This country is going crazy

southernbubby

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 12:11 pm

amother [ Pink ] wrote:

I have an innocent question, hoping someone can answer me here.
I am the most pro vax. I am in a situation now where I am pregnant and cant get revaxxed. I was vaxxed on time as a kid (thank you mom!!!), and somehow I am not immune now. Same with my husband, so he just got the mmr booster. Same with his sister. Same with 2 of my aunts and a whole bunch of people in my shul. WE ARE ALL UNDER 30 YEARS OLD! What is happening??? Why isn't anyone's vax's working? Maybe it's not the antivaxxers who are (solely) causing this breakout! Maybe it's the people who were vaxxed and aren't immune and just didnt know!

It's a combination of factors but it is possible that the immunity wanes and the shot has to be given again later in life.
Anyone who is not immune can catch measles and transmit it. The outbreak has been a wake up call for health officials.
At the same time, without vaccines, the outbreak would have been worse.

amother

Scarlet

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 12:13 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Quote:

Q: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO LIBERALISM?
A: Cognitive dissonance in the age of #Phascism
The Amended Liberal Credo:
1. Censorship is bad except when it comes to vaccines
2. ”Informed consent” should apply to every medical product and intervention — except vaccines
3. America should honor her treaty obligations under the Nuremberg Code and the ethical precepts of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights — except where they impede forced vaccination
4. Every medicine should be safety tested — except vaccines
5. Pharma is greedy, homicidal and untrustworthy — except about vaccines
6. Mercury and aluminum are dangerous neurotoxins — except in vaccines
7. LISTEN TO WOMEN — except about vaccines
8. ”MY BODY, MY CHOICE — except with vaccines
9. Glyphosate and formaldehyde cause cancer — except in vaccines
10. Borax, banned in food — but not in vaccines
11. Vaccines are so unavoidably unsafe they need legal immunity, yet so incredibly safe that it’s ethical to mandate them
12, Agencies get captured — except with vaccines
13. People in power lie — except about vaccines
14. Industry falsifies climate science — but not vaccine safety science
15. QUESTION AUTHORITY — but not about vaccines
16. Critical thinking and skepticism are democratic virtues — but not about vaccines
17. Never govern by fear — except with vaccines
18. Demagoguery, scapegoating, hate speech, cruelty and bullying are wrong — except about anti-vaxxers (aka: the moms of intellectually disabled children)
19. Banning minority children from schools and public places is reprehensible — except with the unvaccinated

Magic wand time.

Vaccination is now totally optional.

What would you do, and why?

amother

Ginger

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 12:51 pm

southernbubby wrote:

The fault lies with those who abused both religious and medical exemptions. I sure hope no Jew tried to convince someone that our religion opposes vaccines. It also lies with those cult leaders who have multi million dollar backers.
The rest of us are less worried about a totalitarian government than we are about becoming ill from VPDs and we are not concerned about the rights of those who brazenly expose the vulnerable to those potentially serious diseases.

Why do so many people not chap that line of reasoning? Admit, I didnt at first, but now I get it.

Vnishmartem forbids doing a medical procedure that your research albeit in a minorityof dr and religious people feel by their research is damaging to health. Which makes it valid logic mathematically. Why argue that? I wouldnt call it abuse or misuse, thats what its for AND its the same thing that protects religious rights like bris milah and shechita. We need to be careful with laws. Things can backfire in unexpected ways.

amother

Lavender

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 1:12 pm

amother [ Ginger ] wrote:

You are calling it medical procedure. It is a procedure for a possible prevention (highly effective, but not 100%) and not a procedure for actual refuah. The difference in halacha is there; you may not take as many risks for prevention as you may for refuah, especially when one studies the rate of risks for the diseases immunization is meant to prevent.
Another issue here is that it is either all or nothing, with the religious exemption. So, although one may decide that one is ok immunizing for polio, but not for chicken pox since the risks of varicella overweigh risks of chicken pox, whereas perhaps the risk of immunization for polio is less than the risk of the actual disease, the DOH does not allow that in order for a religious exemption to be valid. (These ex. are just for illustrative purposes.)
They are really forcing anti vaxxers to do nothing instead of some.

JoyInTheMorning

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 1:45 pm

amother [ Lavender ] wrote:

Where is your source that halachically one may not take risks for prevention? Please cite the exact source; you know I will look it up.

There is much reason to think that you *can* take risks for prevention. For example, a parent is obligated to teach his child to swim. That is to prevent drowning; however, there is always a small risk that when you are teaching a child to swim, (s)he will drown. (It was greater in the times of the Gemara, before flotation devices and lifeguards.)

The Rambam, as I mentioned in a previous thread, spends much of the beginning of Mishneh Torah outlining many health practices designed to prevent illness. All actions carry risk. He does advise balancing everything out, but his instructions are quite specific. Who is to know whether eating too many pitted fruits, for example, could risk the health of someone prone to Crohn's disease, or whatever the equivalent was in the 12th century?

yksraya

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 1:50 pm

amother [ Lavender ] wrote:

No, they are forcing anti vaxers to do "all" instead of "some".

Or homeschool. that's an option.

JoyInTheMorning

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 2:00 pm

I emphasize again, as I have on another thread, that the vast majority of conservatives and the vast majority of liberals support vaccination. It appears most also support government intervention to prevent or contain outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. So great is the agreement that Fox and I even agreed on a previous vaccination thread where liberals were being roasted for ... what? I'm don't remember exactly, because it was something vaccine-related that conservatives and liberals agree on.

