# Should non-vaccinating parents be held liable for disease transmitted by their child? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 30, 2015, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-non-vaccinating-parents-be-held-liable-for-disease-transmitted-by-their-child/711297 "2015-01-30T01:57:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-non-vaccinating-parents-be-held-liable-for-disease-transmitted-by-their-child/711297/21 "2015-01-30T16:26:15Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > It says quite clearly that the child was un-vaccinated. > I suppose that you could interpret that as saying that his parents refused vaccination for themselves (but did have their child vaccinated) but in context that seems like a very unlikely interpretation. No, you’re right. I didn’t see that line. _Mea culpa_. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-non-vaccinating-parents-be-held-liable-for-disease-transmitted-by-their-child/711297/22 "2015-01-30T16:31:18Z")
I thought about starting a new thread on this article but it’s probably relevant to this discussion. Unfortunately, like with so many other things in this country, religious freedom is going to become a big part of this fight. **[http://outbreaknewstoday.com/catholic-group-joins-the-call-for-merck-to-make-single-dose-measles-and-mumps-vaccines-37970/](http://outbreaknewstoday.com/catholic-group-joins-the-call-for-merck-to-make-single-dose-measles-and-mumps-vaccines-37970/)** > [@](#): > > American Life League (ALL) joined the call urging Merck to make available the single-dose versions of its measles and mumps vaccines. Currently, the measles vaccine from Merck is only available combined with mumps and rubella. The rubella portion of the combination vaccine was created from aborted fetal cell lines, according to a ALL press release Thursday. > > “Merck is denying parents the choice of obtaining an ethical measles vaccine,” stated Judie Brown, president of American Life League. “According to Children of God for Life, outbreaks of measles, such as at the California Disney parks, have been on the increase ever since Merck discontinued the ethical single-dose vaccine in 2008.” ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-non-vaccinating-parents-be-held-liable-for-disease-transmitted-by-their-child/711297/23 "2015-01-30T16:39:40Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Let a few kids die or become post-encephalitic veggies, and I think the anti-vaxxers will probably come around. This philosophy (and similar, Darwinesque arguments about letting dumb antivaxers die out) seems to legitimize the idea of having children pay for the sins of their parents, which is wrong. My idea of libertarian utopia is not a society built on a foundation of dead or maimed children. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-non-vaccinating-parents-be-held-liable-for-disease-transmitted-by-their-child/711297/24 "2015-01-30T16:41:02Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > It does not make sense to me to mandate vaccinations, nor to hold parents accountable for selfish beliefs. There is a slope there that is slippery. > > If you want to protect your children, vaccinate them. At some point the anti-vaxxers will figure it out. And you are a doctor? This is ignoring a lot what has been happening, [the anti-vaxxers were not an important issue until a few renown doctors broke bad](http://tallguywrites.livejournal.com/148012.html), and pandered to the unfounded fears of many parents. Then what happened was that many anti-vaxxers figured out that they had studies (flawed and fraudulent) and experts supporting them or trowing them huge bones. They increased in numbers. The point here is that there was a slippery slope alright, and it did go and it is still going against our society. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-non-vaccinating-parents-be-held-liable-for-disease-transmitted-by-their-child/711297/25 "2015-01-31T11:56:36Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > This philosophy (and similar, Darwinesque arguments about letting dumb antivaxers die out) seems to legitimize the idea of having children pay for the sins of their parents, which is wrong. > > My idea of libertarian utopia is not a society built on a foundation of dead or maimed children. The dilemma with societally-enforced standards for personal behavior is that the slope is slippery. I’m totally OK with sanctions such as not allowing the unvaccinated to show up at school–or even public facilities 🙂 --even to the point of requiring a vaccination proof ID. I just don’t think some kind of mandate around personal behavior is the right approach because it’s such a slippery slope, and because punishment for ignoring those mandates rapidly becomes unworkable. Witness the destruction caused by trying to punish recreational drug use. I am