Mississippi has long had high childhood immunization rates, but a federal judge has ordered the state to allow parents to opt out on religious grounds.
For more than 40 years, Mississippi had one of the strictest school vaccination requirements in the nation, and its high childhood immunization rates have been a source of pride. But in July, the state began excusing children from vaccination if their parents cited religious objections, after a federal judge sided with a “medical freedom” group.
Today, 2,100 Mississippi schoolchildren are officially exempt from vaccination on religious grounds. Five hundred more are exempt because their health precludes vaccination. Dr. Daniel P. Edney, the state health officer, warns that if the total number of exemptions climbs above 3,000, Mississippi will once again face the risk of deadly diseases that are now just a memory.
“For the last 40 years, our main goal has been to protect those children at highest risk of measles, mumps, rubella, polio,” Dr. Edney said in an interview, “and that’s those children that have chronic illnesses that make them more vulnerable.” He called the ruling “a very bitter pill for me to swallow.”
Mississippi is not an isolated case. Buoyed by their success at overturning coronavirus mandates, medical and religious freedom groups are taking aim at a new target: childhood school vaccine mandates, long considered the foundation of the nation’s defense against infectious disease.
‘Medical Freedom’ Activists
Plague rats. They’re plague rats.
A rat king is quite analogous to the GOP
Can we just jail or shoot them or something?
Stupid is as stupid does
God, I hate these cretins.
Parahprasing greatly here, but in her recent book, Naomi Klein pointed out that most Americans are pilled as fuck on neoliberalism, and because the pandemic is a naturally occurring and obvious contradiction to its fundamental tenets (individualism, meritocracy, competiton, etc.), the only way to square that circle was to go insane.
I find that framework very useful. These so called activists are pilled as hell on this fundamentally individualist concept of freedom that inundates us Americans from birth. It’s an almost entirely empty conception of freedom. Basically, we can say whatever we want while owning guns and generally being selfish. No one is entitled to be free of childhood disease though. That’s not freedom because it encroaches on others being selfish. If you genuinely believe in individual liberty above all, as Americans are taught from birth, then childhood vaccinations are wrong.
Unfortunately it’s a really fucking stupid way to run a society.
I generally agree with you except I’m on the other side. I would usually pick the freedom side of a freedom/safety trade-off, with “freedom” defined as freedom from having anyone else tell me what to do, not freedom from disease. I support the general principle that a person should not be compelled to undergo a medical procedure for the benefit of others.
With that said, mandatory vaccinations really are pushing the boundaries of my libertarianism. They’re good for the individual rather than a sacrifice simply for the sake of others, and having the large majority of people vaccinated has major advantages for everyone. I’d put them in the same category as fire departments (and I’m vaccinated myself) but because I get where the vaccine opponents are coming from, I agree with letting them opt out if they go through all the paperwork. That has most of the benefits of universally mandatory vaccination but without having to force anyone who really, really doesn’t want to for whatever reason.
(I suppose there’s a libertarian argument to be made in favor of personal liability for spreading disease. If you infect me with covid, I should be able to sue you for damages just as if you negligently caused me bodily harm via other means. Of course that’s entirely impractical.)
The impracticality of holding somebody liable for things they put into the air that hurt you also sounds a lot like our big polluting corporations.
It’s funny how many conservative opinions require a leap to “this problem doesn’t exist anyway.”
When someone says “I’m not against all vaccines, just the ones for COVID”, he is usually lying. In time this “skepticism” will slide into being against even the common vaccines and it can be seen now. My favorite blog Respectful Insolence had a good post about the so-called “medical freedom”:
"Health freedom” and “medical freedom” have become a rallying cry for libertarians, far right wingers, and even outright fascists. Indeed, the Republican Party has become a bastion of antivaccine and anti-public health hostility, a process that actually predates the pandemic by at least several years. “Health freedom” and “medical freedom” have always been code words for dismantling public health infrastructure, anything resembling a vaccine mandate (even in schools), and dismantling the FDA.
Yeah, many are against only COVID because it’s gotten all the attention. But whatever leaps in logic, conspiracy theories, and blog-eurekas have them being against the COVID vaccine will apply to all the others as well. There are people in my family who don’t get their flu shot for the same reasons as the COVID one.
Same strategy as “School Choice” or “Parent’s Rights”, the first was created to suck money out of the public school infrastructure and put an end to quality free public schooling, the second to basically make children property again.
The first concept of vaccination was invented in 1796. It was an unknown idea before this. Which religion has an opinion on this and how exactly does that work when there was no concept of the thing in question when any of these religions were formed? It’s such utter bullshit on its face. There’s no grounds for this. It’s made up crap on top of made up crap, as a grounds to shirk a simple procedure that saves lives.
