This is a far more complex issue than it appears. Don't dismiss it derisively, as if only an idiot could disagree with you. (Not speaking to anyone in particular) (Also not saying I support this position)

Edit... ...I guess this is the last time I try to express an unpopular opinion in comments. Ironic that it's an opinion I don't even hold. Groupthink yay rah rah rah!! :)

It would be OK if you were to refuse vaccinations and only you had to bear the costs of that decision: You get sick, you die, the end.

That is not the case here. There are, potentially, huge external costs to your decision. You may get sick and infect others with poor immune systems. Other people might die.

I think a good comparison here would be parents who expose their children to second hand smoke. Sure, it's your choice to smoke, and if you get sick or die from smoking, fine. But when you force others to bear the consequences of your decisions, and impact their health, well, that isn't fair and it shouldn't be legal to do so.

EDIT:

First, most of these parents are not making this decision for religious reasons any more than they are not eating gluten for religious reasons.

Additionally, hiding behind religious expression/freedom is BS. There are plenty of religious practices that would be illegal if followed. I know it's cool to be PC, but you need to stop somewhere. If a religion promoted cannibalism or human sacrifice, we certainly wouldn't allow that, would we?

How does the expected value of that harm (probability assessment) compare to the expected value of harm from secondhand smoke? What about the harm from wood fireplaces? What about swimming pools and trampoline and the probability of injury or death from both?

All I'm saying is, some of the commenters in this thread are (in my opinion) being just as irrational and hyperbolic as the anti-vaccine crowd. (Especially the people replying to me playing devil's advocate). For example the one comparing it to drunk driving. And it's a shame.

I don't think anyone is being irrational or hyperbolic. I think it is irrational to compare antivaccinationism with anticircumcisionism. That is just outlandish.

I'm not suggesting only one child in the world is unvaccinated, that would be absurd.

I'm suggesting that if the unvaccinated child never contracts the disease, then there's no harm, right? And if the unvaccinated kid gets it, but doesn't pass it to anybody, no harm no foul again. (To others, that is, which is what we're really discussing as far as first amendment limits right? My fist-throwing rights ends just before your nose)

So what I'm saying is, it's difficult to quantify the expected value of real-life situations because there are so many variables and direct and indirect effects, and because of that difficulty it's easy for many people to ignore relative probability altogether and go with their gut reaction, and that's a mistake, because the relative probability of harm coming from a person choosing not to vaccinate their child is a relatively rare event... and so in light of other very rare events, that we nevertheless do not have much of a problem with (like allowing families with children to have wood fireplaces or trampolines or swimming pools), then maybe, just MAYBE, parents who don't vaccinate are not really that harmful and it's not worth overriding individual choice, even though we all agree that the smart choice is to vaccinate.

Any better?

I'd love you see you quantify the relative probability of all those events with your "math" though, since you say it's so easy. :)

I'm not saying 'screw vaccination deniers', I think we should have this conversation.

My position is simply that your rights end where mine begin.

This isn't like teaching alternatives to evolution in public school. If you don't want to believe in evolution, it irks me, but that doesn't really hurt me.

People can die when others refuse vaccination for bogus reasons. Even if it isn't readily quantifiable, I think many would agree with that statement.

If enough people start refusing vaccinations, it is reasonable to expect that a LOT of people could get very sick and many could die.

>What about the harm from wood fireplaces?

There are regulations in populated areas. The Bay Area has 'Spare the Air' laws

>What about swimming pools and trampoline and the probability of injury or death from both?

There are laws requiring fences around pools. And home insurance rates skyrocket when either of those is present.

What about where your rights might begin? I'm thinking of the dangers of alcohol, drugs, etc. where my use doesn't guarantee causing you trouble, but it definitely increases the likelyhood - much like not gettig vaccinated.

If you 'cause me trouble' on drugs/alcohol, that is a decision you are making as an individual. If you drink and drive, if you punch me, you are actively choosing to cause harm.

