I think its more a collective action problem then a risk assessment problem. Anti-vaxxers are correct that their chance of actually getting measles is miniscule, even without vaccination.
The problem is that the more people think that way, the less true it become. Current vaccination rates are in excess of 90%, which is enough to maintain herd immunity and prevent an epidemic (note the cases in the CDC report only involved a few individuals and then petered out, vaccination did in fact protect the community, even if it didn’t protect a few individuals). And despite a lot of discussion on the internet, there isn’t much indication that the anti-vaxxers are causing a measurable drop in vaccination rates.
I think the current system of making vaccines a requirement to attend public institutions, and providing programs that ensure doctors encourage vaccination and pays for vaccinations for those that can’t afford them, has worked pretty well, and treads the line between public safety and personal liberty pretty well.
As I said, I’d tighten personal exemptions to make them harder to get, and consider adding passports to the list of things you need to show immunization records for, but I think the basic framework has been very successful.
Since you are being clear, let me be clear:
None of your posts have actually addressed the topic of this thread in any serious way.
They have all been implicit or explicit attacks on Bricker’s purported politics with a side portion of “bash the Right.”
Knock it off.
You are free to open a thread in which you challenge whether people whom you perceive as having a particular political view are consistent in their applications of that view.
You are not free to hijack this thread with attacks on what you perceive to be the political philosophy of another poster.
And…a new outbreak of measles confirmed in my backyard (central Ohio):
*"Ohio health officials and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have confirmed a measles outbreak in the Knox County area of Ohio. To date, the Ohio Department of Health says there are 16 confirmed cases of measles.
Health officials say the initial cases were unvaccinated travelers who returned to Ohio from the Philippines."*
As it is for most places around the world, including vaccine-preventable disease hot spots, no vaccinations are required for travel from the U.S. to the Philippines. Bring back a little something extra for the family (and the community)!
Is drunk driving NOT a crime unless the driver causes injury? Is tax evasion NOT a crime unless prosecutor proves the government would have spent the money “usefully”? Is attempted murder NOT a crime unless it succeeds?
The semantic question of whether such a peculiar libertarian perspective fits in the scope of “political position” is not likely to be fruitful.
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Bricker has stated that he’s thinking of tort liability as a model, and you’re criticising his position with examples drawn from the criminal law, where a crime can be committed without physical harm to anyone.
I don’t see your point, since it’s well-established that in tort law, there must be actual injury to the plaintiff for the plaintiff to succeed.
That doesn’t seem like a political position; we don’t normally think of tort law as being a libertarian policy.
You need to think about this number in the right way. The uptake rate for MMR is very high (around 95%). So, in spite of the fact that 95% of the population is vaccinated, only 20% of the people who got measles were vaccinated, while even though only 5% of the population is unvaccinated, 80% of the people who got measles were unvaccinated.
I was once “voir dire’d” to sit on a jury (I wasn’t selected) for a case where a woman was suing a man for giving her herpes. If she could bring that suit, why couldn’t I sue someone for having their unvaccinated child give mine measles, assuming the measles caused harm (I wouldn’t think you could sue because you felt miserable and rashy for two weeks, but ending up deaf is a different thing).
Civil law is not my strongest area of expertise (my strongest area of expertise is, of course, Buffy the Vampire Slayer trivia) but two cases don’t have all that much in common. They are both infectious diseases, to be sure, but herpes does not transmit as easily as measles. I’d expect that the woman was suing the man for failing to disclose his herpes status before having sex with her. There are state laws now that mandate similar disclosures, creating a statutory duty to disclose and a cause of action for the lack of disclosure.
Here, I’m proposing the creation of different statutes to create a duty of care, or liability, for infecting anyone, period, if and only if you’re unvaccinated.