Parents face fines and jail

[Magyar]

MD school district is taking 2000+ parents to court today to get them to vaccinate their kids or face 10 days in jail and $50 per day fine.


They will also get a lecture from the judge about the importance and effect of not vaccinating their kids.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Health/US/story?id=3866502&page=1

While the article doesn't say whether those who have not vaccinated are woos or just lazy
(money is not an excuse, In my state and everywhere else according my Ped. immunization is free if you don't have insurance or can't afford it) it's about damned time!

It's about damned time! INHO the parents should be fined a lot more. Perhaps not monetarily. This is the time for some creative sentencing I think. These people should be made to do community service in wards where people have TB that doesn't respond to antibiotics, or sent overseas to places like India where polio is still active etc.

 

[Cainkane1]

Here in Georgia a Christian Science couple went to prison because they don't believe in conventional medicine and they depended entirely on prayer to heal their son of a treatable disorder. The prayers didn't work and the boy died. They were arrested, put on trial, and convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

 

[Cain]

So you're saying the government knows what's best for their kids?

ETA: This is in reply to the original poster, not Fake Cain.

 

[Rob Lister]

No, but the government is responsible for the general welfare. Ensuring everyone is vaccinated is in keeping with that charge.

 

[Cain]

"No, but the government is responsible for the general welfare. Ensuring everyone is vaccinated is in keeping with that charge."

Yes, I'm sure vaccinations are exactly what the Founders had in mind. So now it's OK for the government to take my money to vaccinate poor kids because it's actually for the "general welfare." Great.

Vote for Ron Paul!!

 

[JoeEllison]

So you're saying the government knows what's best for their kids?

I think that doctors generally know more about medicine than average parents. As long as the government is acting according to the recommendations of the medical community, they actually do know "what's best".

 

[JoeEllison]

"No, but the government is responsible for the general welfare. Ensuring everyone is vaccinated is in keeping with that charge."

Yes, I'm sure vaccinations are exactly what the Founders had in mind. So now it's OK for the government to take my money to vaccinate poor kids because it's actually for the "general welfare." Great.

Vote for Ron Paul!!

You're kidding, right?

 

[fuelair]

Here in Georgia a Christian Science couple went to prison because they don't believe in conventional medicine and they depended entirely on prayer to heal their son of a treatable disorder. The prayers didn't work and the boy died. They were arrested, put on trial, and convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

Should have gotten murder 1.

 

[Rob Lister]

"No, but the government is responsible for the general welfare. Ensuring everyone is vaccinated is in keeping with that charge."

Yes, I'm sure vaccinations are exactly what the Founders had in mind. So now it's OK for the government to take my money to vaccinate poor kids because it's actually for the "general welfare." Great.

Vote for Ron Paul!!

General welfare is what the founders had in mind. They were not specific for good reason -- situations cannot be foreseen.

 

[NobbyNobbs]

Would "general welfare" include forced birth control if the population gets too high?

Would it include a mandated healthy diet?


I agree that it would be foolish not to get vaccinated, but I don't think it should be legislated.

 

[fuelair]

"No, but the government is responsible for the general welfare. Ensuring everyone is vaccinated is in keeping with that charge."

Yes, I'm sure vaccinations are exactly what the Founders had in mind. So now it's OK for the government to take my money to vaccinate poor kids because it's actually for the "general welfare." Great.

Vote for Ron Paul!!

A) The fact that they did not know about vaccination would, I strongly suspect, not have precluded them supporting it if they had - obviously they were smart enough to use phrasing that assumed change and allowed for it. And, since you either do not know or have forgotten, there were equivalent policies (not written but universally followed) then - seperate the sick from the not sick in smallpox, plague, diptheria, etc.

B)Ron Paul, besides being incompetant (a very few ok ideas among large numbers of really bad ones does not make a good candidate - or person) has, as his major problem the republican thing.

Toodles!!

 

[Ryokan]

"No, but the government is responsible for the general welfare. Ensuring everyone is vaccinated is in keeping with that charge."

Yes, I'm sure vaccinations are exactly what the Founders had in mind. So now it's OK for the government to take my money to vaccinate poor kids because it's actually for the "general welfare." Great.

Vote for Ron Paul!!

The things we vaccinate for are things we really, really don't want back in the general population. The people who refuse to vaccinate put society at risk, and the more of them who refuse, the greater the risk becomes.

So hell yeah, these people should be forced to vaccinate their kids.

And did they have to pay for the vaccines? Now, that's dumb. Things like that should be free.

 

[fuelair]

So you're saying the government knows what's best for their kids?

ETA: This is in reply to the original poster, not Fake Cain.

Not just this government, every US government since the 1940's at least.

 

[BPSCG]

The things we vaccinate for are things we really, really don't want back in the general population. The people who refuse to vaccinate put society at risk, and the more of them who refuse, then greater the risk becomes.

