As you can see [from this poll], for older Americans, support for mandatory immunizations is overwhelming. And it just got lower and lower and lower the younger you go - with what looks like a steep turning points somewhere in the mid-30s....Welp, my first question was how old is Josh Marshall. The internet says:
I think the reality is that society seems to has lost the historical memory of various horrific endemic childhood diseases.
Welp, I'm a whole generation older than that, and the measles vaccination only goes back to 1963, 6 years before Josh was born and a dozen years after I was born. I don't know what Josh Marshall means by the "historical memory" of the "horrific endemic childhood disease" that is measles, but I remember when everyone got measles. It was part of childhood. We all got measles, and then we were all immune. I don't remember it being horrific. Marshall's memory is of getting a vaccination to prevent it, and that was completely the norm in his time, but in my time, we accepted measles, got sick, with spots, and then got better. It wasn't that big of a deal. I think people should get their kids vaccinated, and I got my sons vaccinated, but the question is whether parents who seriously believe they're saving their kids from something else that they think is horrific need to be forced by the government, rather than convinced by good science and benevolent persuasion, and Josh Marshall's hysteria isn't modeling rationality and sound persuasion. And his giving up on young people — because their idea of the good skews away from government force — isn't very pretty.
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203 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 203 of 203Measles cancelled my goddamn trip to disneyland when I was 7 (true). Now, I hate disneyland.
We have a population of over 300 million. 1000 people a year MAY die from some disease, so we mandate everyone should be vaccinated? More people die from drunk driving every year. Anyone for outlawing alcohol? Didn't think so.
I missed 6 weeks of the 3rd grade with measles. I think I would rather have had the shot. Measles is contagious enough and dangerous enough, and the vaccine is effective enough that I think measles vaccination is a good idea. There are so many strains of flu that the flu vaccine often isn't effective and the strain that comes out of the blue to be a real killer isn't likely to be in the vaccine anyway. I had the flu vaccination for the first time ever this season and caught the flu anyway.
eric,
"Why isn't everyone going crazy about the Flu? "
Maybe they're wiser, on average, than you are?
CatherineM,
"Freeman Hunt for President!"
OMG, catfight!
Seriously, Catherine--why do you hate Freeman, that you should wish such a thing on her?
Michael,
Seriously, you're being a dolt here. Vaccines are not 100% effective, but you can't tell if that's the case for your or your kids until they show up infected despite being vaccinated.
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