That fact is based on science. Tried, tested and true science. Peer reviewed science. Anyone who questions or denies this fact questions or denies science.
It’s like arguing 1+1 does not equal two. One plus one equals two and vaccines save lives.
Parents have been signing off on ‘reasons of conscience’ to get their kids in to public schools when they’re unvaccinated for years now. “Because I don’t want to” based on personal research of unscientifically sound sources is a good enough reason to refuse to provide your child with life-saving vaccines.
Now though, parents in Ontario who choose not to vaccinate won’t be able to just sign a piece of paper and be done with it. If a new bill tabled today passes, soon they will have to first sit through a class that teaches evidence-based science about the importance of and science behind vaccines and the purpose of herd immunity. Only once presented with actual facts will they then be able to still opt out for reasons of conscience.
The existing exemption is vaguely written. The new bill, tabled by Health Minister Eric Hoskins, is more clear and provides all parents with the hard facts. “The concern is many could simply be confused or misinformed and learning the science from a medical health officer or public health unit will calm their fears,” the National Post explained.
Sadly, there exists a growing cohort of people who think their own personal research can replace evidence-based scientific research. Few people except for those who are highly trained are able to effectively read and understand medical research. People who say they’ve read and researched for themselves certainly did not attend school to research and write scientific findings. They either opt out based on misinformation or based on apathy. Never do they actually opt out based on fact.
This new bill likely won’t change the minds of people who have poured over magazine articles and Natrualnews.com blogs and have their minds made up. But one could only hope that the apathetic fraidy cats might be more convinced. It might sway people who didn’t think it was a big deal one way or the other.
At the very least it will hopefully explain the responsibilities of people who are unvaccinated and the risk they are at and the risk they pose to others as they go through their lives not immunized.
You can’t force people to be educated. You can’t force them to believe that which they refuse to believe. And because of that, I’m confident people will say it’s a waste of resources and a waste of breath to try to convince people who would refuse vaccines that the choice is stupid and dangerous, and based on fluff and lies.
In fact, according to the Post, studies suggest that more than a third of parents in this country “wrongly believe vaccines can cause the very diseases they are designed to prevent.” A third! These aren’t people who are misinformed of what is in these vaccines and the damage they can cause. These aren’t even people who just think ‘big pharma’ is lying to us to make oodles of money while poisoning us. These are people who believe that vaccines cause disease. A third of Canadian believe a literal fallacy. That’s a sobering statistic. Maybe we could reach them too.
The bill certainly doesn’t force parents to vaccinate their kids, a law that many people in this province would actually likely support but calls into question all sorts of issues surrounding civil liberties. But what it does do is force parents to be more informed before they decide their own research could possibly be as good as science has found time and time again. Denying that vaccines effectively and safely save lives is like denying one plus one equals two and we all know what we would say to people who honestly think that.
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