whimsical

Because, in general, we acknowledge the sanctity of a person’s bodily autonomy over the desires of the general populace. This isn’t necessarily true in cases of imminent danger (i.e. we will forcibly restrain and confine a person who is a known and immediate danger to the lives of others), but not getting vaccinated doesn’t place other people in immediate jeopardy.

/u/incruente

(via sdsimple)

Hold the phone. I need to soapbox here. Because this made me mad. 

False. Not vaccinating DOES put other people in immediate jeopardy. People with cancer. People will immune deficiencies. People who are old. People who are pregnant. People who are newborns. People with chronic illnesses. This is why mandatory vaccinations have been upheld time and time again in the courts (not in every state, obviously). Not vaccinating impinges on the rights of everyone around you to avoid a preventable illness; as the saying goes, your right to swing your arms around ends at another person’s nose.

Herd immunity works but only to a certain point; X percent of the population has to be vaccinated to prevent a disease from spreading. The more and more unvaccinated healthy people in the ‘herd’ the more dangerous it is for those who cannot be vaccinated. For some vaccines, that threshold is lower, while for others, it is much higher (pertussis, I believe, which requires 80-90% vaccination for effective herd immunity).

Vaccines are the most tested and tightly quality controlled  pharmaceutical out there. They are held to higher standards than literally every other drug people put in their bodies- over the counter drugs like aspirin and antihistamines, antibiotics, diabetes drugs, antidepressants, pain pills, even freaking viagra. They are, obviously, not completely 100% safe, but one’s risk of having an adverse reaction to a vaccine is thousands of times lower than one’s risk of dying in car accident or taking antibiotics- and I don’t see anybody avoiding getting in the car or taking antibiotics for their sore throat. You know where kids are exposed to more heavy metals than what is included in vaccines? Breastmilk. Think about that.

Correlation does not equal causation. Signs of autism can manifest anywhere in the first 18 months of life, coinciding with the MMR vaccine among others. I understand it’s psychologically easier to blame a vaccine for your kid’s autism than the fact that maybe he/she was just born that way and there’s nothing you as the parent did wrong. Come on.

Finally, when people say that vaccine preventable illnesses aren’t that bad, they are wrong. It’s not that bad because they’ve never seen it. I promise that millions of dollars of research and development would not have gone into the creation of a vaccine for an illness that ‘isn’t that bad’. Here is a brief list of the major medical complications (called seqelae in doctorland) of some ‘not that bad’ vaccine preventable illnesses: - Measles = pneumonia, acute enchephalitis (aka, brain infection), SSPE/subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (aka, you’re probably going to die) and corneal ulceration/scarring (blindness) - Mumps = spontaneous abortion if in the first trimester, infertility, meningitis, encephalitis - Rubella = not bad for people who aren’t fetuses; if a pregnant women is infected with rubella, she could miscarry or her baby could be born with congential rubella syndrome (heart, brain, eye, and ear malformations that could leave the baby deaf, blind, mentally retarded, with heart problems to boot). - Pertussis = particularly devastating for infants and very young children; complications associated with coughing fits so severe they can’t breathe. Rumor has it oxygen is really important. - Diptheria = again, children are most suceptible. Their throat swells shut and they suffocate. Other possible sequelae include heart infection and peripheral neuropathy. - Varciella = You mean chicken pox? Yup. A fetus infected with varicella can result in brain, eye, spinal cord and nerve, limb, bladder, and skin malformations. It also sometimes kills babies. - H. influenzae =  Hib actually kills- in babies and young children it can cause epiglottitis (which can block off the airway and causes death by suffocation), menenigitis, or sepsis (which is infection of the blood and leads to all kinds of bad things mostly culminating in death), or pneumonia (which kills even adults on the regular, much less the little ones). - HPV = THIS IS A VACCINE AGAINST CANCER WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT. Cervical cancer basically requires infection with the more virulent stains of HPV, the biggest and baddest and most common are in the vaccine.

This is a short and incomplete list.

In summary, while people who don’t vaccinate usually do so because they are trying to do the best thing for their kids- which is admirable- it is actually the opposite of those intentions in reality.

Ok, y’all need to stop because this is getting embarrassing. I’m starting to lose my temper.

So just because in all your 16 years you have never gotten sick doesn’t mean that vaccines aren’t necessary. I’m 25 and I have never been in a car accident- that doesn’t mean that I don’t have to wear a seatbelt or check my mirrors when I change lanes. Your personal experience- and the experience of any one individual unvaccinated person- DOES NOT MEAN ANYTHING. AT ALL. PERIOD. If you weren’t as selfish and clueless as the vibe I’m getting, you’d thank your vaccinated classmates and fellow citizens for your streak of good health. Your height to weight ratio has nothing to do with vaccines or sometimes even if you are healthy, ps.

You don’t wanna put ‘shit’ in your body? Cool. Don’t. But stay the hell away from the doctor’s office or the ER if you or someone in your house comes down with something, because the only way to fix it is to put ‘shit’ in your body to keep you from dying or having chronic life-altering after effects. And obviously the latter isn’t a priority.

Actually… You don’t trust vaccines? Fine! Why stop there! Don’t use inhalers to prevent status asthmaticus, don’t use birth control pills to prevent unwanted pregnancy and help horrific menstrual cramps, don’t use aspirin to help a headache, don’t use chemotherapy to cure cancer, don’t use insulin to keep type 1 diabetics out of fatal comas, don’t use neosporin to keep your skinned knee from getting infected.