Measles on the increase: children’s rights
Guest post by Pink Prosecco
I woke up this morning to an email informing me that there was an outbreak of measles at my child’s school. In my area the problem is not generally too bad, but in Merseyside they are suffering the worst outbreak of the disease since 1988, with over 200 people affected – about 20% of these have needed hospital treatment.
Although I’m not completely sure about making such vaccinations mandatory, or excluding children from school if their parents don’t comply – I’m not completely opposed either. On a recent radio interview the writer Peter Ackroyd, asked in which historical era he’d most like to live in, immediately responded that he felt it would be neither sensible nor desirable to live in any era but our own. And it certainly seems neither sensible nor desirable to allow dodgy (non)science to persuade you not to immunise your children against serious and preventable diseases and – more importantly – to put the lives of children who are unable to be vaccinated in danger.
Innocent Abroad said,
May 8, 2012 at 6:56 am
I am not sure I entirely understand the last fourteen words. Do they refer to some medical conditions which counter-indicate vaccination?
Rebecca Lesses said,
May 8, 2012 at 8:42 am
Children who are immune compromised can’t get vaccinations. There might be other conditions too that make it a bad idea for a child to get vaccinations (just not the religious or crank reasons that people usually put forward for refusing them).
Innocent Abroad said,
May 8, 2012 at 10:19 am
Without knowing the relative prevalence of “immune compromised” kids and the poor souls who have nutty parents, it’s a bit difficult to assess the rtisk involved. (Note: freedom either includes the freedom to be nutty, or else it isn’t freedom. Of course, this blog being what it is, I don’t assume that RL or any other of its contributors are pro-freedom…)