
Vaccine-refusing community drove outbreak that cost $395K, sickened babies - xoa
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/07/vaccine-refusing-community-drove-outbreak-that-cost-395k-sickened-babies/
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xoa
The subheading of this article is "Curbing an outbreak is expensive. Should
vaccine refusers help foot the bill?" and I think that's a question that
should definitely become a standard part of the discussion. It's kind of odd
now that I think about it, but while I've been following the modern anti-
vaxxer evil since near it's fraudulent beginnings and seen a great deal of
debate and research around it, most of the solutions have tended to be based
heavily around purely the ethics of whether to legally allow it or not and to
what degree. Maybe that's because it's distasteful to consider a monetary
compromise remedy, particularly in the context of putting a cold pre-
calculated price on the death of children for something wholly preventable.

That said I wonder if like global warming it might just be reality that it's
not politically feasible to get real action, even using the market in the
latter case (since neither side of the political spectrum likes or gets the
free market much), until major effects have already happened. If that's the
scenario then at least arguing that those responsible should pay a price might
be more feasible to get through. It's a lot more inline with "common sense"
notions of justice and a lot harder to argue against, since a lot of the anti-
science arguments are based around major effects never happening in the first
place. And against an argument of "oh it's not even a problem" it seems pretty
a pretty reasonable retort to argue that if they're so sure they should be
willing to foot the bill should the "impossible" come to pass. A pre-
considered framework of law there might ultimately even be good for the anti-
science types themselves as it could blunt more mob like retaliation.

