I have no objection if you are also willing to cease breathing the air we are compelled to share.
Above is clearly an extremist viewpoint, and not one I particularly hold. Nonetheless, I think it serves to illustrate the point pretty clearly. There has to be some kind of balance between liberty to engage in hazardous behavior, and liberty to avoid said hazards. Public health is one case where the ability to inflict harm on unwilling and unwitting participants (see ref. Typhoid Mary) is enormous. While I tend strongly towards minimal government (interference), public health is one of the few realms where I favor at least a minimal level of government activity.
Thank you Kelli for pointing out that this is not a pure libertarian issue of The State vs. My Body. My refusal to immunize myself can increase your chance of getting sick. Other people are very much affected by these decisions, and as M Simon points out we have a breakdown of the commons.
It’s not just Boulder where this has occurred; I first learned of the issue via ultra-liberal Vashon Island near Seattle, where there appears to be an association between high immunization exemption rates and incidence of pertussis (whooping cough), via a decrease in “herd immunity” (lovely term). [1,2] Until immunization was introduced in the 1940s, whooping cough was one of the most frequent and severe diseases of infants in the US. [3]
Kudos to the libertarians here who have attempted to wrestle with Kelli’s challenge, and a (preventable) pox on those who stick their heads in the sand of ideological purity.
(FWIW, after wrestling with the issue, this libertarian pragmatist has chosen to err on the side of public health. There’s just no way I can see to mitigate the externalities, short of reinstituting plague ships.)
Russ Goble: “in the US at least, vaccinations are a big growth market.”
My understanding of the vaccine business is that it’s rather unprofitable, so much so that in the US it’s getting hard to recruit manufacturers and we experience shortages.
Would you rather sell a product like a vaccine, where a single $10 shot protects the patient forever, or a product like Actos, where the patient buys expensive pills day after day for decades?
If we don’t allow a distinction between child and adult, and no matter how arbitrary that line may seem at the designated age of adulthood – one is not significantly more mature on the morning of one’s 16th or 18th birthday than the night before – we have to draw the line somewhere: a 12 year old is not the same as a 21 year old, then we cannot very well complain when a paternalistic state treats adults as children. This is not about whether children are rational or irrational just whether we consider them mature enough to make complex personal decisions or whether we trust that to their parents. To put it another way: why not let them vote? can you imagine all the soft-headed loonie leftie governments we would have to endure if children voted.
Bearing in mind the world’s recent ill-preparedness for the SARS virus, it makes the dangers to society represented by compulsory vaccination programmes such as MMR seem barely worth the risk. As an infant, according to my mother I nearly died of whooping cough and I can clearly recall having measles, so what’s the problem?
Life is a perpetual gamble against the forces of nature with only one sure winner, let us enjoy what short time we have on this earth…free and unjabbed if that is what we choose!
Would you rather sell a product like a vaccine, where a single $10 shot protects the patient forever, or a product like Actos, where the patient buys expensive pills day after day for decades?
That depends on whether the consumers are willing to pay a price which covers the costs of production.
There is no a priori reason to believe that a product which lasts forever will be less profitable than one which has to be replaced every so often. That’s just a well worn myth.
Perry, There is one very good reason for setting child age limits… “Damage limitation”.
A pregnant earlyteen/preteen is a nightmare situation that affects at least that whole family… More than one life is put at risk … and it is a long term problem that cannot be resolved for that family in any easy way.
What you don’t seem to want to consider is just how lucky you were…and I don’t mean because you got laid… but because you got away undamaged.
Me I got lucky too… but I later worked with those whose coin landed the other way up- helping to get their lives back together. The avoidable pain and suffering their whole families go through is not worth the gamble… and then the process often is repeated through the next generation DUH!!!
And when you take into account the abused, and the girls who find later when they’ve grown up that sexually transmitted diseases have left them unable to have babies, etc etc.. the list of the pain and suffering brought about through underage sex is an awful long one…
..and it is mostly avoidable with a little adult control… that is why we have an age of consent.