Being drunk or high isn't really a valid excuse for bad behavior or committing crimes.

This part contains an error.

Herd immunity is important because not all vaccinations are 100% effective. So, when there is an outbreak some of the people who are vaccinated will be at risk.

But how do you quantify it? How much harm is caused to herd immunity by 1 more child not getting vaccinated?

Herd immunity is a threshold. For measles (which is highly contagious) it is generally accepted to be between 82% and 94%[1].

What is the expected value of that -- the probability that the disease for which the vaccine is available actually occurs in such a way that the voluntarily-nonvaccinated person contracts it and then passes it on to someone who is involuntarily nonvaccinated?

In a non-vaccinated population, a single case of measles can be expected to infect 12 to 18 people[2].

In the recent Disneyland incident, 3 people were vaccinated and caught it (because the vaccine is only 97% effective - less if you have only received the first dose). 2 children who were infected were too young to receive the vaccine[3][4].

32 people were infected in total.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number

[3] http://www.wired.com/2015/01/vaccinated-people-get-measles-d...

[4] http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/disneyland-mea...

Then there is a set of people who can't get the vaccine for various reasons. The most obvious of these are very young infants, but it also includes elderly people who didn't get it when they were young as well as suffers of various diseases. Then there are people with depleted immune systems (chemo patients etc) who are vulnerable to diseases even if they are immunised.

It seems likely this set of people adds up to between 1% and 2%.

That drops it to 2-3%.

Personally, I don't believe a model as simple as a % is likely to be workable in a school. If one of those 7% happens to sit beside him in every single class, the odds are going to defy the 'threshold' very quickly.

This was only a case because one child had a medical reason to not be medicated, but in consequence, you know, that child could also get other people sick, and heaven forbid there are two special exceptions in one school.

The measles vaccine is actually one of the most effective vaccines in the world. According to Greg Wallace, lead of the measles, mumps, rubella and polio team at the CDC, two doses are 97 percent effective against infection.... But in some people, that response just doesn’t happen. No one knows why. Either your body doesn’t produce enough antibodies, or the ones it does produce aren’t specific enough to latch on to the virus and kill it.... even with two doses, you can get some failure,” says Wallace, “whether it’s because the initial response isn’t perfect, or because the response waned in some people.”[1]

The sad thing is that once the numbers of unvaccinated people goes up, really infectious diseases like measles are transmitted to those who have the misfortune of having an ineffective vaccine much more often:

If you have a group of 1,000 people concentrated in a small space—like oh, say, hypothetically, an amusement park—about 90 percent of them will be vaccinated (hopefully). One person, maybe someone who contracted measles on a recent trip to the Philippines, moves around, spreading the virus. Measles is crazy contagious, so of the 100 people who aren’t vaccinated, about 90 will get infected. Then, of the 900 people who are vaccinated, 3 percent—27 people—get infected because they don’t have full immunity.[1]

[1] http://www.wired.com/2015/01/vaccinated-people-get-measles-d...

I'm from New Hampshire and we are, by law, required to have vaccines up to date before attending the first day of school (http://www.procon.org/sourcefiles/New-Hampshire-vax-req.pdf). I've never understood why all states don't require this.

It makes perfect sense to me that people might be a little bit concerned about the precedent of allowing the state to mandate that they undergo a medical procedure.

It surprises me that people worry about freedom issues around being forced to have medical insurance, surely being compelled by law to be vaccinated is more worrying.

Bodily integrity is normally regarded as a fairly key right, and the idea that I should be held responsible for what the microorganisms in my body do later (which some in this discussion are arguing) seems pretty crazy to me.

Having an unvaccinated child in public is endangering the lives of others and should be treated as such.

Home schooling your child will not cause an epidemic.

Its really only vaccination or lack thereof which has far reaching consequences.

Religious beliefs can logically be made of exactly the set of any possible utterance. A religious belief can easily be that you don't believe people of a certain race should exist or what have you. Do we call that "complex" issue and just let be simply because it is the result of a religious utterance? No, that's ridiculous. In order to have a functioning society we must be pragmatic and not limit the scope of how religious utterances affect society as a whole.

