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[smirk]

Unfortunately they weren't aware of the issue and didn't test people for a genetic predisposition for narcolepsy before handing out the vaccine, so the point stands.

So they can improve the procedure now.

Exactly. It's unfortunate in those cases, but now that it's known people can be screened for the disposition before getting that vaccine and a new vaccine without that risk can most likely be developed. Using cases like that as justification for not getting vaccinated at all is still unacceptable on a societal level.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

The supposed autism-causing mercury-containing preservative has been largely phased out. Unless the concept of "give weakened/dead germs to people, let their immune systems get prepared" itself causes autism, that theory been thoroughly disproven.

SCIENCE. It works, bitches.

The mercury stuff should have been removed anyway, because mercury.

Nonono, the existence of a mercury atom in a molecule isn't necessarily bad. It's fine to be suspicious, but it really wasn't a problem.

[Max™]

Word, every time I think about all the people who should have shoved their fist down that playboy bimbo's throat when she started jabbering I get pissed off, sure it isn't just her, but hey, when you're the public face of a movement that is killing babies through ignorance, you deserve to get punched in the face until the stupid falls out.

Yes, the government forcing morons to vaccinate their children is worth the loss of whatever imagined right to avoid risk anyone might imagine they had. I'm basically an anarchist (naive, "if men were angels, this be heaven" type) but I've got enough socialist in me to appreciate government doing things it does best.

Helping distribute and administer vaccines is something government does well, and yes, if they had to go so far as to mandate it that would seem awful.

Know what is more awful?

[Frumple]

The problem is, how do you ethically test whether vaccines are causing <pick your disease of choice>?

Same way you ethically test anything? It's not like medical science can't give a good shot at that if they feel like it.

Though with vaccines the question is legitimately more if they're stopping what they're aiming for, low-probability problems to be fixed later. Even if it is causing complications, unless said complications are radically more likely than anything we've actually recorded happening it's still entirely worth it. This is one of the few unfortunate issues where personal liberty and incidental body count can get right buggered.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'd like to ask the people posting straight out: do you think that the government should have the right to force everyone to be vaccinated regardless of their wishes?

Yes.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Covenant: If there is a legitimate medical reason not to have a vaccination, then by all means. It's the "muh babies have the ah-tism, must be the vaxeens" people who I mind.

Hey MaxTM, I was just thinking the same thing! Vaccinations are one of the best examples of what the government should do. And the issue with "personal freedom"? Pshaw. Nonsense. If you want to participate in society, you need to get vaccinated (or have a medical reason for not doing so). You could live in the woods...

[smirk]

I'd like to ask the people posting straight out: do you think that the government should have the right to force everyone to be vaccinated regardless of their wishes?

Yup, a-ok with mandatory vaccines.

Of course implementation of such a law would necessarily involve discussion over the extent, for things like: just the major diseases, or should yearly 'flu shots also be mandatory? What about boosters? etc. Also, such a law is entirely unlikely given the current state of US culture. I'd be grumbly but alright with a compromise law along the lines of: vaccines are mandatory if you want your kid enrolled in a public school, or using public buildings/facilities, and private concerns are allowed to enforce same if they so choose.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'd like to ask the people posting straight out: do you think that the government should have the right to force everyone to be vaccinated regardless of their wishes?

Yes.

Then you show a greater faith in the government then I do, both in their competence, dilligence, and intentions. After I heard about shit like the Tuskegee syphilis experiments, or forced hysterectomies and sterilisation of Native Americans, I'd never be comfortable with the state having that much power.

Government malfeasance, how passe.

I don't have faith in the government, but I'm not a conspiracy theorist either. You know what all of those abuses have in common? They were committed against limited groups of people who were not truly looked upon as human beings.

A universal vaccination program does not have this quality. If the government wanted to do some bad shit, they would have done it back when 99% of people were getting vaccinated voluntarily because they actually knew how horrific mass disease was. Hell, most people still get vaccinated voluntarily, but when it's not enough for heard immunity it's not enough.

More importantly, I do not believe every doctor in the world is a cackling villain who intends to use their families and selves as human test subjects in the Whatever Evil Plan, which is a far more pragmatic belief than your silly Faith in the State thing.

Any evil shit the state intends to do, they'll probably work on in, you know, secret? As opposed to as out in the open as possible?

[Max™]

It's a shame that Hillary couldn't simply point out that Trump, despite no doubt being vaccinated against various diseases (bet he has a smallpox scar on his arm) is a hypocrite for seeking the support of antivaxxers.

