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Vaccines May Soon Be Mandatory For Children In France (theverge.com) 253

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Last week, the French Health Ministry announced plans to make 11 vaccines mandatory for young children by 2018. French law currently mandates three vaccines -- diphtheria, tetanus, and polio -- for children under the age of two. The government's proposal would expand that list to include eight other vaccines -- including those against Hepatitis B, whooping cough, and measles -- that were previously only recommended. The proposal, which is to be presented to lawmakers by the end of this year, comes amid an ongoing measles outbreak across Europe, which the World Health Organization (WHO) attributed to low immunization rates. Italy passed a similar decree in May, requiring children to receive 10 vaccines as a condition for school enrollment. Germany, while stopping short of a mandate, has moved to tighten its laws on child immunization. But some experts question whether a vaccination mandate will sway public opinion in France, where distrust in vaccines has risen alarmingly in recent years. In a survey published last year, 41 percent of respondents in France disagreed with the statement that vaccines are safe -- the highest rate of distrust among the 67 countries that were surveyed, and more than three times higher than the global average.
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Vaccines May Soon Be Mandatory For Children In France

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  • by tezbobobo ( 879983 ) on Thursday July 13, 2017 @08:26PM (#54805247) Homepage Journal

    This is really good news for the research community. Full coverage ill mean amazing gains in learning not only how diseases propogate, but also the effect of scheduling, and the real risks involved with vaccinating. This could be a big nail in the lid of the anti-vax movement. Not to mention that France's children will be saved from a lot of nasty diseases.

    • by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Thursday July 13, 2017 @08:53PM (#54805391) Homepage

      This could be a big nail in the lid of the anti-vax movement.

      They're as immune to facts as the anti-evolution movement.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Kjella ( 173770 )

        They're as immune to facts as the anti-evolution movement.

        That's modded as flamebait? Hilarious. As much as I try not to laugh at creationists *snicker*, at least admit you believe in it because it's in your Holy Book and it is right and so everything else is wrong. Oh wait now I get it, you're not against facts it's in the Bible so it is fact. I forget how fact and fiction works for religious people, my bad.

      • This could be a big nail in the lid of the anti-vax movement.

        They're as immune to facts as the anti-evolution movement.

        And some times the same.

        This is a good place to point out that there is no liberal or conservative bias to anti-vaxxers. They seem to be pretty equally distributed toward the far end of each ideology.

        The difference if any is their reason for being idiots.

    • There are more than enough countries where vaccination has been mandatory for decades. No more data is required, vaccinations work well and they are reasonably safe.

  • by wickerprints ( 1094741 ) on Thursday July 13, 2017 @08:38PM (#54805311)

    Polio. Measles. Tuberculosis. Influenza. Rubella. Hepatitis. Smallpox.

    Sadly, vaccines are a victim of their own success. Vaccines are indisputably the single most lifesaving medical development in the entire course of human history, more than surgery or anesthesia or pharmaceuticals. And perhaps it is the ultimate irony that it is only because they have worked so spectacularly well that humans, in their seemingly infinite capacity for stupidity, have somehow managed to grow to distrust them, because people in industrialized nations have almost entirely forgotten what it was like to live in a time when these diseases were not only common, but pervasive in the general population. Entire communities were decimated by polio. People have forgotten the death and the panic and the fear of these diseases.

    The present situation is the result of a failure to educate. Every single child, as soon as they are able to comprehend, must be taught of the history of these pandemics. Not just a recitation of statistics; people need to be SHOWN IN GRAPHIC DETAIL what these diseases did to humanity throughout history.

    People built museums to remind ourselves of the Holocaust; of the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge. Yet, for the most part, we do not educate younger generations about the horrific scope of deaths these diseases have wrought on society. Why is that? Is it really only because we care when people die at the hands of despots? Dead is dead. A virus doesn't care who you are.

    • Nah. Vaccines were opposed since their creation. In the early 1900s, after people got vaccinated, some of them would try to suck the vaccine out of the blood system.
    • by Ihlosi ( 895663 )
      Polio. Measles. Tuberculosis. Influenza. Rubella. Hepatitis. Smallpox.

      Mumps, Tetanus, Pertussis, Pneumococcus, tick-borne encephalitis, Diphteria ...

      But they're all natural. Dying naturally can't be that bad, right?

    • by Evtim ( 1022085 )

      When did this anti-vaccine thing start in the West? Cause if you are looking for statistics and clean experiments - in the former communists states vaccination was obligatory. And we did learn at school about those horrific epidemics from the past. As an individual this "issues" was settled in my mind around age of 13.

      A bit tangential perhaps but isn't it strange somehow that so many things in our lives that we thought we left in the past [e.g. theocracy, slavery, racial hatred] are rearing their ugly heads

      • by Ihlosi ( 895663 )
        When did this anti-vaccine thing start in the West?

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        • That's the modern resurgence of anti-vaccine hysteria. Really, it's been around as long as vaccines have.

          • by Ihlosi ( 895663 )
            That's the modern resurgence of anti-vaccine hysteria. Really, it's been around as long as vaccines have.

            Yes ... it seems like too many people really like their crippling diseases (like Polio) and dying in more or less agonizing ways (Tetanus).

