We’ll here’s the problem: State lawmakers pandering to Colorado’s Typhoid Marys have it all wrong when it comes to backing the state’s dangerous and ineffectual vaccination laws.
The reason why you should care is because Colorado is among the states with nearly non-existent vaccination requirements and it has the growing incidence of once-eradicated childhood diseases to prove it.
The next hacking cough you hear could well be whooping, and you can blame it on state lawmakers like Rep. J. Paul Brown, R-Ignacio. He and others in the state House balked at a milquetoast effort to get parents to vaccinate their kids before allowing them in public schools. Colorado is at least not so backward that they allow it, but the state is so bullied by anti-vaxers that the requirement means nothing because it’s so easy to get around. For years, Colorado lawmakers have attempted to bring the state into the 21st Century when it comes to mandating childhood vaccinations, mirroring most other states. But each time lawmakers try to ensure that only children with valid medical exemptions be allowed to go to school sans vaccines, all hell breaks loose.
This year, all vaccine proponents are trying to do is tighten up data collected regarding vaccination. The bill being bombarded with anti-vaxer criticism does nothing to improve compliance when it’s so badly needed. Federal officials report that Colorado ranks last in school vaccination compliance for measles, mumps and rubella. And cases of those diseases are on the rise. Sadly, there are children and adults who are more than inconvenienced by debilitating cases of measles and whooping cough. They’re killed. That’s because they have legitimate health reasons why they can’t tolerate the vaccines that could save their lives.
And this is what happens when the issue gets to the Colorado Legislature.
“There’s a lot of people in this state that do not want to vaccinate their children,” said Rep. J. Paul Brown, R-Ignacio, according to an Associated Press story Thursday. “They have that right.”
Yes, Rep. Brown. They do have the right not to provide modern medicine to their children, but the do not have the right to send them to school and infect other children, some of whom medically cannot tolerate vaccines, have depressed immune systems and are cruelly at the mercy of selfish, dangerous parents you support.
California recently fought back against these misinformed and wrongfully empowered parents and did away with “I-just-dont-wanna” vaccine exemptions, like we have in Colorado. Just like we should do here, you can certainly not vaccinate your kids, just don’t bring them to school to risk the health of others whose parents know better.
What part of every credible scientific and medical organization do these state lawmakers and their supporters not get about “vaccines are safe and save lives?”
We are entrusting the health of the herd and our own children to people who clearly have all the science savvy of a U.S. Senate environmental committee chairman from Oklahoma who is a leading climate-change-hoax-proponent. These people believe in vaccine conspiracy theories that have all the credibility of a horoscope. And they’re making decisions that affect the health and wellbeing of all our children, and all the rest of us, too.
The prognosis for Colorado is grim unless it reverses its non-existent vaccination laws. Disease won’t come in a smattering. One death last year followed a measles outbreak at Disneyland that sickened 100 people, all because foolish, misled, selfish people avoided childhood vaccination rules.
If Colorado lawmakers are too afraid or too naive to force parents to vaccinate their children before sending them to school, then it’s time for state residents to put a common sense measure on the ballot themselves. More often than not, the Colorado electorate, common sense and a sense of community can be highly contagious.