Now of course, there are exceptions to every rule. Examples include Michael Sussman, the lawyer who fought against Ed Day's ban on non-vaxxed kids gathering in public, and the large segment of Waldorf school parents who don't vax and are mostly liberal. Crossing over to the other aisle, I suspect that most Orthodox Jews who don't vax are conservative.

So it goes. It's not a liberal vs. conservative issue. Don't try to make it one.

southernbubby

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 2:01 pm

amother [ Ginger ] wrote:

Mathematically, enough people did "research" to significantly make an unsafe situation for vulnerable people. There are religious laws about that too. The government is protecting the mitzvah of removing danger. I see that the government protects my version of Judaism.

southernbubby

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 2:09 pm

amother [ Lavender ] wrote:

I have not seen any rabbonim prohibit vaccinations. There are some who don't require it.

amother

Powderblue

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 2:13 pm

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

I don’t have the source and I’m neutral on the topic of vaccines. But I know that women do not have the obligation of Peru U Revu (to have children and multiply) and men do. This is because the Torah recognizes that childbirth is risky for a woman. Therefore, they may not be forced to take that risk even for the purpose of a Mitzvah and are given the choice.

Teaching our kids to swim is all about teaching your children skills needed to survive independently, not doing something for them.

amother

Ginger

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 3:19 pm

southernbubby wrote:

Ok, how did the government protect the vulnerable with this law?.

First,
I don't see how acknowledging that if I believe based on the minority scientific and rabbinical psak then my religious beleifs forbid me to do it is so out there logically.

I don't know but maybe some lawyers with any opinion but a strong logical mind that can explain and argue both sides without being stumped here can explain the legal concern and implications about how this can turn down a concerning path.

I vaccinate. I think eradication of childhood diseases is wonderful. I am concerned with government overreach. Especially as a Jew. See if the private schools enacted this, I don't care. When the government steps in, its concerning. When government removes freedom to not have ones body under the said persons own free will, super concerning.

There are some western countries that have very broad laws that allow government to remove children from the home not just for abuse, but for subpar upbringing. Based on a government employees opinion. I forget which, one of the Nordic countries. And it happens, mostly to the minorities in that country.

I think we take for granted our free life in USA. We grew up w it. The stories of yesterday are fading from reality to it cant happen here. When the government removes freedoms in LAW to ANY group, all freedoms become more at risk. To me I feel there is a distinction between quarantine actively contageous and removing freedoms by law. I personally believe the private schools could have made independent policies and left the law out of it. I feel it is a danger to freedom. The law was unnecessary. Supported out of fear. In practice, the law removed NO dangers to infants or children undergoing chemo. What was accomplished by the law being changed?

JoyInTheMorning

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 3:43 pm

amother [ Ginger ] wrote:

I am responding only to the bolded. What was accomplished? Children who could spread measles in school because they are unvaccinated will no longer be able to spread it to their immunocompromised classmates.

That's a big win, in my opinion.

Moreover, these kinds of laws eventually result in more parents having their kids vaccinated. This happened in the Waldorf school in upstate New York. Last winter, as measles spread through Rockland county, the school started prohibiting attendance of unvaxxed kids. Many parents did stick it out for a while, but eventually got their kids vaxxed. So, a win for herd immunity.

Two big wins.

JoyInTheMorning

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 4:01 pm

amother [ Powderblue ] wrote:

Let's first distinguish between three types of rules: prohibitions, obligations, and permissions. Deontic logic 101: If one does not have permission to do an action -- if one may not do the action -- that action is prohibited, and conversely.

Amother [Lavender] had said that

Quote:

The difference in halacha is there; you may not take as many risks for prevention as you may for refuah, especially when one studies the rate of risks for the diseases immunization is meant to prevent.

I understood that she was implying that you may not take the risk of giving a vaccine given the low rate of occurrence of disease which the vaccine prevents. Let's not get into now the elephant in the room: the fact that occurrence of the disease is low *because* of vaccines.

The point is that since she is saying that one may not take the risk of giving a vaccine, then by Deontic Logic 101, in fact, just by the definitions of permission and prohibition, then one is prohibited from taking the risk of giving a vaccine. Thus, since every action carries some risk with it, by her logic, one is prohibited from giving a vaccine.

You are answering by giving an example of an action that is not obligatory. A woman is neither prohibited from assuming the risk of childbirth (unless it's recognized that in her particular case, childbirth is very risky) nor obligated to assume the risk of childbirth. That is a different situation.

(Deontic Logic 101, continued: An action is obligatory if not doing that action is not permitted. And yes, every prohibition, permission, or obligation is relative to an individual or a group, and of course there are always exceptions. Just trying to state some definitions here.)

Also, the case is different, because the woman is not generally assuming the risk of childbirth to prevent a disease. She is doing it, presumably, because she wants a child, or because whether or not she wants a child, she got pregnant, and is going to go through with having the child.

A person takes the (very small) risk of getting a vaccine in order to prevent a potentially dangerous disease.

If anything, since you brought up childbirth, this is more akin to the case of a woman taking the pill in order to prevent pregnancy because she doesn't want to assume the risk of pregnancy or childbirth. The calculation is that the small risk of being on the pill is outweighed by the greater risk of pregnancy or childbirth, in situations where the woman has been advised not to get pregnant. She is in most cases allowed to take that risk, and may even be obligated to take that risk, if no other form of birth control is available.

Not the best example because the risk of taking the pill is significantly higher than the risk of getting a vaccine. But you get the idea.

So your example doesn't answer my question.

ally

Sun, Jun 23 2019, 5:29 pm

amother [ Ginger ] wrote:

Interested to know what other piskei Halacha you base on your personal interpretations. Sounds pretty unorthodox.