As far as your "conscientious objector" example, do you seriously think that in a situation where a truly significant percentage of people held that view AND it was tolerated by society that a country such as the US with its constitution that you are citing could exist? Sure, since it is an insignificant number then it is accepted and has no appreciable effect on society but if it meant that the country would not be able to sustain a military, things would be quite different.

Things are more complex but not because we can simply cite religious utterances willy-nilly but because we want to sustain societies and there must be a level of cooperation among individuals.

1. Conflating things like circumcision and home schooling with vaccination. While there may be an argument for circumcision and against home schooling, it is a far cry from the arguments that support vaccination and the direct effect that vaccination has on the global - not just local - community.

2. The suggestion that religious freedoms extend beyond a single person. It's really not that complex of an issue: do what you want as long as it doesn't have a direct negative impact on those around you. If that involves cheering for Jesus, praying five times a day, not eating meat on Friday or not working on the Sabbath, go for it. But the moment religious elements start to negatively impact others, including elements like restrictions of free speech, slavery and FGM, we see it as immoral and extending beyond religious freedom. In this case, by not vaccinating your child, you are potentially (and very likely to be) putting your child and others through harm, making it less of a religious issue and much more of an issue of blatant negligence.

Specifically, (1) I am comparing them, but I am not conflating them. I never said they were all the same thing, I just said they were all viewed as protected religious actions by some people. And (2), as I mentioned in my other reply, nonvaccination does not have a direct negative impact on those around you. It does have an indirect negative impact, but so does secondhand smoke, wood smoke from a wood fireplace, smog from living in an urban area, or just the risk from driving a car. You can't really declare nonvaccination to be indisputable evil without comparing the probabilities to actions and circumstances that may be just as harmful but which we allow.

Sure I can. That's just another version of the "we shouldn't go into space before we solve world hunger" argument.

Even though smog is a larger and more pernicious problem, we should still try to solve the smaller problems that come behind it.

(and, of course, I don't think anybody is saying nonvaccination is indisputable evil. I assume that's hyperbole)

http://jurist.org/paperchase/2015/01/federal-appeals-court-u...

The NPR article seems to discuss a father specifically attacking the personal belief exemption in California, so I don't see how the NY court's ruling would change that?

Before the obvious objection, there are plenty of examples of people who try to create a special purpose religion to get around some or other rule, and only a few cases where it has actually worked.

Also as the top level poster alludes to the second circuit recently ruled that the religious exemption is not constitutionally required. Phillips v City of New York (http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-2nd-circuit/1688862.html).

I think I found the judicial vernacular of "lol, no":

  Plaintiffs finally seek succor in the Ninth Amendment. 
  But, we have held, “[t]he Ninth Amendment is not an
  independent source of individual rights.” 
  Because plaintiffs fail plausibly to allege a violation 
  of any other constitutional right, their effort to 
  recast their unsuccessful claims as a violation of the 
  Ninth Amendment also fails.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/23/nyregion/judge-upholds-pol...

[1] http://crcc.usc.edu/resources/demographics/marin.html

But, as they say, people will believe despite evidence or overwhelming evidence to the contrary. One can excuse religious people on the basis that their belief is based in faith rather than interpreting the data their way. What happens in Marin, among other places, is that people believe despite data showing otherwise.

In other words, people in Marin aren't saying, well, but I have faith that vaccines are bad, no they're saying we believe data says vaccines are bad. It's incomprehensible.

It's very accessible, and doesn't simply dismiss those who are anti-vaccine. Of course as with many NOVA episodes this one is fascinating regardless of your viewpoint.

Also not mentioned, the fact that government vaccination programs in Africa are thought to be one of the key elements behind HIV becoming a global epidemic. Or the fact that vaccine makers are frequently indemnified from safety lawsuits.

