12:00 Dose of Vaccinology: The Privilege to Make Stupid Decisions

A few weeks ago, articles like this one were circulating.  Sadly (on two fronts), it is absolutely true.  Some very affluent school districts in Southern CAlifornia have immunization rate comparable to, or lower than, South Sudan (depends on the vaccine in question).  There is sadness in here for the South Sudanese, who for numerous economic, infrastructural, accessibility-related, displacement-related, war-related reasons have lower-than-we-would-like immunization rates.  There is also sadness of the deep-sighing, head-desking, face-palming variety for those Californian parents and their nationally distributed counterparts.  What is privilege it is to be so blissfully unaware of deadly diseases because you've never had to see them.  What a privilege it is to be allowed to make such an asinine decision.  The 2:00 does will focus on some of the factors that go into the making of that decision (I'm toying with calling it "The People I Would Like to Shank for What They do to Well-Meaning Parents")

2013-2014 was a *great* year for this nonsense here in the U.S.  We currently have an ongoing pertussis ("whooping cough") epidemic in California, and had a national measles outbreak (in addition to some unrelated regional outbreaks).  Both of these statements are absurd.  This is needless suffering.  

The measles outbreak got rather close to personal for me, because there were cases in Boston. My spouse rode the commuter rail every day, and then came home to snuggle and kiss our 3-month-old son.  Our son who was too young to be vaccinated was put in secondary contact with potential measles infection.  This is related to why I love that our pediatrician will not allow unvaccinated children in his practice.  No measle-sneezes on newborns ever need to occur in Western countries.  Ever.  That is not only grossly stupid; it's grossly unfair.