As Adults we do have a duty of care towards children… because they don’t understand the risks. This case of the vaccination is insidious because it pits parent against parent against government. Adults have great difficulty making sense of that – what hope have babies of understanding it.
Ah, Martin,
You have found a way to behave irresponsibly and get away with it. At minimum attempted murder.
Your whole argument is:
Life is short. If I shorten some one else’s life it is no care of mine; their tough luck really. How libertarian.
=================================
The problem with this whole line of thought is that it is not considered over a long enough time span. In exchange for avoiding the minimal intrusion of the vaccination we take the larger risk of longer term and more intrusive government intervention when a public health menace becomes epidemic.
Of course we take this risk with diseases from which there is no protection. The question then is should we take it for diseases for which we have protection? I say yes because it is those very diseases which will get the greatest clamor. “Something could have been done”.
There are humans and politics here. We ought to keep that in mind.keep
Here are three parts of an investigation into the MMR controversy by Melanie Phillips (March 2003):
http://pws.prserv.net/mpjr/mp/dm110303.htm
http://pws.prserv.net/mpjr/mp/dm120303.htm
http://pws.prserv.net/mpjr/mp/dm130303.htm
The point about the Paedophile Information Exchange – who for those who don’t recall, were active in the seventies in promoting the idea that children could make their own decisions about sex, and whose prime mover has appeared in the courts on child sex charges – was simply to demonstrate just how much of a minefield this area is. The PIE were trying to make child sex abuse easier by legitimising child sex.
The way the law is actually enforced in the UK has it, IMHO, just about right, in that kids having sex with each other at the margin of the age of consent are ignored, but a healthy interest is taken when one partner is much older.
I don’t know if the MMR vaccine is genuinely dodgy, or if it’s one of those manufactured issues, and obviously I’d want to know the answer if I had to judge this particular case.
But I certainly believe there are public health issues that justify imposing restrictions on people against their will, and I don’t see that as at all contrary to libertarian principles. Libertarians don’t believe an individual should have the freedom to stand on his back porch and fire bullets onto his neighbor’s property. That microbes are vastly smaller than bullets doesn’t change the argument.
The age of consent, of course, is a whole ‘nother conversation.
For M Simon
I did qualify my position on my first comment at 9:26 pm last evening on this subject as follows:
“Those who choose to die in an epidemic situation should be allowed to do so as long as adequate space for quarantine facilities remain.”
When the state acts to silence the “Something must be done brigade” chaos and repression are already at the door.
I accept my proviso ‘as long as space for quarantine facilities remain’ could not always be the case, but I have a feeling mother nature might always make it so…(back to SARS)
Sweden I believe has a programme of individually safer inert polio vaccination which depends on involuntary periodic shots. Other countries (who believe their populations less compliant) use a less safe live vaccine that the children involuntarily spread amongst the family.
We think we have almost defeated polio by these means. As was the case for smallpox which now poses one of the most likely and effective threats of a true WMD. If you missed my earlier post I do recommend Edward Hooper’s book ‘The River’
link to story about what happens when people doen’t immunize.
I remember kids in braces from polio in Iowa in the 1970’s. That isn’t that long ago. I got shots for every freaking thing in the world it seemed when I joined the army. I got them again when I got called up for the 1st Gulf War. (It’s sorta cool to say you’ve been immunized against the plague.) I think these parents are not particularly bright. I like the anecdote about cracking a rib due to the whooping cough.
Maybe it’s evolution in action.
What really bothers me about this thread is how so many of you have thrown out many or your usual cynical, yet healthy questioning of authority. Why do you believe outright that individuals questioning a state sponsored medical program are not just wrong but superstitious, dumb or crazy?