I'm not saying that vaccines are a net negative, but the idea that all the problems with vaccines are somehow magically explained away by 'science' seems disingenuous. This program does mention that vaccines aren't perfect, merely better than the alternative, and yet doesn't even get into any of the real problems.

edit: Even strictly in terms of the science, this doesn't address any of the major open questions. E.g. all of the research I've seen suggests that while getting a flu vaccine makes you less likely to die in the current year, it actually reduces your longterm immunity. (Since flu vaccines only give immunity for a few months, whereas getting the actual flu can confer some resistance for decades.) So what does the risk/benefit look like over the course of a lifetime? Obviously if you're 90 then longterm resistance is irrelevant, but what if you're, say, 20 and in good health?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfdZTZQvuCo

Full vaccination, with only exceptions for medical needs like in the article, would be a forgone conclusion if schools also required any child showing signs of mild illness to be kept out of the general population, likely at home.

People can't deny their children the care and proximity necessary to comfort when the child is ill. This means that children, who are disinclined or too naive to understand how to minimize illness are sent to mix with many other children every day. Every night, they come home and can carry an infection into an entire house.

If society were to shift its thinking on rhinovirus, flu, and other "common" illnesses you could likely see a large decline in those. With stronger herd illness-prevention standards of thought and behavior, you could, over time, increase the well-being and productivity of society.

We could learn something from the manners of Japanese and other Asian societies that consider it selfish and inconsiderate to not wear masks and take inordinate precaution in helping not get the people around them sick when they are functional, but not well.

If that were the standard for common illness, then more severe illnesses with moderate to strong vaccines would be more effective (better compliance) and this situation would be less contentious.

Asking the school to be the legal wedge is, sadly, a last ditch effort to do something in an extreme case that should be something that individuals take responsibility for. It shouldn't come to this. Vaccinate responsibly and level-up your herd protection game.

shrug "Kids just get sick all the time. Can't do anything about it." is a horrible cop-out, selfish, lazy, and potentially dangerous to tragic in scale.

I've offered to pay hourly coworkers to go home and NOT stay at work. If I miss a day or few of work being miserable, it's more valuable to my company/employers than the money "handed out." Pay for performance and let sick people rest... or force them to. Sick kids and adults perform poorly and can take down others with them.

There may be some loophole that makes that unenforceable, but I've been asked to get my kids when a fever had returned after we believed they had recovered.

Why are parents of vaccinated kids so terrified of unvaccinated kids??

Does vaccination work or not?

If my kids are vaccinated, doesn't that mean they won't catch the disease if they encounter it? Or, at the worst, get a mild dose.

If vaccination works, why do we care that a small minority aren't vaccinated?

Vaccines don't always take. These people depend on herd immunity - high rates of vaccination in the general population - for protection. Then there are people like the one in the article, kids who cannot be vaccinated. Some have allergies to vaccine ingredients, some have had their immune systems destroyed by chemo. Others are simply too young to have gotten certain vaccines that are given later in life.

> If vaccination works, why do we care that a small minority aren't vaccinated?

Because it only works when enough people get it. 90-95% for many diseases is required, and there are some populations in California where the rates have dropped to the 60s.

edit: Actually, dropped to the 30s-40s, it seems. http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/wealthy-la...

Else this is crazy --and educated people of all people. I can't understand it. It does however, bring their intellect esteem down to earth. What I mean is it highlights that experts can be just as wrong in their conclusion as "nutters".

They did the right thing and unless they had some medical reason not to at the time they got vaccinated. Now what good will it do them with a damaged immune system? What good will it do them if they have not been vaccinated yet due to age.

Then we have a perfectly healthy family who decided that based on advice from their chiropractor/homeopath or some actor that vaccination is a conspiracy by evil big business and government. Besides it is their right not to give a fuck about anyone else. They get a mild sickness from some disease that was effectively non-existent a decade ago and can't understand what the fuss is about as their slightly spotty kids wipe their snot on the door handle. Then your immune compromised loved one comes along.

