198 Right To Choose
Skip to the last minute and a half for Jon Stewart’s perfect vaccine analogy. Zombies.
“It’s like America is in an isolated farmhouse and the measles are zombies. Everybody in the farmhouse has been given the task of boarding up doors and windows in their area to keep out the zombies, because it’s well established science that zombies have a very difficult time with wood. And you trust everybody’s going to do their job, and then you wake up and it’s 2 in the morning and there’s a fucking zombie gnawing on your brain and you’re like, ‘What the fuck! Who didn’t board up their window?!‘ And that’s when some lady from Marin County who you let into your farmhouse goes, ‘Oh, I read an article on a wellness forum that says we shouldn’t sleep in boarded-up rooms because it fucks you all up.‘ And you know what you’d say back to them?
Braaaaaains.”
-But vaccines aren't natural.
KATE
You're right, it's 'natural' to die at a young age from terrible diseases.
WYLONA
It's still my choice.
KATE
It's also your choice to smoke or drive drunk, but not around my baby.
WYLONA
What are you saying?
KATE
Don't come over again until you get your shots or my baby is old enough to get theirs.
ROB
Wasn't that a little harsh?
KATE
No, Rob, we're going to be parents and this is serious.
ROB
But bullying her probably won't change her mind about vaccines.
KATE
Fine Mr. Science Communicator, you figure it out.
CRAIG
I would try using a puppet.
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That pretty well sums it up for me.
Love that analogy. While it is very easy to just dismiss the anti-vac people as moron, I really wish that there are ways to really convince them, as sometimes they are good people at heart, and may be even good friends, just misguided.
I wonder why some “doctors” spew anti-vac rhetoric that confuse people though? What is in it for them?
I am so going to miss Jon Stewart. They weren’t klidding when they said he and Colbert brought people back to the news, and not just a younger generation. I’m 45, wife’s even older (but not gonna say how much, she might actually read this … and kill me) and both of us had gotten tired of the evening news. All junk news (like junk food – all fluff, no substance) and worthless. But watching Daily Show and Colbert Report I stayed somewhat informed until I felt the urge to start following actual newscasts again. I just had to be pickier and dig through feeds instead of waiting on a newscast.
Fare thee well, Mr. Stewart.
As a practicing public health physician of 33 years experience, I can tell you that the percentage of physicians that are out-and-out morons is only a little lower than the general population. Unfortunately, in the magical thinking of anti-vax idiots, ONE physician saying that vaccines are dangerous can overrule the consensus opinion of the entire medical establishment (minus crackpots).
In my opinion:
1. There should be NO personal belief exemptions. Wiki “Jacobsen v. Massachusetts to see that it is possible to require vaccinations.
2. I believe that the First Amendment does require a religious exemption option for the adult adherents, but not for their children. During my ER days, we routinely got court orders to transfuse minor Jehovah’s Witnesses over their parents’ objections. Courts have mandated chemotherapy for the children of Christian Scientists. We accept that live-saving therapy cannot be withheld from a minor because of religious doctrines to which they are too young to consent. The only difference is that with hemorrhage and cancer, the danger seems more imminent. As Jon Stewart pointed out, that’s only because vaccines have been so successful. Before vaccination, the danger of these diseases was very clearly imminent to all.
3. Medical exemptions are clearly necessary. Children with cancer, immune deficiency, or other conditions that preclude vaccination, should be exempted, of course. These kids are the biggest reason for requiring vaccination of everyone else. They can’t choose immunity, so we must all be immune to protect them. It should not be easy, though. There are plenty of physicians that will give exemptions for bogus reasons. There should be few enough of kids with legitimate causes for exemption that there could be a system for the State to seek the approval of a disinterested committee of pediatric or public health physicians.
Just my 2¢. Thank you for the use of your soapbox.
Hear, hear!
Was watching Larry Wilmore’s new Nightly show the other night and one of his guests pointed out the other alternative even if personal exemptions were allowed: business can be our friend on this one. Basically they said to take the “no shirt, no shoes, no service” signs and add “no vaccinations” after the second line. 😀
But personally I agree with you – one of the purposes of a central government is to apply principles that the public in general might not be comfortable with for whatever reason. If we went solely by public opinion polls, the Civil Rights Amendment would have never happened, or at the very least would have taken far longer to be passed. People can be children sometimes, and have to be told to do something “because I said so”.
If it wasn’t for the fact that not vaccing can cause problems for people who have had vaccination, I’m all for promoting ant-vaccing as a way of making the human race more intelligent. Anti-vaxxers should cause themselves to die out due to Darwinian pressure and the gene pool wil therefore be more intelligent, or at least more rational.