I certainly agree that fundamental libertarianism doesn’t have nice pat answers about what to do with epidemics. And, obviously the government and large private authorities have to be involved and have a say in the best way to do things. But, on the case of MMR, a vaccine that replaced 3 already working vaccines, you automatically assume that “the state knows best.” Even if you are a private market worshipper who belives that the private market is why MMR came about, surely you believe that the market doesn’t get everything right all the time. In fact, the whole reason we here value the private market is that we know when it screws up, it’ll fix it.
But, in the case of vaccines we assume that once you’ve found one that works, or better yet you can have one that replaces three (efficiency!), then there’s no need for further research. I mean, most libertarians, or really everyone of any political stripe believes that many events in both the private or public sectors is certainly capable of creating nasty side effects. But, yet, if someone notes that their MAY be a correlation between a vaccination and autism (or really any desease or behavioral issue), you circle the wagons and hold up signs saying “murderer.”
Seriously, I simply ask any of you why you have such faith in the medical establishment and their state sponsors? Yes, I can certainly understand you don’t want your kids infected, but why do you believe there is simply no room for questioning wether THIS particular vaccine can have harmful effects? Where does your faith derive from?
On the question of vaccine profitability, Bacillus notes that vaccines are less profitable because they are used only once as opposed to medications that can be given to patients repeatedly. That’s not a very good example. Drugs that are given repeatedly are only given to those that are sick. Vaccines are meant to be given to EVERYONE regardless of wether they are sick or not.
What probably holds vaccine profits down is government intervention and price controls. After all, if you are going to force everyone to take a drug, then certainly you can’t let the pharmaceutical companies gauge consumers, right? Well, of course not. So, they regulate it.
But, like any company in any monopoly or at least any heavily regulated industry, the successful companies learn how to adpat and remain profitable. Then once they figure out the profitibility, they become advocates of the regulation that keeps them with a steady revenue stream and steady profit, not to mention a highly regulated barriar to entry to keep would be competitors at bay. This has happened in one regulated industry after another. Why would pharmaceuticals and vaccines be any different?
I’m a huge fan of private markets. Why, because they always figure out a way to work. What socialists never understand is that regulation, price controls and what have you only serve to raise the barriar to entry for competitors (thus limiting consumer choice) but it doesn’t necessarily wipe out profits for the successful companies who’ve learned to cope with the system. And once that happens, those companies will fight to protect and expand those regulations (in this case by increasing the number of required vaccines).
Recognising that the mothers have a superstitious irrational belief about the “dangers” of the MMR vaccine is not the same as saying that “the state knows best”. One can come to that conclusion all by oneself.
The preferable scenario for libertarians is that a vaccination is available but voluntary which it largely is anyway, If you really want to avoid vaccinating your child you can. The reason this came up was because of a dispute between the parents of the children involved.
Another reason in the US that vaccines are shunned by manufacturers is the insane tort law system. Vaccine makers are favorite targets of legal extortion, and lawyers are also in league with various interest groups to whip up hysteria and fear of existing vaccines – to poison the Jury pool.
Add to that the overly expensive and bureaucratic FDA process for approving any drug (but interestingly not applied to “natural” supplements which are often quite dangerous or ineffective).
Usually, at least in the US, genuine medical experts and researchers make independent recommendations about the appropriateness of vaccination programs. They may be wrong, or more often, out of date, but these recomendations are rarely tainted by the profit motive. There are often published studies by both government researchers (such as CDC) and other researchers where they analyze the risk/benefit factors of many medical treatments. Public health measures such as vaccination have long been analyzed this way. Only more recently have other interventions (mammography, for example) been subject to these sorts of analyses – often with striking results.
Thus it is not inappropriate to seek to understand the scientific and risk-analysis basis of coercive public health rules. It is also wholly appropriate for citizens to take these informed opinions and contest inappropriate measures. But it is utter folly and dangerous to the public to base those decisions solely on ideological grounds or to spread objections based solely on ideology or unsubstantiated or unscientific objections.
