People are worried about children who can't be vaccinated for valid reasons, not already vaccinated children. Valid reasons include: too young (less than 12 months for measles IIRC), too immunocompromised (leukemia, etc etc), legitimate serious allergies to the vaccine, too ill on scheduled vaccination day (would simply delay the vaccination until the child is well, but still opens them up to more days at risk), etc.
#1. The risk to vaccinated kids is real, however slight. So I would definitely take that into consideration.
#2. If you have a child who is too young to be vaccinated or can't be vaccinated for other reasons (but wait, there are no other valid reasons), then you shouldn't take him/her somewhere where he (or she) could be exposed to a deadly disease. This includes doctor's offices that see sick patients (heck, even a cold could be devastating to an infant). Solution? I don't know. Maybe there's a special clinic that just gives out vaccinations, or does well baby check-ups? No idea. Note that I'm allowing you to put the majority of the blame on the anti-vaxxers (did I get the spelling right this time?). I'm just not allowing you to put 100% of the blame on them (let's say they get ~99.73% of the blame, give or take 49.72%).
#3. You realize you gave a lot of valid reasons for thinking about delaying or even not getting a certain vaccination, right? Which is my point...you're allowed to question the "You must do it no matter what, I'm smarter than you, SCIENCE!!!!"
It's very easy to sign a form saying you have a religious objection to something. There is no proof required.
You don't even have to say what religion? Just curious, I haven't done this myself.
This debate always reminds me of the hysteria surrounding unneutered pets.
Some of my pets are not neutered for their own health and it is irrelevant to me if others consider them a burden on society.
But I have to, if honest, admit that this is an apples=to=oranges comparison because in my case, my veterinarians agree with me.
Apples to apples. Some actual doctors have at some point advocated for delayed vaccinations. Does that make the people who followed their doctor's advice right, or stupid, or somewhere in between?
1) I understand there is real risk to all vaccinated people (not just kids). However, you completely ignored the larger risk that non-vaccinated people face, so I was correcting you.
2) It is unreasonable to expect an infant or immunocompromised individual to sequester themselves in their house. Considering these are often the people who need doctors the most, your argument that they should avoid doctors offices is really inconsiderate. In fact, this is the exact reason that many doctors are refusing to treat patients who refuse/delay vaccinations due to personal objections -- because they have legitimately seriously ill patients whose health must take priority over the delusions of anti-vaxxers.
3) I provided a list (and a link, in another post) of CDC-recognized medical reasons for delaying or refusing a vaccination. The vast majority of the CDC's recommendations can be boiled down to this:
TELL YOUR DOCTOR IF.... A) you have severe life-threatening allergies to a vaccine or a component of it (note: a rash is not life threatening)
B) your immune system is suppressed
C) you are pregnant
D) you have seizures
If any of these things were going on with me or my child, my doctor would know about them already. I wouldn't be running down to CVS to get my vaccines, because I would know that I have serious health issues that require a working relationship with a medical provider. My doctor would also be aware of the CDC's recommendations regarding delaying or not getting vaccinations; in fact, they'd probably be more aware of the guidelines than I am. They would not be telling me or my hypothetical highly allergic, cancer ridden, epileptic child that we "must [get all vaccines] no matter what."
............
I went to a tiny private liberal arts college that requires everyone to live on campus all four years before I transferred. I'm a rebel and decided I wanted to live off campus with my boyfriend at the time, so I signed a form saying I had a religious objection to communal living or some such BS. I don't remember having to research what religion and write it down or anything of that nature, but of course, YMMV.
Edit: This popped up on my Facebook news feed just now -- quite relevant:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2015/02/religious_exemption_for_vaccines_christian_scientists_catholics_and_dutch.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_bot...........
It's not an apples to apples comparison to unaltered pets. If you are a responsible pet owner, you can control your unaltered pet and prevent it from causing damage to anyone else. Once infected, it is significantly harder for you to control the transmission of a disease than it is for iris lily to put her dog on a leash or keep him in the fenced yard. So, not vaccinating presents a much higher danger to society than not altering pets. In fact, the difficulty of controlling actively infectious diseases is precisely why we developed vaccines in the first place -- they're much easier to control when you're
preventing them from spreading, as opposed to playing catch up trying to heal everyone who's been infected.
As to the question about doctors who advocated not vaccinating, I would like to see some statistics on the prevalence of that -- I don't think it's as common as you think, and while many doctors may go along with delayed vaccination schedules to appease parents with concerns, that doesn't mean they really condone it. They're just trying to do what's best for the child and not alienating the parents, because something is better than nothing.