opposed to all enforced behavior for personal health or lifestyle choices. We shouldn’t have laws against abortion, smoking, performance and recreational drugs, or driving without a seatbelt. Another topic for debate. Kids are a dilemma. Is their welfare in the hands of dull-witted parents or does society get to enforce responsible parenting? The obvious answer is that it is unfair to the kid if his parents are stupid, incompetent or otherwise dysfunctional. Surely society needs to step in. But this does not make the execution of that ideal particularly workable. If your concern is to keep children healthier and you think society should be able to enforce that, vaccinations are not worth a lot of your time, for the reasons I mentioned above. Anti vaccination “concern” is essentially a hobby anxiety which is only even entertainable because existing herd immunity has been so successful. Anti vaccination movements will crawl away overnight with the first serious outbreak that produces serious consequence. I wouldn’t personally spend energy getting too outraged. It’s just not worth getting my shorts bunched up. My idiot chiropractor friend will sneak little Bernard into the vaccination clinic as soon as the first measles encephalitis gets on the front page, even if he still avoids teflon. But of course, you don’t want to see maimed children paying for the sin of their parents. In that case, you should be focusing on figuring out what to do with the parents of fat kids. Something like a third of our kids in the USA are way too fat by the time they are teenagers. Collectively this problem is an order of magnitude beyond the anti-vaccination dullards. If your guiding anti-libertarianism principle is to avoid maimed kids by enforcing responsible parenting, vaccination is way way down the list. Its benefits are so obvious that even the stupidest parent will get the concept after a few outbreaks way before anything happens on a mass scale. Finally, I suspect (but I could be wrong) that a lot of the anti-vax bozos are relatively well-educated nincompoops. They can process basic science, but are either distrustful of “the government” (as in, the CDC) or have some kind of basic psychological paranoia that manifests itself by clinging to these odd para-science concerns. GMOs; vaccines; aluminum; gluten…the world is loaded with paranoia-feeding things to be afraid of. That psychological group is really tough to fix. I think it’s just part of the human condition for a lot of people to fear the worst and panic. We love a good cause du jour to get us up in the morning, maybe. But with anti-vaxxers, the nice thing is that the cure for their particular self-indulgent paranoia is only a rash away. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-non-vaccinating-parents-be-held-liable-for-disease-transmitted-by-their-child/711297/26 "2015-01-31T12:05:11Z")
I’m curious on any proposals around exactly how to hold an anti-vaxxer parent “liable.” Fines? Jail? 50 lashes? Damage recovery when my kid caught his illness from your kid? ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-non-vaccinating-parents-be-held-liable-for-disease-transmitted-by-their-child/711297/27 "2015-01-31T12:15:40Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I am opposed to all enforced behavior for personal health or lifestyle choices. We shouldn’t have laws against abortion, smoking, performance and recreational drugs, or driving without a seatbelt. Another topic for debate. Communicable diseases are not a personal health issue, they are a public health issue. Your fat kid isn’t making my kid fat. If your kids teeth rot out of his head, my kids teeth will be just fine. If your kid gets measles, my kid is put at risk. We have a long history of freedoms ending when they start endangering others. No slippery slope. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-non-vaccinating-parents-be-held-liable-for-disease-transmitted-by-their-child/711297/28 "2015-01-31T14:06:56Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > If your kid gets measles, my kid is put at risk. Because you didn’t vaccinate him, or because vaccinations don’t work? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-non-vaccinating-parents-be-held-liable-for-disease-transmitted-by-their-child/711297/29 "2015-01-31T15:04:59Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Because you didn’t vaccinate him, or because vaccinations don’t work? Did you see the link about “herd immunity” in post #20? ---
