logoalt Hacker News

lostloginlast Saturday at 7:49 AM2 repliesview on HN

So why vaccines?

Why not lose your mind over arthritis medication? Throat lozenges? Lice shampoo? Heart burn treatment?


Replies

dmurraylast Saturday at 8:35 AM

None of those are generally made mandatory. It's a reasonable position to say the government shouldn't be able to compel you to put any particular drugs in your body, even if it would benefit the population at large.

The opposite position is also reasonable: the government should be able to compel you to take certain medical treatments in the name of improving public health. Reasonable people not blinded by ideology can accept both of those positions and handle individual cases on their merits. In the modern liberal world we've reached a consensus something like: measles vaccine OK, sterilising people with hereditary defects not OK. But people in other times and places settle on other compromises.

Note: I'm aware that this decision isn't about forcing anyone to have the vaccine, it's just "advice". But it's only one step removed from that. Public schools already withhold services from kids who don't have CDC-recommended vaccines, and we've seen various governments willing to go much further during the COVID-19 pandemic.

show 2 replies
spiderfarmerlast Saturday at 8:33 AM

Because their manipulators only need a couple subjects for identity politics. If they sow too many seeds of doubt, the world becomes too complex again, while the goal is the opposite.