orichalcum

So, both cerebralpaladin and I got fairly outraged when reading this NYTimes article about outbreaks in measles and other diseases in towns where there are significant numbers of unvaccinated children. In particular, I was struck by one parent's quote: "“I refuse to sacrifice my children for the greater good."

When Mac was born, I was a little more wary about all the shots our pediatrician prescribed for him, especially because they were so many compared to the ones I remember receiving. cerebralpaladin reassured me with the help of the numerous pro-vaccine studies and our pediatrician and we went ahead with the full schedule.

The recent disease outbreaks, however, have made me much more aware of the larger public consequences of parents who choose not to vaccinate, and in some sense, of the larger importance of regulation and imposed rules. Because the thing is, these parents aren't just risking their own kids. There's a 5% chance that the vaccine didn't work for Mac, and if he catches measles from an unvaccinated child, he might get hospitalized and die, or have permanent brain damage, or become infertile. Yes, in all likelihood, he'd just be miserable for a week, but I don't want to take the risk that he might be one of the 1/1000 kids permanently blinded by measles.

I'm generally a reasonably "live and let live" person. Sleep with whoever is willing to sleep with you; worship whatever deity you want or don't want; say whatever you want, even if it offends me. But when your choices endanger my family's health, I think that's a good line to draw. I don't want to breathe in your cigarette smoke in a restaurant and get cancer. I don't want to be hit by you on the street because you view residential speed limits as optional. I don't want the toxic waste that your factory produced dumped in the river that I drink and bathe in. I don't want your unvaccinated kids coming to the schools and playgrounds that my tax money has paid for and infecting my kids.

And in return, I accept that there are a number of sacrifices that I have to make regarding my personal convenience and welfare in order to partake in the benefits of society. I will drive safely, and not smoke (easy for me, admittedly), and generally accept my civic responsibilities. And in the same way that I will try and raise my son not to bite you, I will take the minute risks of vaccines harming him so that there is less chance that he makes your kids - or you - or your elderly grandmother - sick. And it scares me that people are abandoning that social responsibility.

In certain ways I fear that our nation, perhaps our world, is evolving towards a cyberpunkian caste-based libertarianism, where the elite and wealthy and the megacorps get to make whatever choices benefit them the most, and everyone else suffers.

I was reading yesterday that the superintendent of Naples is planning on capping the number of tourists who can visit Pompeii - not to protect the ruins, but so that they can close the site early and regularly to rent it out for business functions and to special high-paying groups. I've seen the results of that here in Chicago, at a minor level. When I went to visit the King Tut exhibit at the Field Museum as a member of the hoi polloi, I paid $35, waited half an hour in line, and then was shuffled through in a long line of hundreds of people, all peering around small, dimly lit objects. It was stifling and claustrophobic and went by very quickly, feeling more like the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland than a museum trip. We couldn't have gone at all if we hadn't made advance reservations and scheduled carefully.

A month later, I went again during cerebralpaladin's law firm reception at the museum. There were perhaps 5 or 10 of us in each room, and docents offering personal explanations of each exhibit if we wished, or leaving us to gaze at the artifacts for as long as we desired if we wanted peace and quiet. It was a luxurious experience.

These seem like two vastly disparate issues - the stratification of cultural access and the refusal of vaccines. But in certain ways, they are both demonstrations of a culture which increasingly devalues social and civic equality, which says "my needs are more important than yours," and ignores the value of imposed equality, whether that comes in the form of desegregation, universal vaccines, or public museums.