So: - vaccination isn't perfect in preventing diseases - some people who get vaccinated aren't immune. - in some cases, vaccination may reduce disease strength but not prevent the disease. More unvaccinated kids means greater transmission threat, i.e. greater chance of an illness that, while not as bad, can still be unpleasant. - Afraid parents may have relatives who are immunocompromised, or may be immunocompromised themselves. Vaccinated people may act as short-term carriers, even if they are immune, and unvaccinated kids are more likely to act as a source, so the combination of these can cause immunocompromised people to get sick - Same as previous, but with children too young to be vaccinated (younger siblings)

Immune compromise can come from AIDS, sure, but also cancer, transplant therapy, and other causes.

Yes, some of the fear may be unreasonable - probably being stressed out and sick isn't enough immune compromise to let you get measles (though that's probably) - but enough of it isn't.

Here is a link to a simple explanation.

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/08/27/mixing-unvaccin...

From the linke:

"Here’s the simple answer: Vaccines are not 100% effective. Nothing in medicine is. They may be 99% effective, 95% effective, 90% effective, or even less. By medical standards, any intervention that’s over 90% effective is a pretty darned good intervention, and most vaccines are at least pretty darned good, especially given how rare serious reactions are. But they are not 100% effective, and it is almost as foolish for parents who vaccinate their children to believe that vaccines will be 100% effective in protecting their children as it is for antivaccinationists to believe that vaccines do more harm than good. At the very least, it’s naive. Also, there are children who for health reasons cannot be vaccinated and who thus rely on herd immunity. The larger the population of unvaccinated children, the weaker the herd immunity, and if the percentage of vaccinated children falls below a certain point herd immunity basically collapses."

The science here is so clear. A key point is that children that, in rare cases, cannot be vaccinated for other health reasons can not longer rely on herd immunity because such as what you are advocating for have taken up the madness pitchforks along with Jenny McCarthy to destroy herd immunity.

Vaccination does not confer effective immunity in all those vaccinated. If an outbreak hits a school or day care, the 4 day period in which the infection is contagious before any symptoms appear means that most of the kids will be exposed, and any who are not immunized (either not vaccinated, or vaccination was not effective) are at risk.

I view those who choose not to vaccinate children who could be vaccinated as freeloaders, depending on the rest of us to provide group immunity to protect their children. For those for whom it is a personal preference or belief, rather than part of a religious practice, I wish they would choose to accept their share of the risks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity

By choosing not to be vaccinated, you put those at risk who cannot receive a vaccination for legitimate reasons.

If unvaccinated kids are rare, then they're safe because any disease outbreaks quickly stop and don't spread; but if the rate of unvaccinated kids is above a certain threshold then they are at a serious risk.

Second, to address this question in the context of the article that you're commenting on, the child in question is not vaccinated.

However some individuals cannot be immunised, such as the child linked in the article who could not be immunised due to a weak immune system. Also, children under the minimum age to be safely vaccinated rely on herd immunity to stay safe. Having everyone in the community vaccinated makes it much less likely that these infections will spread from outside and put the weaker members of the community at risk.

I also know of a case where a child got an illness it was vaccinated against due to a generally weak immune system (induced by a heart disease and several surgeries).

That and wtf's the use of flu shots if they give you last year's influenza strain which will do nothing for this year's?

If your aim is to protect children by increasing the numbers of vaccinated children it's important not to use mockery or ridicule. Those are the wrong tools.

When education fails, when facts fail, when logic and reason fail, you're left with mockery and/or ridicule.

Totally cool with it. It's fun, and gives you a smug feeling that is unfortunately also fun. But I don't let myself think I'm doing anything other than throwing in the towel in trying to help this other inhabitant of our rock.

Once I frame it that way to myself, I find myself either continuing to try or completely ignoring the other person.

Emotional influences like skepticism, fear, frustration, and community seem to be the main drivers for not vaccinating your kids. It may be that the best way to combat that sentiment is through emotions. Maybe it takes tactics similar to anti abortion groups? Should we be standing in communities with big posters of dead kids?

