You made a stupid selfish decision that is not erring on the side of caution. You are making ignorant statements to justify this and hiding behind democracy. Diseases don't give a shit about your claiming personal freedom hell the founding fathers where smart enough to know that public health takes precedent over person freedom. You have failed not only your children that are at greater risk of preventable diseases but you have put your neighbors and community at danger.

The elimination of diseases like polio and small pox where eliminated or lessened only after mass vaccination efforts, countries that where last to receive vaccination also happened to have larger number of cases at a later date than countries that where first. This is one of those times that correlation does lead to causation.

You show your ignorance about diseases and cancer. Most forms of Cancer are either genetic, environmental or age related. Cancer is a huge killer because of the collective wealth of our society. In societies with high poverty cancer is towards the bottom of being a killer. That is because people die before cancer has a chance to start. None of the top 7 cancers have a cause from viruses. The top killers in America are Heart Disease which is overwhelmingly caused by lifestyle. Number 2 is cancer which I already pointed out. 3 is stroke also lifestyle related. Number 4 Lower respiratory diseases nearly all lifestyle or environmental. Number 5 accidents. To save time of the top 15 killers of America only numbers the 7th and 10th killers are germs, Flu and Septicemia. Flu that really only kills infants and elderly or others with compromised immune systems. Septicemia is mostly caught after some type of cut. So you are not saving your kids from a future illness that will lead to death.

Also, you don't always hear about immunize kids getting sick when there are outbreaks, you sometimes hear about a couple of immune kids getting sick. And as already said not everyone that was vaccinated is 100 percent protected in some kids it just does not take or it is less then perfectly effective and that is why public health officals work so hard on herd immunity and why selfish people such as yourself are becoming a public health risk. If it was only your kids at risk of polio not too many people would care but when it could be my niece or my future kids that could catch it because of your selfishness and ignorance it becomes all of our problem.

Nice to see some of the woo nonsense of science changes. No science does not change in the way you are implying as it is a methodology. The germ theory has stood the test of time for over a 100 years. Immunizations have put an end to a number of one time deadly diseases and the data is only getting stronger with every outbreak that it is immunizations that save lives. But, than you a pomo and science is only one "truth" equal with woo.

That is one of the best letters i have ever read on salon. I don't know how many times I have seen an interview with one of the anti-vacs mothers (why is it always mothers too?) that has come out with some version of the phrase "I know my kids better than anyone" that is nothing more than a conversation stopper. The press that gets these quotes tend to fall into two camps neither equipped or willing to call them on it and they almost always give these moms the last word, the local hack tv news and the morning talk shows that pander to mothers.

Do the vac deniers even know how vaccines work? Or is the Ludditenes so strong that "chemicals" bad, "natural" good. Vaccines are not some type of magic they are a controlled dosage of the disease that allows the body to produce the antibody and protect against the wild version of the disease. The body does not make a vaccine version of say chicken pox antibodies where as it would normally make a wild version of chicken pox antibodies. Here is another bit of science education, chemicals are not just something cooked up in an evil science lab but they are everything in the human frame of reference. The organic apple is filled with chemicals. And just because something is "natural" (though everything in the universe man made or not is natural) does not mean it is good for you. Here are just a few things that a natural but not good; anthrax, small pox, maliera, and the plague.