But, also, this headline is dumb. Religious medical freedom advocates have been about this for ages. The only thing new is they got one dumb judge to make a bad ruling.
I don’t have any evidence for this but it seems like the vaccine pushback is at least partially a desire to avoid responsibility. If they choose to vaccinate and their kid is in the 0.000001% who experience adverse effects then it would be their fault the kid was hurt but if they don’t vaccinate and their kid just happens to die of measles or whatever then it was all part of god’s plan and they didn’t do anything wrong.
Religion says not to alter or mutilate your body. That’s why very religious people might skip getting earrings or tattoos too.
Edit: A vaccine is, by definition, artificially altering your immune system response.
What religions are against vaccines??
Christ Scientists and Jehovah’s Witnesses are the only two I can think of that might, and even them I’m not sure about.
Christian Scientists are indeed against them. Jehovahs do vaccinations but not blood transfusions.
Blood transfusions honestly are not a problem most of the time, though. I’ve heard many stories about doctors just overriding the parents wishes due to emergency and the parents generally sigh with relief.
None.
Its cherry picking what suits their argument in the moment.
Same reason they’d get offended and final criminal complaints if you throw stones at them for wearing mixed fiber clothing.
Republicanism
I don’t recall any of the major accepted religions saying that anything like a vaccine is bad. But these are the types of people who will probably use religion as a way to get out of anything they don’t like or they think it challenges “God’s plan”, even if it lets them live longer.
Yeah but this is exactly the kind of thing that should be rejected as it is not “a sincerely held religious belief”. You can’t claim it’s a religious belief when your religion does not hold that belief, only you do.
The US has religious freedom in the extreme. Anything you make up to worship religiously is considered a religion by default. It takes very strong evidence to prove otherwise.
There are pros and cons to that, this is one of the cons.
“Medical Freedom” activists won’t look so tough when you cough on their unvaccinated hellspawn and 5 days later they’re grieving their death.
“All part of God’s plan”
Awesome! Bringing back Polio to own the Libs…
Ah yes, that most cherished of freedoms, the freedom to let children die of easily preventable diseases
Up until now we’ve mostly seen diseases like measles and chicken pox but I’m expecting polio to show up soon … then the shit will hit the fan.
sigh
It’s a shame it’s the children of the ones who fuck around who get to find out
Even more of a shame that other people’s children are collateral damage
I guess every thread has to be about Palestine?
Who said anything about palestine? I think you replied to the wrong comment.
Yeah.
My grandma was a nurse in the polio ward back in the day, and I had a friend (many many moons ago) who’d had polio.
‘Murica!
We were real close to eradicating the measles virus worldwide. Then this stuff happened.
We almost got polio now, though, so some progress:
Hey, fundamentalist smoothbrains, since “thinking” isn’t something you all like to do all that often, let me translate your pseudo biblical gibberish into plain English:
“I’d rather have some young person who had to fight for their life already loose that fight than allow my healthy child to get a little pinch and feel kind of down for three days”
“I’d rather have another parent stand at the grave of their little joy than allow my child to have a little ouchie on an arm”
“I’d rather cite Christianity as the reason why I act in a way Jesus would have turned away in disgust from than be a Christian and care for the most defenseless, helpless in our society this one little bit”
I really hope that the widespread cold disregard for other humans is something academics study in disbelief in the future, and not our downfall.
The Party of Family wants to go back to natural selection, then? Fine. This’ll select for general familial intelligence.
Not really. I guess my son with Ewing’s Sarcoma and a non-existent immune system will just die?
Inb4 “don’t leave the house, lol” — you try keeping a 4 year old indoors for 18 months.
I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make, but mine is that actively choosing not to vaccinate a child against a common and deadly virus when you are able is actively endangering them (and of course others) for no good reason.
Presumably your child with a non-existent immune system is highly vulnerable to pretty much everything, so you are taking extra steps to protect them, like a responsible, loving, non-psychotic parent.
To be clear: I absolutely disagree with these assholes and their reckless endangerment of children, their own and others. I think if they get their way, we should still enforce required schooling but at a (festering) private school at their own expense.
Didn’t mean it to come across as you being a dick—more of me commenting on my frustrations with morons.
Parents with autoimmune children will teach their children to take more precautions in life but with a stronger sense of love. Republican Parents will kill their children and their bloodline.
If Republicans are so hellbent on Killing Children let’s at least look at the bright side and note it’ll only last a generation or two.
I was on one of the vaccine trials. Had a cab driver on the way back from one of my checkups go on a COVID rant. It was awkward after I told him why I was there. Lmao. I’d do it again, felt great being protected asap, plus money.