**Author:** ![justmeetee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@justmeetee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/justmeetee)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-non-vaccinating-parents-be-held-liable-for-disease-transmitted-by-their-child/711297/30 "2015-01-31T15:51:27Z")
There is no changing an anti vaccination mentality. For 20 or so years I’ve tried to get my sister to get a flu shot. She always says the same thing. It gives you the flu and I don’t want to get it. I point out that I have gotten one every year and have had only one very mild bout of flu a few years ago. And she gets the flu EVERY year. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-non-vaccinating-parents-be-held-liable-for-disease-transmitted-by-their-child/711297/31 "2015-01-31T16:13:34Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Let a few kids die or become post-encephalitic veggies, and I think the anti-vaxxers will probably come around. If this were true, the anti-vax movement would be dead. [Cite](http://www.antivaccinebodycount.com/Anti-Vaccine_Body_Count/Preventable_Deaths.html) ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-non-vaccinating-parents-be-held-liable-for-disease-transmitted-by-their-child/711297/32 "2015-01-31T16:55:56Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I’m curious on any proposals around exactly how to hold an anti-vaxxer parent “liable.” > > Fines? Jail? 50 lashes? Damage recovery when my kid caught his illness from your kid? Well, lets check the advice from the capitalist tool that is Forbes: > **[Measles Can Kill, And It's Spreading. Sue Parents Who Didn't Vaccinate?...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/dandiamond/2015/01/28/measles-is-spreading-and-kids-might-die-sue-parents-who-didnt-vaccinate-absolutely/)** > > I heard it over dinner at a friend's house. I talked about it on a call with a scientist. I discussed it while waiting for public health officials to issue an update on the measles outbreak. The same murmured question, the same growing fear. What... > [@](#): > > Why not vaccinating your kids might be a crime > > Caplan’s thought a lot about these issues. In 2013, he co-authored a notable paper that argued parents who didn’t vaccinate their children should be sued or even prosecuted. And the paper’s conclusions about reckless behavior are pretty simple, and evident on their face. > > Take drunk driving. > > People may have their own beliefs around how and when they drink alcohol – but once they run the risk of harming others, it really is in the state’s interest to start legislating rules. How different is that from a preventable outbreak? > > “If you choose not to vaccinate your child, and your child infects mine and harms or kills them, I believe you ought be held liable for your choice just as we would do for a drunk driver,” Caplan argued. > > Nicholas Diamond (no relation), a lawyer who’s one of Caplan’s co-authors, points out an important nuance: There’s a difference between being sued by someone over the measles, and police showing up to arrest you. > > The paper “tries to make the case for civil liability,” Nicholas Diamond told me. “It’s not an easy case to make,” but the authors and their supporters believe it rests on reasonably solid legal ground. And in support of the authors’ argument: There have been a number of lawsuits brought over parents’ failure to vaccinate, some of which led to settlements. > [@](#): > > Brendan Nyhan, an excellent political scientist at Dartmouth University, has done pathbreaking research into convincing anti-vaxxers to back off their flawed ideas. > > His team’s disturbing findings: Trying to educate anti-vaccine parents only forces them to retreat further into their shell. Attempting to correct false beliefs about vaccines “may be especially likely to be counterproductive,” Nyhan dryly notes. > > For instance, “when [researchers] gave evidence that vaccines aren’t linked to autism, that actually made parents who were already skittish about vaccines less likely to get their child one in the future,” Dr. Aaron Carroll writes at The Incidental Economist, summarizing Nyhan’s research. “When they told a dramatic story about an infant in danger because he wasn’t immunized, it increased parents’ beliefs that vaccines had serious side effects.” > > “Basically, it was all depressing.” > > So talking to anti-vaxxers might not work. Public shame might not work. What might? > > Turn to the law. > > “The real goal [of our paper] — and this is so often difficult in public health — is to utilize the law to affect the right public health changes,” Nicholas Diamond said. > > “Basic tort law or criminal law can both be tools to affect positive public health changes.” > > Another way to put that: What might encourage some parents to finally get over their fear of vaccines? > > Fear of lawsuits. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-non-vaccinating-parents-be-held-liable-for-disease-transmitted-by-their-child/711297/33 "2015-01-31T17:05:47Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I’m curious on any proposals around exactly how to hold an anti-vaxxer parent “liable.” > > Fines? Jail? 50 lashes? Damage recovery when my kid caught his illness from your kid? You missed boiling in oil and drawing and quartering. Certainly damage recovery is a possibility. A parent or parents could sue and then it would be up to a jury. As far as I know that would be possible without any new laws. I can see instituting fines. Jail might be a little extreme, but I suppose an argument could be made for it. Regarding your extreme libertarian position on this; modern societies have public health regulations. For the same reasons that you can’t crap in your yard or build an outhouse in a city, you have to take precautions to prevent the spread of dangerous disease, this includes vaccinating your children. Most of us don’t want to go back to the days of epidemic disease. No man is an island. Our actions and inactions can have an affect on those around us and, given that, we have a right to impose reasonable health laws on society. Society also has a right to impose reasonable childcare requirements on parents in order to protect children that can’t protect themselves. Just as society reserves the right to stop you from abusing or starving your children, if you refuse to use safe proven methods to protect your children against diseases that can cause blindness or permanent mental impairment then society will step in and protect them in spite of you. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-non-vaccinating-parents-be-held-liable-for-disease-transmitted-by-their-child/711297/34 "2015-01-31T17:37:05Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > If this were true, the anti-vax movement would be dead. > > [Cite](http://www.antivaccinebodycount.com/Anti-Vaccine_Body_Count/Preventable_Deaths.html) Yeah, it will take more than a few to kill the whole movement. But you know what- I’d be willing to bet that nearly every anti-vaxxer who actually knows a person who died or became disabled from measles or mumps or chicken pox runs out to get their kids vaccinated. Once enough kids die or are disabled we’ll be back to high vaccination rates. And then the infection and mortality rate goes back down because of herd immunity and the anti-vax mentality returns. It might not even take that- on a NYT article published yesterday, there was a comment that reported that parents of unvaccinated kids with Disney season passes were making vaccination appointments. Because apparently, the parents were only against vaccination as long as they believed there was little chance of their kids actually getting the disease. It’s not fundamentally a problem of people who are too stupid to understand the concept of risks or even a problem of a false belief that vaccines cause autism. Sure, there are some stupid people and some who believe that vaccines cause autism and some who won’t change no matter what but the main problem is that people are acting in their self-interest and won’t change their behavior until _something_ changes that equation - whether it’s the possibility of being sued, places like Disney and private schools requiring proof of vaccination to enter, pediatricians refusing patients whose parents are against vaccinations, a higher chance of their kid getting the disease. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-non-vaccinating-parents-be-held-liable-for-disease-transmitted-by-their-child/711297/35 "2015-01-31T18:04:33Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I’m curious on any proposals around exactly how to hold an anti-vaxxer parent “liable.” > > Fines? Jail? 50 lashes? Damage recovery when my kid caught his illness from your kid? We already hold children and/or their parents responsible if the child, say, breaks a window or shoplifts some magazine. Fines and restitution are regularly imposed in those situations. If a child punches another child and breaks the second child’s nose, it’s not unusal for the first parent’s child to be required (or even to volunteer) to pay the medical bills. If a parent knocks someone else’s child over - even if it’s an accident - and the child cracks his head and dies, the parent will be arrested and charged with something like manslaughter. The parent will also be liable for civil damages. Whenever one family harms another family, whether through accident or malice, we expect the first family to pay the consequences. So if a parent refuses to get vaccinations for his kids, and as a result, starts a multi-state epidemic of pox and pain - damn right, they deserve to pay for it, just like they would in any other case where they or their child damaged others. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-non-vaccinating-parents-be-held-liable-for-disease-transmitted-by-their-child/711297/36 "2015-01-31T20:11:59Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > We already hold children and/or their parents responsible if the child, say, breaks a window or shoplifts some magazine. Fines and restitution are regularly imposed in those situations. If a child punches another child and breaks the second child’s nose, it’s not unusal for the first parent’s child to be required (or even to volunteer) to pay the medical bills. > > If a parent knocks someone else’s child over - even if it’s an accident - and the child cracks his head and dies, the parent will be arrested and charged with something like manslaughter. The parent will also be liable for civil damages. > > Whenever one family harms another family, whether through accident or malice, we expect the first family to pay the consequences. > > So if a parent refuses to get vaccinations for his kids, and as a result, starts a multi-state epidemic of pox and pain - damn right, they deserve to pay for it, just like they would in any other case where they or their child damaged others. I agree with this, in theory. I’m just not sure it would be so easy to prove that one particular child was the source of the outbreak, in a courtroom. I can just see the defense attorney’s argument to the jury: “How do you know there wasn’t another child with measles in the vicinity?” ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-non-vaccinating-parents-be-held-liable-for-disease-transmitted-by-their-child/711297/37 "2015-01-31T20:42:08Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > It does not make sense to me to mandate vaccinations, nor to hold parents accountable for selfish beliefs. There is a slope there that is slippery. > > If you want to protect your children, vaccinate them. At some point the anti-vaxxers will figure it out. > > I do support clinicians refusing to see those who have refused vaccinations (personally or by parental proxy). And I support third party payers being permitted to refuse medical bills for illnesses against which vaccination was available but refused. > > Ultimately the decision not to vaccinate is very selfish. You need everyone else to take what minimal risk there is so that the illness does not exist, and then you get protection risk-free. But I am not in favor of governmental nannying for it. > > Let a few kids die or become post-encephalitic veggies, and I think the anti-vaxxers will probably come around. As a friend of someone who received compensation due to a vaccine related condition of her child I find posts such as this a bit too flippant. I really don’t know much about the subject as a whole, but my friend was required to sign a confidentiality clause. While such clauses are understandable they do leave a bad taste in the mouth. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-non-vaccinating-parents-be-held-liable-for-disease-transmitted-by-their-child/711297/38 "2015-01-31T20:45:31Z")
I think parents should only be held liable if it’s a fairly common disease. Ebola, to use a contrary example, is extremely rare in America. If an Ebola vaccine existed, but the likelihood of getting Ebola in America were still, say, one in 1,000,000,000,000 then I wouldn’t blame a parent for not vaccinating their child against Ebola, nor would I blame the parents if the child did suffer that hit-by-lightning extreme rare occurrence of getting Ebola and subsequently transmitting Ebola to someone else. At any given moment, there are probably numerous exotic diseases that we could be vaccinated against but aren’t. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-non-vaccinating-parents-be-held-liable-for-disease-transmitted-by-their-child/711297/39 "2015-01-31T20:50:04Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Because you didn’t vaccinate him, or because vaccinations don’t work? Because, like everything in medicine, no vaccine is 100% effective for everyone. We only get to find out what kind of protection we’ve got when some asshole’s mini-typhoid-Mary spreads around a highly communicable and dangerous disease. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-non-vaccinating-parents-be-held-liable-for-disease-transmitted-by-their-child/711297/40 "2015-01-31T21:07:08Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > I agree with this, in theory. I’m just not sure it would be so easy to prove that one particular child was the source of the outbreak, in a courtroom. I can just see the defense attorney’s argument to the jury: “How do you know there wasn’t another child with measles in the vicinity?” Oh, certainly. The merits of the case would have to be hashed out like in any other personal injury case. I was merely addressing the obviously incorrect notion that holding the parents responsible for damage caused by their children was a strange and dangerous idea. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-non-vaccinating-parents-be-held-liable-for-disease-transmitted-by-their-child/711297.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-non-vaccinating-parents-be-held-liable-for-disease-transmitted-by-their-child/711297.md?page=3)