Interesting that you picked abortion as an example. Those placards of gruesome images - do they change anyone's opinion? Or do they strengthen existing viewpoints? The people who are anti-abortion see the images and can't understand how anyone could want an abortion afterwards. People who are pro-choice see the placards and think the pro-life people are viciously anti-woman.

There is a group in the middle who might be swayed, but those people can be reached with calm language. In this analogy the placard-wielders are the "anti-vaxxers".

I guess I'm trying to say that mockery and ridicule are using emotion to try to change behaviours, but they create the wrong emotions and are counter-productive. We want people to feel welcomed, understood, supported, etc, while we're trying to change their mind.

" Once upon a time, there was a racist tree. Seriously, you are going to hate this tree. High on a hill overlooking the town, the racist tree grew where the grass was half clover. Children would visit during the sunlit hours and ask for apples, and the racist tree would shake its branches and drop the delicious red fruit that gleamed without being polished. The children ate many of the racist tree's apples and played games beneath the shade of its racist branches. One day the children brought Sam, a boy who had just moved to town, to play around the racist tree. "Let Sam have an apple," asked a little girl. "I don't think so. He's black," said the tree. This shocked the children and they spoke to the tree angrily, but it would not shake its branches to give Sam an apple, and it called him a nigger. "I can't believe the racist tree is such a racist," said one child. The children momentarily reflected that perhaps this kind of behavior was how the racist tree got its name. It was decided that if the tree was going to deny apples to Sam then nobody would take its apples. The children stopped visiting the racist tree. The racist tree grew quite lonely. After many solitary weeks it saw a child flying a kite across the clover field. "Can I offer you some apples?" asked the tree eagerly. "Fuck off, you goddamn Nazi," said the child. The racist tree was upset, because while it was very racist, it did not personally subscribe to Hitler's fascist ideology. The racist tree decided that it would have to give apples to black children, not because it was tolerant, but because otherwise it would face ostracism from white children. And so, social progress was made. "

There are broadly speaking three groups of people.

i) those who get vaccinations

ii) those who are unsure

iii) those who are anti vaccination

People sometimes assume that the people in group ii and in group iii and are deluded idiots who ignore all the evidence. Let's look at a real example of mass non-vaccination -- the MMR Autism hoax.

This involved a real but corrupt scientist who wrote a scientific paper but used faked data and published that paper in a respected medical journal, although they later withdrew it. That's not people believing in Unicorns! That's people thinking there's some scientific reason not to get that vaccination. Newspapers with their terrible reporting of science fed that fear. When the paper was retracted by the journal people don't know if that's because it's true but there's a technicality, or if it's false. At the point people were not aware of Andrew Wakefield's criminal corrupt behaviour.

Now try putting yourself in their position. Remember that Wakefield is still a scientist at that point; that although the paper is retracted you didn't know about the faked data. You have a bunch of your friends worried about whether they should get that vaccine or not, or whether they should get single vaccines instead of MMR. There are starting to be conflicting stories in the newspapers. And then, a group starts a website and members of that group start calling you a fucking idiot for even considering not vaccinating your child. They compare you to flat earthers and Yeti-watchers and alien abduction kooks. You know you're not like that, so already you've started to reject what they're saying. Some of your friends are sympathetic to you, reinforcing your doubts with phrases like "maybe there's nothing to it, but look at Bob - he was fine, he got the vaccine, and now he's Autistic" or "maybe there isn't anything to it but measles isn't that bad and do you really want to risk Autism" (and remember weak anecdotal evidence is rife on HN; and at least on HN user has suggested that measles isn't that serious).

I believe that mockery here pushes people away from information about vaccination and towards misinformation.

This example is tricky because of "hindsight bias". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias

This is the best document about the crook Andrew Wakefield - http://tallguywrites.livejournal.com/148012.html

You might say that if you focus the mocking on group iii that people in group ii would want to avoid them. I think that people in group ii would feel themselves to be the target.

