Parasites

A friend of mine alerted me to this article in the NYT. About a bunch of capri-wearing, teva-sporting, self-righteous, selfish freaks:

NYT Article.

A previous blog entry can be found here, which includes the Times Literary Supplment's review of Arthur Allen's Vaccine.

Among the many things that gets me about these types is their unconcern with their own ignorance of scientific medicine and the basic precepts of science. Ignorance empowers them. They sit around in their little Mommy and Me groups puffing each other up with a bunch of unfounded or ill-founded bullshit.

I believe that, in certain instances, it's possible to argue that denying a child a vaccine is tantamount to child abuse. And I while I would hope that the state would consider criminal charges against parents who endanger other's with their pseud0-science, I look forward to the civil penalties that may result from the neglect. Especially, considering that unlike yesteryear, where the poor were the only ones who neglected to get their shots, now it's the upper-middle-class Volvo/Westside set. And they have deep-pockets. This weird reversal is part of the whole precious-parent syndrome that I've been critiquing throughout this blog.

Here are some excerpts from the article:

many of these parents are influenced by misinformation obtained from Web sites that oppose vaccination.

Children who are not vaccinated are unnecessarily susceptible to serious illnesses, they say, but also present a danger to children who have had their shots — the measles vaccine, for instance, is only 95 percent effective — and to those children too young to receive certain vaccines.

Measles, almost wholly eradicated in the United States through vaccines, can cause pneumonia and brain swelling, which in rare cases can lead to death. The measles outbreak here alarmed public health officials, sickened babies and sent one child to the hospital.

“I refuse to sacrifice my children for the greater good,” said Sybil Carlson, whose 6-year-old son goes to school with several of the children hit by the measles outbreak here. The boy is immunized against some diseases but not measles, Ms. Carlson said, while his 3-year-old brother has had just one shot, protecting him against meningitis.

While nationwide over 90 percent of children old enough to receive vaccines get them, the number of exemptions worries many health officials and experts. They say that vaccines have saved countless lives, and that personal-belief exemptions are potentially dangerous and bad public policy because they are not based on sound science.

Some parents of unvaccinated children go to great lengths to expose their children to childhood diseases to help them build natural immunities.

In the wake of last month’s outbreak, Linda Palmer considered sending her son to a measles party to contract the virus. Several years ago, the boy, now 12, contracted chicken pox when Ms. Palmer had him attend a gathering of children with that virus.

“It is a very common thing in the natural-health oriented world,” Ms. Palmer said of the parties.

She ultimately decided against the measles party for fear of having her son ostracized if he became ill.