'Exploring legal liability for parents of unvaccinated children '

[xchrom]

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Exploring legal liability for parents of unvaccinated children

The current issue of First Impressions, the online companion to the Michigan Law Review, is titled "Liability for Exercising Personal Belief Exemptions from Vaccination." The issue consists of six commentaries from physicians, lawyers, public health scholars, and ethicists writing on the following topic:

"With the increased risk that the use of personal belief exemptions will limit the effectiveness of vaccination, this symposium addresses whether parents who refuse to vaccinate their children should be liable in tort to individuals who are infected and injured by the unvaccinated children."
We were asked to contribute to this symposium -- our article is available here (pdf). As a policy solution, advocating legal liability for parents of unvaccinated children seems inadvisable. From the paper, here's our conclusion...


Labels: Exemptions, Law, Mandates, Vaccination rates


http://blog.vaccineethics.org/2009/01/exploring-legal-liability-for-parents.html

[notesdev]

1. But who could get infected?

Not a vaccinated individual... the only people who could claim standing would be other unvaccinated people.

I would be wary of assessing liability for disease transmission, anyway. That's a can of worms I'm pretty sure a lot of people are not interested in seeing open.

[Why Syzygy]

2. Wouldn't it of necessity also

include criminalizing illness?

It would certainly throw wide the doors to new rounds of Witch Hunts. Humans have a built in "blamer" and proclivity to seek vengeance.

[xchrom]

4. only if you're a superstitious nut case. nt

[kestrel91316]

11. Was it a witch hunt to go after Typhoid Mary??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon

"Her notoriety is in part due to her VEHEMENT DENIAL of her own role in spreading the disease, together with her REFUSAL to cease working as a cook. She was forcibly quarantined twice by public health authorities and died in quarantine."

Mary Mallon, like today's vaccine refuseniks, refused to accept biological facts. Given the time in which she lived, her willful ignorance is at least partly understandable. There is no excuse for failure to accept the germ theory of disease and the biological facts about immunization in this day and age.

[xchrom]

3. fuck that -- i am. nt

[notesdev]

5. You are what?

Interested in seeing liability for disease? Do you really want to start seeing people get sued for things like STDs?

[xchrom]

6. but parents through willful ignorance spreading other infectious disease ok. nt

[HuckleB]

8. Disease has been used as a weapon before.

Besides, if we're going to ignore the consequences of negligence for preventable disease spread, shouldn't we start ignoring the consequences of negligence for other things, like automobile accidents?

[xchrom]

15. we do that, don't we? nt

[Why Syzygy]

12. Are these two posts in agreement?

xchrom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Wed Feb-18-09 06:56 PM
Response to Reply #2
4. only if you're a superstitious nut case. nt

xchrom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Wed Feb-18-09 06:55 PM
Response to Reply #1
3. fuck that -- i am. nt

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[HuckleB]

7. For starters, kids who haven't been vaccinated yet.

We don't do it straight out of the womb, you know. Younger babies could be infected at a higher rate because of increased non-vaccination.

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/02/the_consequences_of_not_vaccinating.php

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. People who can't get vaccines for valid medical purposes.

Or the innocent children of woo woo nutjobs.

[kestrel91316]

10. Many people cannot be vaccinated for very legitimate medical reasons,

as opposed to just being paranoid and misinformed. And some vaccinated people do not, for various reasons, develop adequate protective immunity.

I support liability for willing Typhoid Marys.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

13. Barring extenuating circumstances what is the difference between not allowing vacines vs praying

vice going to the doctor for other illnesses. If the latter is child abuse so is the former.