The person making a decision whether to vaccinate his/her child is faced
with a different decision, depending on whether the surrounding population
is or is not being vaccinated, because the risk is different in the risk-
benefit decision. When other children are being vaccinated, the risk of
getting the disease is small, so not vaccinating your own child makes some
sense. When hardly any children are vaccinated, then you certainly do want
to have yours vaccinated.
It is not unreasonable for parents to weigh these factors when making a
decision for their own child. Blindly vaccinating your children because
your parents did it to you ignores the fact that your own children live in
a very different world from the one you grew up in.
The real problem arises, I think, when people get dogmatic about this de-
cision. It is actually a reasoned judgment, based on estimates of risk and
benefit (made under the specific conditions that exist at a given time and
place). -- Marjorie
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Marjorie Lundquist
P. O. Box 11831 Milwaukee, WI 53211-0831 USA
marjorie at omnifest.uwm.edu
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