Somebody mentioned SARS as making MMR requirements wrong. That just doesn’t wash.
What the SARS outbreaks showed was that compulsory public health measures worked! Rapid action by public health officials is the only reason that we are not all wearing masks right now.
If it turns out that SARS is uneradicable due to an animal host, I suspect that SARS vaccination will also become compulsory (once a vaccine is produced).
Then we will see the same tired scenario go around again: people refusing to be vaccinated because it is “their [selfish] right”; various charges that the SARS vaccine causes… let’s see… perhaps schizophrenia or importence or someting… then a larger movement to prevent SARS vaccination… and simultaneous huge lawsuits in the US against the manufacturer of the vaccine (in the unlikely event a manufacturer can even be induced to make it in the first place).
John Moore, you make some good points but perhaps you should read the articles that Ron posted above and see that their are real scientific reasons why you can’t just call people who are worried about MMR shots idealogues. I know there are people who hate vaccinations for crazy reasons. But that doesn’t mean everyone does. The history of the MMR vaccination seems to be littered with analysis done by individuals with clear conflicts of interest. And even the people who don’t think there is anything wrong with MMR have studies that in the end say “needs further study.” The central issue here is wether these individuals should be FORCED to take this vaccine for a desease that is rarely fatal. If some individuals choose not to because of effects they deam to be of greater risks than the measels, then it’s just wrong to force them to do so. You are welcome to say they are wrong, but it reaks of elitism to just say they are superstitious freaks who need to get their ass to the doctor.
“We prefer to take our chances with cholera and the rest rather than be bullied into health,” editorialized the Times in 1853, resisting the first wave of public health reforms. Would Perry prefer that this view had prevailed?
Most people would want to be inoculated… I certainly would. The issue is not inoculation but being forced to do things which may or may not be in your interests.
Perry,
The general issue is wider than that, as a perusal of the comments already made would make clear – it is being forced to do things that may or may not be in your interests, but are in the interests of society as a whole.
But this latest MMR thing is not something to get into too much of a lather about, unless you really are serious about letting the kids decide for themselves. The law only got involved because the parents disagreed. Whichever side of the fence the Judge touched down would have been annoying for those standing on the other side.
Perry, so how would you address the free-rider issue? Vaccines work by making a sufficiently large proportion of the population incapable of spreading the disease. Coverage doesn’t need to be 100%. The bigger the risks of the vaccine, the more seriously the issue is, i.e. the more likely you are to have free-riders.
So what do you do about someone like me, who is well aware that getting my child vaccinated is not about protecting my child from the disease, its about protecting everybody elses child? (Yes, I’m aware this argument is weak when it comes to Rubella, but I’m thinking specifically of Measles)
I know the risks of MMR are low, but were they higher, I would be seriously tempted to free-ride, because free-riding is to my personal benefit and I know its an almost risk free strategy for me, especially if most people are generally ignorant about how vaccines really work.
In a reasonable social system, it would be impossible to get affordable health care cover if you are not inoculated against certain things and impossible to get a school to admit a child un-inoculated against a list of nasty things, impossible to get a job because employers will not hire you.
Eventually such refuseniks will either succumb to the pressure or end up living in areas where such concerns are less widely held if they really don’t want to get a jab but rather like being able to make a living. None of that requires the violence of the state threatening people with jail if they do not comply. The only reason the ‘free-rider’ problem even occurs to you is that the state stops those things from happening by crowding out social solutions by imposing state mandated solutions to problems.
Some degree of state mandated behaviour is fine in a crisis such as a plague or a war but if that logic is applied when there is not a crisis, then where does it stop? The precautionary principle is not a slippery slope, it is a cliff.
Perry,
I must be missing vital point here, but I can’t see a whole lot of difference between the state forcing me to something and the state making normal life practically impossible for me if I don’t.
Besides, all this is a long way from the actuality regarding MMR jab in the UK, which is not compulsory anyway.
