A major health alarm

[Dave Grubb]

There is currently a "major" problem concentrated in the ultra-orthodox Jewish community which does not vaccinate their children. This alarm has now resulted in the Mayor threatening to close down the yeshivas until all the children are vaccinated.

From today's NYT:

New York City on Tuesday declared a public health emergency following a measles outbreak in the Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said that the city would require unvaccinated individuals living in select ZIP codes in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to receive the measles vaccine as the city escalated its efforts to stem one of the largest measles outbreaks in decades.

The mayor said that the city would issue violations and possibly fines for those who did not comply.

“This is the epicenter of a measles outbreak that is very, very troubling and must be dealt with immediately,” Mr. de Blasio said at a news conference in Williamsburg, adding, “The measles vaccine works. It is safe, it is effective, it is time-tested.”

To be sure this same issue applies to all childhood maladies, including chickenpoxs, and mumps-----all of which many of us considered part of growing up.

I have a bit of a problem with getting so wound up over this. My only reservation is that this group of people are experts in leveraging the system for entitlements, thus there is a cost to all of this which will be shared by the larger community.

Wat say you?

[TriGuy]

The mayor is correct imho. Your freedom ends when it adversely affects the health of rest of the population. they did the same thing with public gathering spots to help stem the polio epidemic.

[Mike]

The mayor is correct imho. Your freedom ends when it adversely affects the health of rest of the population. they did the same thing with public gathering spots to help stem the polio epidemic.

Ah, but in this case does it really affect the health of the rest of the population? I think not, only those who are un-vaccinated and never had the measles can contract them. You can only get them once.

I think the government may be reaching a little too far into religious freedom here. If this were a deadly disease like Small Pox, I would agree.

[added on edit]

I also don't believe the mayor of a city has the authority to order anyone to inject foreign substances into their or their children's bodies. Someone with a much bigger stick, like the state legislature, needs to make that call.

[wacojoe]

I think these people are complete numbnutz to deprive their children of these protections, but the issue is whether and to what extent they have the liberty to do such.

Btw, there are a couple of other brewing major health risks brewing — a new toxic and deadly fungus for which we have no antidote is cropping up in the world and here in the U.S., and Venezuela is spilling massive numbers of unvaccinated and infected people with all the old diseases long in submission elsewhere (measles is just one of them) with their true asylum seekers.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...tients-n678001

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog..._disease_.html

[Dave Grubb]

I tend to agree with Mike---and for the same reason as Mike pointed out I believe Joe's fear button bogus.

[Mike]

I agree with Joe's first paragraph. Anyone who doesn't afford their children protection is not thinking of their children's welfare. They are not thinking clearly.

[Dave Grubb]

Being the devils advocate---there are a lot of very good meaning people who believe the safest thing for their children is to not be vaccinated. We have a good friend who is convinced her son's autism was caused by vaccinations. She has surrounded herself with a anti-vaccination community that makes it easy for her to maintain that thinking.

[Honda]

I think the anti-vacciners are a strange lot. But they have the right to be a strange lot. I am somewhere between TriGuy and Mike on governmental authority. That is a tough one for me. In any event a mayor in my mind should never have the power to require a citizen to inject themselves without their consent. Some higher authority backed up by CDC probably. On the fence.

[Truckman]

I think the anti-vacciners are a strange lot. But they have the right to be a strange lot.

They are strange, and I do not agree with them...And the line is being pushed between individual rights, and the government's responsibility to protect the rights of children to grow up disease free...I'm also on the fence in this one...As usual it's the kids who get hurt the most......Ben

[Dave Grubb]

...And the line is being pushed between individual rights, and the government's responsibility to protect the rights of children to grow up disease free.....Ben

Just for giggles----is it really a right to grow up disease free? Taking that one step further---are today's kids better off than those of us who created our own immunity?

I am sure I am not the only one here that suffered chickenpox, measles and mumps. Was there benefit to a "natural" immunization---I don't know that answer.

[Mike]

I am thinking along the same lines as Dave. I had all the childhood diseases including both kinds of measles. Did it make me stronger? No way of knowing that.

I'm also curious as to how the government became responsible for protecting the rights of children to grow up disease free. Nowhere in the Constitution do I find that responsibility, or power.

[Truckman]

I'm also curious as to how the government became responsible for protecting the rights of children to grow up disease free. Nowhere in the Constitution do I find that responsibility, or power.

Evidently I chose the wrong words......Ben

[Mike]

A new thought - is de Blasio anti-semitic? He is going after the Jewish community.

[Dave Grubb]

No, that would political suicide.

The ultra orthodox or Hasidic Jews are looked down on by mainstream Jews.

[Honda]

Nowhere in the Constitution do I find that responsibility, or power.

Well that's an interesting topic. Many responsibilities that our government has to our people are not expressly found in our Constitution. Many of the governments responsibilities to our citizens arise from the passage of laws. If challenged then those laws are measured as to whether or not they are "constitutional". Take social security for example. It is clearly a governmental responsibility to pay out those benefits yet there is no mention of social security in the Constitution. Said another way if Congress were to pass a law and state that the government will provide vaccines to it's citizens that would then become a responsibility and I think if challenged it would be found to be Constitutional. After all it does not take much the Supreme Court found Obama Care Constitutional................just saying