    • Polio. Measles. Tuberculosis. Influenza. Rubella. Hepatitis. Smallpox.

      Sadly, vaccines are a victim of their own success. Vaccines are indisputably the single most lifesaving medical development in the entire course of human history, more than surgery or anesthesia or pharmaceuticals. And perhaps it is the ultimate irony that it is only because they have worked so spectacularly well that humans, in their seemingly infinite capacity for stupidity, have somehow managed to grow to distrust them, because people in industrialized nations have almost entirely forgotten what it was like to live in a time when these diseases were not only common, but pervasive in the general population. Entire communities were decimated by polio. People have forgotten the death and the panic and the fear of these diseases.

      The present situation is the result of a failure to educate. Every single child, as soon as they are able to comprehend, must be taught of the history of these pandemics. Not just a recitation of statistics; people need to be SHOWN IN GRAPHIC DETAIL what these diseases did to humanity throughout history.

      People built museums to remind ourselves of the Holocaust; of the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge. Yet, for the most part, we do not educate younger generations about the horrific scope of deaths these diseases have wrought on society. Why is that? Is it really only because we care when people die at the hands of despots? Dead is dead. A virus doesn't care who you are.

      The influenza vaccine is largely useless.

      Indisputably? I'll dispute. The "single most lifesaving medical development in the entire course of human history" would be fire or sewers.

      That's not what "irony" means. Something that is unexpected is not ironic. Irony is the use of words to express something other than their literal intention. Such as calling a fat man "slim".

      I don't even have time to schlep through the rest.

    • by Socguy ( 933973 )
      Well put. I wholehearted agree with the sentiment of your statement. However, this wouldn't be Slashdot if I didn't interject with a semi off-topic reply. Throw proper sanitation and nutrition into your big four list of life saving advances and I think we've got our dramatically improved lifespans about accounted for!
    • And perhaps it is the ultimate irony that it is only because they have worked so spectacularly well that humans, in their seemingly infinite capacity for stupidity, have somehow managed to grow to distrust them, because people in industrialized nations have almost entirely forgotten what it was like to live in a time when these diseases were not only common, but pervasive in the general population. Entire communities were decimated by polio. People have forgotten the death and the panic and the fear of these diseases.

      The present situation is the result of a failure to educate. Every single child, as soon as they are able to comprehend, must be taught of the history of these pandemics. Not just a recitation of statistics; people need to be SHOWN IN GRAPHIC DETAIL what these diseases did to humanity throughout history.

      Or maybe the people who are always screaming wolf are being recognized for what they are. When I talk to my older relatives who were around before Measles vaccinations it seems like it was something everyone got and nobody died from it. It sounds as bad as Chicken Pox is. But of course today's children are taught to be afraid of Chicken Pox. It causes death and destruction everywhere it goes and vaccination for it is an absolute must. Never mind the fact that parents used to take their kids to the Pox parti

  • by buddyglass ( 925859 ) on Thursday July 13, 2017 @10:31PM (#54805923)
    From the point of view of "bodily integrity", which is frequently invoked in defense of legal abortion, I'm not sure how one can support this ruling. That said, France could ban unvaccinnated children from public schools (and/or adults from university) and that wouldn't violate anyone's bodily integrity.
    • by maswan ( 106561 )

      Children don't have bodily integrity, the choices are already made for them by someone else. I've always been fond of the idea that parents refusing vaccination should be immediately deemed unfit to make medical decisions for their children, leaving the decisions in the hands of someone less incompetent.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      In Europe children have human rights, and those rights include things like the right to an education and the right to basic healthcare. Parents can't override those rights, they can't decide to not educate their children or deny them the same basic medical care that is available to all other children.

      As such, children may have a right to vaccines. Different EU countries have interpreted that right in different ways... I think you can still opt your kids out in the UK, but you might end up in court trying to

  • There is a risk of dying in a car accident driving to the doctors office to vaccinate your kid. So in that respect they aren't safe. Is there a chance your kid will have a fever or a sore arm yes. Do I think the doctors at least in Canada have down played the risk of kids having fevers or other adverse side effects based on my very biased sample size of 5 kids, hell yes. And I suspect this is one reason the medical community might not be trusted. Do I think a day of my kids having a fever is worth it
  • Dead babies (Score:5, Informative)

    by onkelonkel ( 560274 ) on Friday July 14, 2017 @01:07AM (#54806375)

    When the anti-vaccine hysteria was peaking about 15 years ago, the consensus was that it would last until a bunch of children all died from a preventable disease. 35 dead in the current outbreak - we get mandatory vaccines.It's sucks to be right sometimes.

  • by DrXym ( 126579 )
    Within Europe 35 people have died and countless more infected from measles in the last year. One child with leukemia died because he was infected by an unvaccinated sibling.

    Vaccination should be compulsory unless there is an medical reason not to. And parents who do not vaccinate should be charged with anything from child endangerment all the way up to involuntary manslaughter.

  • 'nuff said.
  • This is a request to the editors and owners of slashdot.org, whenever vaccines come in play:
    I'd really *really* like to be able to mod someone IGNORANT.

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