So . . . did we ever find out whether Leo Blair had his MMR?
(I had mine in 1984, and I developed learning disabilities. It’s affected my life to a large degree – the “there-are-no-conclusive-links” brigade really make me sick. I have no way of knowing whether I would have developed my disabilities had I not had the MMR jab. I don’t feel that is fair.)
By the way, the father of one of these children is a convicted sex offender. That’s right, our courts decided that a pervert knows what’s best for a child.
Russ Goble: “On the question of vaccine profitability, Bacillus notes that vaccines are less profitable because they are used only once as opposed to medications that can be given to patients repeatedly. That’s not a very good example. Drugs that are given repeatedly are only given to those that are sick. Vaccines are meant to be given to EVERYONE regardless of whether they are sick or not.”
Russ, I don’t want to veer too far off into a discussion of pharma economics, in part because I am not a pharma professional, but I think that a little simple math easily refutes this assertion, and the broader assertion that there’s a huge financial incentive for introducing new vaccinations.
You’re using the wrong definition of “sick people.” 10M Americans have diabetes. They will never be cured; they must take their maintenance meds day after day, year after year. If we put them all on Actos, which I recall is about $150/month, then we’re looking at a maximum theoretical market for that product of $18B/yr. If a patient takes Actos for 30 years, the lifetime value of that customer is a staggering $54,000/customer/product.
Now look at vaccines. Each year 4M babies are born in America. If we vaccinate them all at $10/shot, and 1 shot/lifetime, we’re looking at a maximum market for that vaccine product of $40M/yr, and a lifetime customer value of $10/customer/product.
For other chronic conditions the numbers are similar: 23% of Americans ages 20-74 have hypertension. That’s, um, perhaps 40M people. They will never be cured, but their condition can be treated with regular medication. So again we’re looking at a pill a day, every day for thirty years. Do the math, Russ.
Given a choice between introducing a new vaccine and a new maintenance drug, why would any manufacturer in his right mind choose vaccines? Or consider Viagra or Minoxidil or Botox, which aren’t even for sick people — they’re entirely lifestyle drugs. The money is not in giving two vaccinations instead of one; the money is in developing whole new categories of drugs that people will happily take every single day of their lives. Even vitamins: Centrum costs around $0.10/tablet/day. Over an 80-year lifetime, that’s $2,900!
Perry:
In a reasonable social system, it would be impossible to get affordable health care cover if you are not inoculated against certain things and impossible to get a school to admit a child un-inoculated against a list of nasty things, impossible to get a job because employers will not hire you.
I hope this was intended as heavy irony.
In case it wasn’t: Even if the state doesn’t set these ciriteria for social exclusion, a system in which there is voluntary collective compulsion to conformity–as I take Perry’s comment to be suggesting–doesn’t sound a particularly reasonable one to me. It isn’t much different from state compulsion either.
Arbitrarily substitute other voluntary behaviours that don’t directly harm others but might be regarded as having collective disbenefits in some circumstances for “are not inoculated against certain things” and it should be apparent what I mean. And that’s without considering involuntary conditions that fit the same criteria. Let alone allowing for a society where the general understanding of a collective disbenefit extends to “spiritual” or “racial” or “ideological” harms.
The only reason the ‘free-rider’ problem even occurs to you is that the state stops those things from happening by crowding out social solutions by imposing state mandated solutions to problems.
Sorry Perry, but you seem to mis-understand how vaccines control epidemic diseases. Its worth noting that government sell vaccinations by a lie – ‘its about protecting your child from the disease’. This is at best a half-truth.
Vaccines are not 100% effective in stopping you getting a disease (the Measles vaccine is about 95% effective), but they don’t need to be. In order to stop an epidemic disease you need a certain level of immunity in the population. In the USA in the 1990s about 90% vaccine coverage was achieved, which means an immunity rate (in children) of a little more than 85%. This was high enough to almost eliminate Measles, although re-infection occurs from other places. In 1995 there were 42 million Measles cases worldwide, which killed around 1 million people (mortality rates are much lower in the Developed world).
