US Vaccine Panel Chair Says Polio and Other Shots Should Be Optional

I think what is missing from every debate about 'freedom to...' is that choices should have consequences. If your unsafe operation of your body (no vaccines when you could have gotten them) injures or kills another person then you should be held accountable. This basic principle, freedom requires responsibility and accountability, is rarely ever brought up. In the US 'freedom' just means freedom from consequences which is wrong. I am more than willing to let someone tote a gun or fail to be vaccinated, but if they do so in a way that actually harms someone then they should be held accountable and the more obvious the danger, and the more reckless the behavior, the more severe the penalty. You think not vaccinating is the right choice despite the mountains of evidence otherwise? When you get sick your insurance can deny all claims. If you infect someone else they can claim damages or criminally prosecute you for assault. That is actual freedom.

Note that vaccines are optional in Sweden, and not required for attendance in public schools: https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/the-public-health-agency...

So you’re correct that, for vaccine proponents, framing this issue properly is key. If you frame it in terms of mandates and dismiss optionality out of hand, it’s a lay-up for right-wing Tik Tok to come back with “they’re more left wing than Sweden.” (Disclosure: Despite being a right winger, I would be fine with holding people down and vaccinating them.)

Of course there’s relevant differences. Swedes are culturally orderly and most Americans aren’t. Sweden has a 97% vaccination rate even with voluntary programs. But you have to confront that issue head on and deal with it.

“to what extent should public and private institutions be expected to accommodate people who, for no other reason than ignorance, choose to opt out of the collective responsibility to public health?”

Before we can answer that, we would have to define the risks.

For example, the polio vaccine has no logical basis for being mandatory in the US. The requirement of the polio in the US has no basis in science and it goes against the stated purpose of the recommendations as it does not weigh risks and benefits. Instead, it is an ideological stance. Polio has been eradicated from the US (except for cases caused by vaccines themselves) and most of the rest of the world. You could require it for travel to/from risky locations. We know that severe adverse affects vastly out number the cases of Polio in the US.

In New York State USA your child must be vaccinated to attend public school: https://www.health.ny.gov/prevention/immunization/schools/sc...

So far, this hasn’t been overturned by the courts. It’s been in place for a few years now.

If someone doesn't get a vaccination, and as a result gets infected, and then as a result passes the disease to someone else, then this should be treated as equivalent to harming someone by causing an accident through reckless driving.

What is needed here are laws making it a crime to conceal that you have or had a communicable disease, so infections can be tracked and fault determined.

> accommodate people who, for no other reason than ignorance,

If your “reasoning” relies upon the other people being “dumb” or “cruel” or <insert-your-invective>, you are almost certainly falling short of understanding why the controversy persists.

You're right to intuit that the framing doesn't make sense. The source article clarifies that, when regime officials say "optional", what they actually mean is that they deny any collective responsibility for public health. The opinion of this "vaccine panel chair" is that you should not be permitted to exclude unvaccinated children from anything for any reason.

He explicitly acknowledges that this will lead to more children getting tragic and preventable diseases, to be clear. There's no dispute about that. He's just decided that sacrificing those children is worth it for the sake of medical autonomy.

Optional often means not covered by health insurance

Vaccines aren’t perfect, and the inaction of others can cause extreme adverse impacts on everyone due to total vaccination rate falling below herd immunity levels.

It’s just like taxes.

> no other reason than ignorance

Well, speaking of ignorance!

Vaccines are not perfectly safe. All medicine can harm, and vaccines are no exception. Mandating dozens of vaccines to billions of children is forcing parents, under threat of state-sponsored violence, to injure their children.

There are 10s of thousands of VAERS cases in the US per year. Now multiply that by 20 and we're in the ballpark for number of children youre so cavalierly arguing to force harm upon.

Now, there are diseases where vaccines make sense. However, the blanket statement "inject into your newborn whatever the government tells you" is pretty obviously stupid in my opinion; there are plenty of cases of known-toxins taking years to get removed from market with no corporate repercussions - the incentive structures arent perfect. See DDT, leaded gasoline, asbestos, Teflon, uranium mill tailings, cases too numerous to mention. However much you trust the government to do their best, there are agile corporations getting paid handsomely to outmaneuver them.

For my children, we make a disease-by-disease risk/reward determination and do a slower schedule once they're a little older.

The line is whatever's trendy on conservative tiktok. The right has no real project for healthcare in this country, they don't care about any actual issues. The only thing they can do is populist shit: inserting raw milk in the food pyramid, banning vaccines, and whatever their mentally ill influencers will talk about next.

> The title seems pretty click-bait. If you read the article the argument isn't that vaccines don't work or that not vaccinating may increase disease and deaths. It's that our personal freedoms should still win.

Freedom is all well and good, but what about responsibility? Are you not (partially) responsible for keeping the community you live in safe?

In the US you were born into free and working society because those before you took responsibility to make it so: should you not do the same for the next generation? ((Re-)Introducing disease(s) brings back suffering and subjugation that are imposed on new generation.)

If you kill someone when drunk driving you face more serious consequences than if you weren't drunk. There should be similar consequences here you get a disease you could have vaccinated for? You pay 4 times the amount for the cure.

Alcohol is the perfect example because it also endangers others.

What about people who can’t get vaccines? The vaccinated help to protect them.

There is a massive difference between requiring scientifically, medically proven vaccines that have demonstrably ended terrible diseases that once absolutely ravaged our population, and requiring anybody to follow the "health recommendations" of someone who's only credentials are surname and ability to brown-nose.

What about those who can’t get vaccinated because of health issues?

Feels a bit like this though, no?

https://xkcd.com/2557/

The reason we want people to get vaccinated is to stop people getting the diseases…

Is there a term for when a problem has been solved for so long it falls out of living memory creating a natural breeding ground for people to question why the solution is even necessary, come up with nothing because the problem is so long gone, and invent conspiracy theories to fill the gap?

Nobody is scared of getting polio anymore and one person not getting vaccinated doesn't really change anything --> the fact that they're nonetheless making me get vaccinated must be because of government chips, lizardpeople, big pharma profits, etc etc.

More specific than Chesterton's fence or just history repeating itself.

But that choice endangers others too. Some people can’t get vaccinated.

And being a choice often means you have to pay yourself to get it because it isn’t covered by health insurance.

So bad for poor people again

Killing off the people that support you doesn't seem like a smart way to stay in power. I guess they assume there will be enough new converts to replace the ones they lost?

That could be the case if RFK Jr and the rest of the administration weren't all absolute idiots.

> I have a hot take that MAHA is a modern eugenics movement

The right wing in America isn't trying to improve the population, they're grifting and hoping that 1. they won't face the same consequences as their supporters, because they're rich enough to be shielded, and 2. that they're going to die before society collapses from the havoc they unleash.

This is also true of, say climate change.

"Polio is starting to slowly become a thing,"

Where?