Just run more commercials with these people saying their stupid shit and that awful fucking sound of a baby wheezing and gasping and coughing. I'd like to do that during a debate. "So, *holds hands up and makes quote marks* 'Dr.' Stein, what is your stance on vaccinations?" Then she says some crap, then for my rebuttal I just hold my phone up to the mic with a baby coughing and glare at her and flip her off.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I just think that the government are fallible, as has been shown in the past in a million ways (the failings of the police have often been discussed here, for example), and I wouldn't want to set the precedent of turning over such a huge chunk of personal responsibility of them. Better to limit the government's power where it isn't necessary to expand it.

It has nothing to do with some sort of 'Hurr durr they're going to put mind control chips in us all' nonsense.

Then fallibility of the government is not what you are questioning here. You are questioning the fallibility of every biologist and pathologist in the world cross-checked against one another. If the government is not malignantly attempting to kill us with something in vaccines, but instead using the products medical science gives and recommends to them, then the only possible danger is if medical science is wrong about vaccines.

And as all history and testing shows, they are not.


As for precedents of personal responsibility, see my previous comments on disease and the social contract. You don't have the right to kill people by being a hive for disease or making others into them. If a viral hemorrhagic fever made landfall in any country free of it or if someone was found with late-stage rabies, the government would even be able to rightfully take away their freedom and imprison them in quarantine to protect everybody else from it spreading.

The pressure-suited CDC workers in movies are the heroes, not the villains.

[SalmonGod]

I'd be grumbly but alright with a compromise law along the lines of: vaccines are mandatory if you want your kid enrolled in a public school, or using public buildings/facilities, and private concerns are allowed to enforce same if they so choose.

This is largely already the case, so far as I'm aware.  Public schools I've enrolled my kids in have demanded vaccination records as part of the process, and Indiana is generally one of the more backwards states..

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Then fallibility of the government is not what you are questioning here. You are questioning the fallibility of every biologist and pathologist in the world cross-checked against one another.

You've mistaken. I'm not arguing against choosing to take vaccines, or their efficiency. All I'm arguing against is the push I'm starting to see in recent years toward making them mandatory and making this enforceable by the government.

That doesn't fit your arguments up until this point. Skepticism of vaccines themselves bereft of scientific support is nothing more than casting undue ignorance on a safe and vital process of our society.

As for allowing the government to enforce it, the only reason it remains semi-mandatory instead of outright mandatory is the numbers of those refusing vaccination. Had people not cooperated with the smallpox vaccination campaign, they would have been forced, and rightfully so (see: social contract). But they did not, because they saw the horrors of disease first hand.

Vaccination refusal rates also went down after the MMR epidemic, because people were exposed to disease again. Conclusion: Everybody not a fanatic believes vaccines and assorted risks are better than disease epidemics when forced to genuinely choose between them. Derealization causes refusal.

Well, if you kill herd immunity that choice will return, and not slowly either. Instead of oscillating back and forth between generations of diseased children and healthy ones, we should obviously choose to enforce now. This is a legitimate interest of both the people collectively and the people individually.

And I'll tell you one other thing: The only "right to refuse" is because it doesn't get all that bad on the large scale most of the time, even though it continues to chip away at individual lives. If you came into a hospital and got diagnosed with early-stage rabies, you can be damn sure you wouldn't be allowed to refuse the vaccine.

If people are vulnerable enough to liars and hucksters that they can't choose to not get children sick or killed when they don't personally witness it, then giving the government the right to force them is an unambiguous good for all humanity.

[Max™]

Note: there are issues MSH and I can't even discuss because it is an endless shitstorm and we're completely in agreement here, cats and dogs living together people.

I'd be grumbly but alright with a compromise law along the lines of: vaccines are mandatory if you want your kid enrolled in a public school, or using public buildings/facilities, and private concerns are allowed to enforce same if they so choose.

This is largely already the case, so far as I'm aware.  Public schools I've enrolled my kids in have demanded vaccination records as part of the process, and Indiana is generally one of the more backwards states..

That is surprisingly impressive, especially considering what a shitbag Pence is, but yeah, I could totally accept that. You want to make use of societal benefits like schooling, public transportation, healthcare, you have to be vaccinated against the awful stuff we don't want society to deal with anymore.

I haven't seen anyone old enough to remember smallpox, polio, or the measles who was a serious antivaxxer. Funny how that works.

[Dostoevsky]

50,000 Americans die of influenza every year, and that number would be damn near 0 if everybody got their fucking flu shots. Imagine what a pile of 50,000 corpses looks like, every year.

Hold on a sec, I thought that due to mutation rate the flu vaccine was decent but not as good/reliable as other vaccination options? Honest question. I am admittedly a person that often doesn't bother paying for the flu shot every year (but otherwise have all my shots). Important enough for me to get off my tush and actually make it a habit now that I have passable medical insurance?

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

You're allowed to drink. You're not allowed to drink and drive.

You're allowed to refuse the vaccine. You're not allowed to refuse the vaccine and then spread your infections to everybody else.