Well, if child A gets vaccinated against measles, he's not going to get measles even if B walks into school one day with his glands the size of grapefruits. It's child B who's at risk, and C, D, and E, if they haven't been vaccinated.

Not sure I see where the overriding social benefit is of requiring vaccination. If the vast majority of kids get vaccinated whether it's required or not, we're not going to have a mass outbreak of typhoid. And even if we do, it will only be the unvaccinated kids who die, and their parents will be happy in the knowledge that they stood up to the government, or that at least their kids didn't become autistic from the vaccine, or that their kids are with Jesus, or some other such idiocy.

 

[Ryokan]

Well, if child A gets vaccinated against measles, he's not going to get measles even if B walks into school one day with his glands the size of grapefruits. It's child B who's at risk, and C, D, and E, if they haven't been vaccinated.

Which is why I said the risk to society is greater the more people refuse it.

According to the OP, we're talking about 2000+ kids, just in one district. A couple of hundred kids dead from polio would be a tragedy, don't you think?

Not sure I see where the overriding social benefit is of requiring vaccination. If the vast majority of kids get vaccinated whether it's required or not, we're not going to have a mass outbreak of typhoid. And even if we do, it will only be the unvaccinated kids who die, and their parents will be happy in the knowledge that they stood up to the government, or that at least their kids didn't become autistic from the vaccine, or that their kids are with Jesus, or some other such idiocy.

The punishment for having stupid parents should not be the death penalty.

 

[BPSCG]

According to the OP, we're talking about 2000+ kids, just in one district. A couple of hundred kids dead from polio would be a tragedy, don't you think?

Hell, just one or two kids crippled from polio would be a tragedy.

But it would certainly make a few anti-vaccination woo-woos stop and rethink their positions.

The punishment for having stupid parents should not be the death penalty.

Maybe not, but if it weren't, we wouldn't have the Darwin Awards. Then where would we be?

 

[bluess]

Hell, just one or two kids crippled from polio would be a tragedy.

But it would certainly make a few anti-vaccination woo-woos stop and rethink their positions.
Maybe not, but if it weren't, we wouldn't have the Darwin Awards. Then where would we be?

I don't think that staunch anti-vaxxers would falter at the deaths of children from preventable diseases. The child or the parent would be blamed for not following some requirement of clean living.

 

[BPSCG]

I don't think that staunch anti-vaxxers would falter at the deaths of children from preventable diseases. The child or the parent would be blamed for not following some requirement of clean living.

If seeing the neighbor's kid crippled from polio or deaf from measles doesn't persuade them, then a fifty dollar fine and a little jail time isn't going to do it either.

 

[Ryokan]

Would "general welfare" include forced birth control if the population gets too high?

Would it include a mandated healthy diet?


I agree that it would be foolish not to get vaccinated, but I don't think it should be legislated.

I'm a very 'government shouldn't dictate what's best for you' kind of guy, bordering on being libertarian on the matter. But the line is drawn somewhere. Be my guest, put your own life at risk in any way you want, but that doesn't go for your kids. As I said to BPSCG, the penalty for having stupid parents shouldn't be death.

If you don't feed your kids right and they become malnutritious, don't you think the government should be allowed to intervene? Why shouldn't the same go for when you expose your child to the chance of getting horrible diseases?

Mandatory vaccination rid the world of smallpox, and we're nearly rid of polio as well. But polio is still out there, and it's far from impossible for it to pop up somewhere in the western world, even in a small district in Maryland.

If seeing the neighbor's kid crippled from polio or deaf from measles doesn't persuade them, then a fifty dollar fine and a little jail time isn't going to do it either.

Then maybe they shouldn't be allowed to keep their kids. Seriously.

 

[Darth Rotor]

MD school district is taking 2000+ parents to court today to get them to vaccinate their kids or face 10 days in jail and $50 per day fine.

Rather than that, don't let the kids into school unless vaccinated. I think I know why the school district doesn't do that. (Per capita per day funding reimbursibles seem to be a national habit.)

They will also get a lecture from the judge about the importance and effect of not vaccinating their kids.

Great way to incentivize behavior.

Not.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Health/US/story?id=3866502&page=1

While the article doesn't say whether those who have not vaccinated are woos or just lazy (money is not an excuse, In my state and everywhere else according my Ped. immunization is free if you don't have insurance or can't afford it) it's about damned time!

It would be handy to find out what is behind the objection.

It's about damned time! INHO the parents should be fined a lot more. Perhaps not monetarily. This is the time for some creative sentencing I think. These people should be made to do community service in wards where people have TB that doesn't respond to antibiotics, or sent overseas to places like India where polio is still active etc.

Nope. See above. Don't let the kids into school who do not get the shot card up to date. When I register kids in school, I have to show up with an immunization record.

Your position is a good example of the wrong, emotional reaction.

Oh, wait, I forgot: are you a parent?

@ Ryokan: I agree in principle that the vaccine ought to be state/district funded if it is a requirement for attendance at school.

DR