So, if I live in a place with a high vaccine coverage (and are not exposed to specific risk factors), I can safely not immunize my child because I know the risk of epidemic spread is almost zero. If you want to look at this in added value terms, then almost all of the value in immunizing my child accrues to the population as a whole by preventing epidemic spread and almost none to my child by preventing them getting the disease.
I find it difficult to image how a social solution could emerge to solve this, and be as effective as a government forced system. Such solutions did arise locally when smallpox was an epidemic killer, and towns would forceably expel people who had not been innoculated. But this is strictly a local solution and merely exported the problem somewhere else.
Increased insurance rates is not the answer, because I only pay for my child’s insurance and not for the increased health risk of all the other kids. This is a situation where the entire population constitutes a commons, which it is not possible to privatize.
On a slight change of tack, Its quite easy to implement a market-based solution to the problem of people who don’t want to get immunized, although forced participation in the solution is required to make it work. You sell immunization exemptions by highest bid. If the demand is low than the cut-off price is low because these exemptions represent minimal risk (cost). As demand increases the cut-off price for a succesful bid also increases. The monies then go into fund to recompense those who get infected. Of course there is zero chance of this being implemented as governments quite happily allow people to opt out for irrational reasons, e.g. religious reasons, but resort to punishing those who do so for rational reasons and are prepared to pay for the priviledge.
If you don’t own your body any more, what does that say about a “woman’s right to choose” over an abortion?
See
http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/003128.html#003128
Martin,
Smallpox.
==============================
In any case I’m not against individual responsibility when it can be determined which individuals are responsible.
Suppose by not getting immunized a person then helps nature to develop a disease resistant infection. Cost of developing a new vaccine $100 million and up. Cost of getting everyone the new vaccine another $100 million and up. Did I mention the deaths while the new tools are developed and distributed?
Who can afford such risks? Who would do the insurance?
Public health like the military is likely to be a collective responsibility for some time to come.
===============================
Where libertarian thought often fails is their doctrinaire answers to all problems social and political. The left has it’s “Littany” the libs “the Formula”.
The idea of a risk pool for those not vaccinated is a good idea. Until it is implimented compulsory vaccination is a good idea. Why? Because it does the job with minimal intrusion.
In America the problem of vaccination caused problems is indemnified by a government fund. Not too bad for a non-libertarian solution.
In any case I’d say that this particular problem can wait until we get some of the bigger issues cleared up. Like gun prohibition and drug prohibition.
Suppose by not getting immunized a person then helps nature to develop a disease (ed: means vaccine) resistant infection.
While this is a significant risk for any medication that treats or cures an infectious disease, it is not possible for a vaccine to have this effect.
And before anyone points this out – a vaccine could facilitate the spread of a new ‘vaccine-resistant’ strain (we are talking theoretical possibilities here), but its not possible for the vaccine to cause the strain in the first place.
John Durkin:I must be missing vital point here, but I can’t see a whole lot of difference between the state forcing me to something and the state making normal life practically impossible for me if I don’t.
There is a huge difference… my solution does not involve the state at all, just people using their right of free association and dis-association.
Guy Herbert: I hope this was intended as heavy irony.
Nope
In case it wasn’t: Even if the state doesn’t set these ciriteria for social exclusion, a system in which there is voluntary collective compulsion to conformity–as I take Perry’s comment to be suggesting–doesn’t sound a particularly reasonable one to me. It isn’t much different from state compulsion either.
It is considerably different… it just means that if I own a school, I get to choose who I do business with.
