This is completely, wildly insane.  I hope she sues and gets a huge payout.  I’ve had various medical advice over the phone many times that I’ve declined to take because the situation on the ground changes.  A child beginning to act and look healthy is a perfect example of this.  The woman’s concerns about harrassment because she doesn’t vaccinate do call her judgment into question, but a doctor should not be able to call the cops on you because you fail to take your kid to the ER with a temperature of 102 “just to make sure” he’s OK.  And with guns drawn?  Are you f-ing kidding me?

Sometimes I feel like I’m living in communist Russia.

Another example: a town in NY refuses to allow unvaccinated *children* in public.  Now, in case your wondering about this “community” that has so many unvaccinated kids, it’s Hasidic Jews, you know, religious extremists with views most of us don’t agree with.  But to not allow them to go in public over the measles?  Are you kidding me?  When people came back from Africa with frikking Ebola they were still allowed to go in public (which I thought was nuts).  Also, why does this apply only to children?

To me, the next obvious step in the vaccination war is not hysteria over the 8% of children who aren’t vaccinated for the measles.  92% is more than enough to ensure herd immunity.  In my opinion, it’s not worth trampling on people’s civil rights to save less than one life per year.  How about we ban a few guns instead, given the 33,000 people die a year from gun fire?   The media loves to portray anti-vaxxers as yuppy moms who’ve watched too much Jenny McCarthy.  But many or most measles outbreaks occur in obscure religious communities or among recent immigrants – Hasidic Jews (2018), Somali-Americans (2017), and Amish (2014).  Other outbreaks have been imported from overseas.

Every time there’s an outbreak, there’s a rush to pass more restrictive laws impinging on people’s freedoms.  Why?  We’ve had consistent 92% vaccination for decades, which is more than enough to keep people safe.

Instead, the obvious next step in the vaccine campaign is to go after adults who don’t get vaccinated for the flu.  In a typical year, more than 10,000 people die from the flu.  According to the CDC, around 40% of adults get the flu vaccine, but they have a lot of uncertainty in the number.  This has been flat since at least 2010.  Even with the uncertainty, it’s pretty clear a hell of a lot of people are not getting vaccinated.  Why are companies not required to verify all their employees get vaccinated, or sign forms stating conscientious objection?  I am well aware that the flu vaccine is not 100% effective, but I bet that with 92% flu vaccine compliance hundreds and maybe thousands of lives could be saved.  It seems like this would be much better bang for our buck than passing draconian laws forcing a small minority of parents to vaccinate their kids for the measles or take them out of school.  They might better also step up efforts to get children vaccinated against the flu – CDC estimates less than 60% uptake for children on the flu vaccine.   Why is evidence of flu vaccine not required to attend school?

One of the things about the internet and social media is that you get exposed to so much tragedy.  The friend of a friend, a toddler, nearly drowned and was left with a brain injury a couple years ago.  My friend posts about it, and it breaks my heart.  Just the utter pointlessness of it and also hopelessness.  A little girl, age 2, dealing with a second recurrence of leukemia.  A girl who attended my elementary school died of leukemia.  I’m guessing anyone reading this blog who went to my school and instantly remember her name.  But she was the only one I knew of as a child.  Today, people share and you hear all these tragic stories.  No child should ever have cancer.  It’s just so utterly unfair and ridiculous and harsh.  It breaks my heart.  Then the father of one of the children who died at Sandy Hook committing suicide.  I wish I didn’t know about Sandy Hook.  New Zealand had a massacre and they changed their gun laws.  We lose 20 six-year-olds and change nothing.  But just thinking about that poor man and his beautiful child murdered just is hard to wrap my mind around.

On one hand, it seems absurd to get upset about the tragedies of strangers.  I’ve cried tears over these people who I’ve never met.  On some level, this seems ridiculous.  On the other hand, to not be moved by such tragedy, even of strangers, seems heartless and cruel and callous.  But I wish I could go back to the days when I just didn’t know about so many sad things.