An Old Favorite

Some choice excerpts from this article:
  • people who lived in areas with high rates of personal belief exemptions were 2 1/2 times more likely to live in a place with lots of pertussis cases.
  • Both exemptions and clusters of pertussis cases tended to be in neighborhoods with higher levels of education and income.
So being educated makes you think you're smarter than the medical community.
  •  In some schools more than three-quarters of the families filed exemptions.
Simply frightening.  Maybe they should make a website to track this so the rest of us can stay away.
  • When the number of people vaccinated drops below 95 percent, a community loses herd immunity to highly contagious germs like pertussis, and babies and other unvaccinated people can get sick. In 2010, 91 percent of kindergarteners were up to date on their shots in California.
Thank you abstainers for putting the weak among us at risk.

Comments

Anonymous said…
The easiest solution would be to get rid of exemptions at public schools. Maybe it wasn't so bad when it was just the rare Christian Scientist here and there, but if people are going to make up excuses and get the numbers below 95%, then the schools should get stricter. People who choose not to vaccinate can do homeschooling or find a private school that allows the non-vaccinated. I doubt many private schools currently make exceptions, but those who want to skip their shots could form their own special schools and everyone else would know to avoid them.
-Theresa
October 6, 2013 at 8:46 PM
Brett said…
I agree that something should be done about exemptions at public schools. I think one of the things contributing to the problem is that those who choose to not vaccinate still usually enjoy protection through herd immunity. So if they really feel that vaccinations are unsafe, they are letting others assume the risk while they share in the benefits.

Forcing non-vaccinated kids to only go to school with other non-vaccinated kids would surely make these parents think twice about their cost/benefit analysis.
October 19, 2013 at 8:13 AM
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