Well, Lindalyn, for most of these vaccines, you can make an argument of public health interest when the state compels children to be kept in close quarters in large numbers. Interestingly enough, homeschoolers have the same requirements for vaccination that public school children do, even though their day to day exposure is infinitesimal by comparison. (And I’m expecting a national crisis of shingles in the future, since we’ve traded the irritation of childhood chicken pox for the possibility of more devastating varicella infections later, but that genie’s out of the bottle already)
Where’s the rationale, though, to subjecting thousands of children to the medical risk and spending million$, just hoping to head off illnesses that are normally transmitted by intentional behaviors rather than casual classroom contact?
Maybe we should prescribe Antabuse to every high school student to head off underage prom drinking, too?
