Immunizations - It’s not about you

I’m a pretty libertarian-leaning guy most of the time, but, when it comes to immunizations, I’m definitely willing to embrace a bit of state-induced coercion to get the job done. You see, when it comes to communicable diseases, your choice to not vaccinate your children leads to my children getting sick, and I’m not okay with that. In fact, I’m of the firm believer that more is better when it comes to immunizations. I don’t care what it is - if they find a successful vaccine to the common cold, I’m there. I don’t care if it’s made out of pure mercury in a solution of U-235 derived from the stem cells of SIDS-downed babies. I don’t care if it makes me grow boobs. If it means that I won’t be getting sick for at least a week every winter while my customers play “hero”, I’m in. Besides, if I had boobs, I’d never have to leave the house.

Instapundit has been dealing with immunizations today, both pro and against, albeit definitely with a pro-immunization lean. In the “against” column, we have Michelle Malkin. She’s not “against”, exactly, but she’s definitely preaching a bit of caution:

The New York Times published a piece today about parents choosing not to expose their children to certain vaccines. This prompted blogger condemnations of those parents as “Bobo socipaths” and a recommendation from Glenn Reynolds that “we should make clear that parents who, with no genuine medical reason, forego vaccinating their kids are bad parents, and bad citizens.”

Well, what constitutes “genuine medical reason?” And which vaccines are we talking about? All of them? For all time? Not all vaccines are equal. And if you leave it to the medical establishment and Big Nanny public school officials to determine the definition of “genuine medical reason,” then any parent who questions any vaccine administration at any time in a child’s life will be deemed a “bad” parent and “bad” citizen. (emphasis mine - DC)

Well, yeah. Exactly. That’s because you are.

A coworker of mine once said, “Never attribute to malice that which can easily explained by stupidity.” A lot of people, however, insist on seeing malice in everything, backed by large, scary bureaucracies. It happens in every stripe of political life. Liberals have Big Corporations. Conservatives have Big Government. What’s fun about the vaccination-skeptical crowd is that it combines a little of both - it’s Big Pharma in conjunction with Public Education! It’s the same unholy union that brought us Ritalin! They’re killing our children!

Umm… no.

Here’s the deal - vaccinations aren’t subject to personal belief. Being a God-fearing Christian doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get your daughter an HPV vaccine. Sure, you raised her well enough to not sleep around, but that doesn’t mean you raised her future husband, now did you? Besides, do you really want your daughter getting cervical cancer because she dared to do something against God’s will? Same goes with Hepatitis B - the chances of something going wrong with a Hepatitis B vaccination, though greater than zero, are a heck of a lot less than the chances of actually getting Hepatitis B, and Hepatitis B is significantly worse and more debilitating than most of the possible side effects of the vaccine. Granted, the chances of getting Hepatitis B as an infant is low, but that’s the point - if you’re already engaging in high-risk behavior, it’s probably a little late to be getting vaccinated. But, of course, the only way to get Hepatitis B is to engage in risky lifestyles, right? Needles? Unprotected sex? Drug use? Hmm… what happens if your kid gets raped? What if your kid gets curious and starts playing with the biohazard cans at your local pediatrician? What happens if your kid goes to a park and somebody leaves a sharp little something lying around? What if your kid decides to engage in a “blood oath” with a friend? The list goes on and on and on… and it’s a heck of a lot easier to immunize a child before they can engage in anything that might even remotely lead to exchange of bodily fluids.

Here’s the important part, though - what if my kid engages in some of this behavior and, because the vaccine wasn’t infallible (few man-made things are, by the way) and you didn’t vaccinate your child, my child now has Hepatitis/Measels/Chickenpox/Whooping Cough/whatever? That’s the problem here. It doesn’t matter what choices my child or I might make, if you make the wrong choice, we’re still screwed. In short, your freedom ends where your fist hits my nose, and, in the case of communicable diseases, your fist hits my nose awfully fast.