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Saturday, January 31, 2015

Modest Proposal: Anti-Vax Edition

To continue my obsession du jour, I have a modest proposal: the federal government should legislate the creation of a database of all those who are vaccinated.  The law would also include/allow discrimination:
  1. Public schools would be required to exclude the un-vaccinated.
  2. Private schools and day care provides would be allowed to exclude the un-vaccinated.
  3. Airlines would be required to exclude the un-vaccinated.  Not sure about trains and buses--they don't have the same handy ticketing/database connections.
  4. Any other private actors would be allowed to exclude the un-vaccinated although access to the database might require some regulations/limitations.
Sure, some private schools might want to keep their doors open to potential plague carriers, but the creation of this law would most probably shift the burden in the litigation game.  That those who welcome the un-vaxxed would be legally liable if those who are legitimately unvaxxed--the very young, those with specific health conditions--get exposed.

Yes, there would be waivers for those have health conditions that make vaccination actually dangerous.  No, this probably would not lead to medical marijuana type access since most doctors probably feel more strongly about vaccinations than about marijuana AND one could also include legislation that allow folks to sue doctors who give out too many exemptions (details beyond my random speculation).

The idea would be that we would essentially quarantine those who are potential carriers.  Is this more or less draconian that what people considered last fall with the Ebola scare?  Probably less.  Especially given that it is pretty rational to vaccinate as I discussed earlier today.

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