Anti vaxers on "This American Life" today

[lizerdbits]

While listening to NPR this morning they said the show today will include a family who refused to vaccinate and their 7 year old got measles, resulting in 11 cases in their community. It's on at noon in the DC area.

[TZ]

1. But hey

Measles NEVER hurt anyone so its OKAY....:sarcasm:

I think people like this should be made to live in countries where infectious diseases are out of control and vaccines aren't routinely available. Maybe THEN they would understand.

[varkam]

2. I really don't want to be angry at TAL

I love the show, and listen to it every week on my ipod. Please tell me that they're not going fan the flames of teh stupid.

[lizerdbits]

3. They did tell both sides

Though the reporter admitted she was also nervous about vaccines since they contained "aluminum, which is a neurotoxin" (meaning alum of course, not aluminum metal) and only fed her own kids organic food. Unfortunately the aluminum/alum shit we go through in the health scare lounge, along with mercury/thimerosal shit, wasn't discussed further. One of the scary parts was when one of the potentially exposed kids (who fortunately didn't wind up getting measles) was on a plane with a bunch of people going to the super bowl! At the end they spoke to a woman who had to keep her daughter at home for a couple weeks due to the quarantine and when asked if people had the right to not vaccinate their kids she said 'yes as long as we put them all on an island.' Good answer.

It's unfortunate that parents who refuse to get their kids vaccinated don't think of the public health perspective, especially those who can't be vaccinated for some or all preventable diseases for medical reasons. I wonder if they would ever feel guilty if their unvaccinated kid gave an illness to another child who died? What if their own child died? It's not natural selection since their child who died wasn't capable of making those medical decisions.

[WoodrowFan]

4. would they feel guilty? no.

<i>I wonder if they would ever feel guilty if their unvaccinated kid gave an illness to another child who died?</i>

I doubt it. The ones here who have not vaccinated their kids seem pretty smug and self-rightous about it....

[trotsky]

5. Absolutely, WF.

One of the worst anti-vax offenders on DU is quite proud of her family's supposed resistance to disease, even using it as some kind of arguing point. (Lack of exposure due to the lion's share of the rest of the population getting vaccinated is of course totally lost on that one.) I am quite sure, given her attitude, that she would lose not a moment's sleep should her unvaccinated brood transmit a deadly disease to someone else who then died. They obviously weren't "strong" enough and probably deserved to be weeded out. A little eugenicist-in-the-making.

[lizerdbits]

6. Could they be held legally responsible?

I wonder what would happen if the parents of a child who died went after parents who refused to vaccinate (assuming the infecting child didn't have medical reasons for not being vaccinated). I doubt varkam has had enough law school yet to let us know how that could work out.

[trotsky]

7. That's a good question.

But I'm willing to bet it would be an impossible case to win. There's just no precedent I can think of. Back in the days of smallpox, I think there were arrests of people who broke quarantine, but that was a case when it was a clear danger to society at large. Hard to say what might happen today - but with anti-vaxers succeeding in scaring people away from vaccines, you gotta figure it's a matter of time before something like that does happen, and somebody brings a lawsuit.

[csziggy]

9. What was the eventual outcome of the TB guy who took the plane trip for his wedding?

He was sued in Canada (http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/conditions/07/12/tb.suit/index.html) but has that gone to trial?

[lizerdbits]

11. Not sure

Why are people suing if they didn't test positive or become ill? I can understand suing for any medical costs/lost wages as a result of being tested and treated if they became ill. That article says a man tested positive on the skin test but was awaiting further results, so who knows if that's where he got it. I guess they'd do some genetic analysis to see if it was the same strain. Whatever happens, he's a selfish dumbass.

[varkam]

8. Criminally? I doubt it.

The only crime that I could think of in a situation like that would be some form of reckless homicide, but there's a strong current to respect the parent's wishes with their children, and I doubt the prosecutors office would be the best way to handle such a situation.

Now, if the hypothetical parents of the dead child were to bring a wrongful death claim against the other parents, that might be a different story.

[lizerdbits]

10. I was thinking more along the 'wrongful death' lines

Since there are religious exemptions for vaccinations that are legal one may have to prove they lied about religion to avoid vaccinations for a criminal case and I'm not sure that would work (though I have no legal knowledge whatsoever).

[varkam]

13. First, it would have to be a crime.

In order for there to be any sort of prosecution, the first thing that would be needed is that there would need to be a statute. I don't think that our intrepid legislators are chomping at the bit to criminalize that sort of thing. I mean, with the recent Lori Drew / MySpace case (the one where the woman created a fictitious profile and harassed a 13-year-old girl) one of the big problems was that there was no state law that she violated. They managed to find something at the federal level, however, to charge her with (something originally meant for computer espionage), but that's a different story. If they didn't find that, then reprehensible or not, she had committed no crime. Similarly, I think it is reprehensible that parents don't vaccinate their children, but there's no statute to enforce.

Of course, the standards and whatnot involved in a civil case are much lower than in a criminal case. You might actually have better luck, but I think the more difficult thing to do (esp. in the case of large outbreaks) is proving that the parents' actions caused your child to develop the disease.

[lizerdbits]

14. Thanks nt

[Ian David]

12. They should put the Vacciluddites on an island somewhere. n/t