Also don't forget that people are not rational even when they claim to be. There are a bunch of areas where the science is very much clearer than in the early days of MMR (climate change) and you still have denialists who trot out arguments created by shills paid by a few large companies - the same shills that were used by the tobacco industry using the same tactics that delayed smoking controls for so long.

Those later generations are easier to vaccinate if they haven't been subjected to years of mocking.

I mean, if herd immunity is the argument here, then why not go the whole hog?

Then a bunch of selfish ignorant hippies decided, based on their limited experience of living in a society protected by vaccination, that disease was a problem for poor foreign people and they didn't need it. While an outbreak might kill off the DNA of these people and their offspring and improve the gene pool it might also do some collateral damage. There are some legitimate reasons people have not been vaccinated and as vaccination simply strengthens the immune response it is more effective for some people than others.

You would hate to run into a coughing wheezing infected family of alternative medicine believers on the week you took a shot depressing your immune system to fight your crippling auto-immune disease or protect your transplanted organ from rejection regardless of your vaccination status.

My main disagreement is chicken pox. Yes, I understand that there are serious chicken pox cases, but they're incredibly rare. Whoever made the decision to include the chicken pox vaccine on the list weighed a very rare risk for unvaccinated children against even smaller risks for vaccinated children, and decided to require the vaccine. That's a rational decision, but I would prefer if I were allowed to weigh benefits and risks myself.

I took a quick look at the CDC page about it and the wikipedia entry. According to wikipedia before the vaccine was introduced in the US 10k people a year were admitted to a hospital due to chicken pox and 100 people a year died from it. It goes on to say that 10 years after the CDC recommended the vaccine the hospital admissions dropped by 71% for people under 20 and deaths dropped 97%.

Neither of those sources had numbers for the moderate or severe reactions cause by the vaccine (seizures,pneumonia) the CDC just says very rare. Overall though it seems like there is essentially no downside.

Now that I just looked all that up maybe my issue is when you claim that they "weighed a very rare risk for unvaccinated children against even smaller risks for vaccinated children" and go on to agree that was a rational decision. At that point wouldn't not being immunized just be irrational?

If 100 people die out of 10000 that are hospitalized, the danger of death from people who have an unusually bad infection is only 1%, meaning the risk for the general public is significantly less.

But I'll admit my grandparents lived in a time where they knew large numbers of people suffered through measles, mumps or reubela. If they had the same "I lived through it" attitude I have, those diseases would be much more common today.

But, still, I have a hard time telling my kids that they have to get this specific vaccine so they can avoid the horrors of spending a week or two covering themselves with calamine lotion, with a small risk of something worse happening.

Certainly going from 100-150 deaths a year to fewer than 10 is a significant improvement, and the 90-140 people who survive each year who wouldn't are grateful (or would be, if they knew what the alternative was). But we are talking about a very small risk.

Still, the CDC's page for the chicken pox vaccine doesn't mention its effect on shingles ( http://www.cdc.gov/chickenpox/vaccination.html ), which suggests to me that avoiding shingles may be a great perk, it isn't the main reason behind requiring vaccination in school children.

With the caveats of believing Wikipedia, Wikipedia's page ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varicella_vaccine ) states both that being vaccinated reduces (but does not eliminate) the risk of shingles, and that vaccination of children raises the risk of shingles in unvaccinated adults slightly because the adults don't come into contact with the virus as often (near the end of the subsection on "Rates of immunity" and the second paragraph of the subsection "Rates of chickenpox").

Your case of shingles may, in fact, have been caused by widespread vaccination of children (I would expect that problem to disappear after a long transition; and, of course, it's impossible to say if your case was caused by this transition, but it's certain that some cases are).

Some deaths from chickenpox continue to occur in healthy, unvaccinated children and adults. Many of the healthy adults who died from chickenpox contracted the disease from their unvaccinated children."

quoted from http://www.cdc.gov/chickenpox/about/complications.html

I assumed and thought the same as you, that once you got chicken pox then the vaccine for shingles is useless.