Arbitrarily substitute other voluntary behaviours that don’t directly harm others but might be regarded as having collective disbenefits in some circumstances for “are not inoculated against certain things” and it should be apparent what I mean. And that’s without considering involuntary conditions that fit the same criteria. Let alone allowing for a society where the general understanding of a collective disbenefit extends to “spiritual” or “racial” or “ideological” harms.
And that is the difference between when the state does something (there is not escape) and when individuals do something. When the state does it, there is no escape and no legal alternative… when a private group does it, someone else can take a different view without the law stopping them from doing offering to do business with/associate with people others elect not to. It may indicate a person is a small minded bigot but if they want to put outside their school “No Blacks” (or no whites/jews/redheads) then they should be fully entitled to… and thus provide a business opportunity to other more enlightened people to cater to the discriminated group.
And that is the difference between when the state does something (there is not escape) and when individuals do something. When the state does it, there is no escape and no legal alternative… when a private group does it, someone else can take a different view without the law stopping them from doing offering to do business with/associate with people others elect not to. It may indicate a person is a small minded bigot but if they want to put outside their school “No Blacks” (or no whites/jews/redheads) then they should be fully entitled to… and thus provide a business opportunity to other more enlightened people to cater to the discriminated group.
Perry, in many situations I would agree with you, but immunisations are the worst situation I can think of, to apply this principle.
Prior to immunisations there were many attempts to control epidemic diseases, and in comparison to vaccinations, all were disruptive, expensive and didn’t work very well. The recent SARS outbreak showed the costs of trying to control an infectious disease without a vaccine.
Compared to all alternatives, vaccines against infectious diseases work amazingly well, assuming you get sufficient coverage of the population. Using the power of the state to ensure that coverage seems to me to be an obvious legitimate use of the state’s power. Frankly, its a no-brainer when you look at all the other questionable stuff that governments do.
I’ll accept that sometime in the future there may be a viable alternative to vaccines, but right now arguing that free markets/associations will produce a better solution, is akin to arguing they will produce a perpetual motion machine (and I don’t entirely discount that they might). In the mean time, real people want real outcomes, and vaccines deliver, if there is sufficient coverage. And I personally am prepared to coerce my fellow citizens who put me and my family risk because they are just too ignorant to understand this (or they deliberately free-ride). And I hasten to add, I don’t include you in this category. I think you are taking a sound principle and trying to apply it where other considerations need to be used to decide.
Just a thought, fluoride in water does make the dirnker docile, but their is little empirical eveidence of the benefit to teeth…
True story: There was a little girl whose asthma got so bad and who had to take so many drugs to control it that her immune system collapsed. During that time period, her classmates and their parents were informed that any exposure to any illness, even a cold, could potentially kill her. Some children came to class sick anyway and the girl was taken to a large near city to get very expensive gamma globulin shots to give her temporary protection. (Happy ending: the girl is now a reasonably healthy teen whose immune system has mostly rebuilt itself.) (Also note that the girl in question was not in school very much herself due to her medical problems.)
Why do I relate this? Maybe because the parents who sent their children to school sick had been told the consequences of such an action, but decided that the chance of that girl dying was outweighed by some other reason. While they did not deliberately set out to cause pain or death to someone else, their actions could have had that effect and they had been told that, though they may not have truly understood it.
Which means I don’t know. I don’t think that people who refuse to get their kids vaccinated are being malicious. I think they might be misinformed (correlation does not equal causation) and I don’t want to live near them, but mostly I just… don’t… get it.
B. Durbin: I think they might be misinformed (correlation does not equal causation) and I don’t want to live near them, but mostly I just… don’t… get it.
What don’t you get? I don’t want to get infected by some idiot who is phobic about jabs either but there are ways of going about this that do not involved the violence backed pre-emption of ownership of the inside of other people’s bodies. I do not want to live in an uninocculated society any more than you do but… To quote Bastiat:
The remark applies as much to other forms of statism as well. The state is not the only way to deal with a problem such as this, it is just a matter of not preventing property and business owners from having the right to freely associate and dis-associate.