The link above states "This vaccine works by boosting the body's natural defense (immunity) against the zoster virus so that symptoms of shingles do not develop. It should not be used for treating active shingles, nerve pain caused by shingles, or for the prevention of chickenpox.

This vaccine should not be used in children."

Just prior to rearing its ugly blisters, were you stressed physically, emotionally, and/or mentally? From my understanding shingles is able to come out when the immune system is weak/compromised, often times to due high stress levels. I know when my showed up I was extremely stressed.

I know a few others who have had shingles in their late 20's early 30's too. Not sure if it's becoming more prevalent or just more recognized/talked about but I think people should be more informed to recognize early symptoms so as to treat it ASAP.

For others reading, when my shingles showed up I recall a funny tingling sensation which after a few days turned into more of a burning sensation. You will only feel it on one side of your body. My singles came out around the S2 and S3 dermatomes (http://webpresencepartners.com/wp-content/uploads/cssmap/201...) on my right side. If hurt to sit, it hurt to stand, it hurt to move... but it went away after only a few days thank goodness! Shingles often starts presenting itself in one of two dermatomes. If you're not familiar with dermatomes I suggest you due a quick five minute search and read on them.

ADD: Good info: http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/shingles/n...

People shouldn't be afforded leeway because of their own ignorance. Not vaccinating your child is ignorant and dangerous. I don't think there should be a religious exemption either, but I'm a raging atheist so shrug.

Also, I thought vaccination works? If so, what does it matter if another child is or isn't vaccinated? This child is a special case, and he is also a temporary case. It's because HE cannot be vaccinated. It's silly because if there were another special case at the school, then it would be untenable.

Are you upset about this? I'm not sure why the anti-vaccination crowd isn't more upset about this -- but bite my tongue, I'm sure it'll be coming next.

You can always make a slippery slope argument, but public educational institutions seem like a pretty appropriate place to require vaccinations.

Then again, why not legislate that every kid period is vaccinated (unless health conditions prevent it), really, why not?

The "why not," for me, is if someone truly believes a vaccine is harmful, maybe due to religion or because she's a researcher that believes there is some second order risk (founded or not), it's immoral to force them to do so.

Where does preference end? If there's a boy in a kindergarten with severe peanut allergy, should the class snack be peanuts one a day week? After all, the kid can stay home that day?

Read the story of FDR's struggle with polio. Or the death and disfigurement dealt out by smallpox. Or the kids bedridden for weeks with measles in the 50s. Taking safe, effective measures to eradicate these things isn't "ridiculous regulation"... It's a service to humanity.

Public health is inherently a community thing, cause contagious diseases are transmitted socially, that's just how it works. If everyone who can be vaccinated is, then those who can't are much safer.

There's a pretty large difference.

I don't think it was impoverished illegal immigrants spreading it around at Disneyland.

Wealthy LA schools' vaccination rates have gone lower than South Sudan. Folks from Mexico etc. have seen these diseases in action and are generally quite good at getting vaccinated. http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/wealthy-la...

Locking them up in confined detention facilities for months on end to fuel some political game doesn't help.

All the reasons you list usually account for something like 1-2% of population, and this is enough to have everyone be safe from measles and such. However, in the OP case, "His son attends Reed Elementary in Tiburon, a school with a 7 percent personal belief exemption rate" and that seems to be representative for that part of California. The gap - some 5% of kids - is the result of deliberate, intentional decisions that can be changed.

If most of those intentionally unvaccinated kids would get vaccinated, we could have effective herd immunity for all the kids even if people don't "religiously stay up to date on your boosters" and the borders aren't shut down. Attempting to do the impossible (zero chance of measles brought across border) is not productive, but attempting to vaccinate kids is possible to protect those who can't be vaccinated, such as the kids on cancer chemotherapy or immunosuppresants after organ transplants.

A difference called "life and death".

and legal immigration has vaccination requirements