
Italy bans unvaccinated children from school - hackr_nj
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47536981
======
purpleidea
I'm a physiologist, and definitely NOT an anti-vaxxer.

Two points:

1) What is the specific list of immunizations that are being mandated?

2) If immunizations are to be mandated, great, however the companies that
produce them must also be mandated to be transparent in their research and
development.

For example, they must be required by law to publish _all_ studies on drug
safety-- both positive, and negative results. That's currently not required,
they're allowed to cherry-pick results!

~~~
RandomTisk
Me either, but I've always wondered:

3) What danger do un-vaccinated children pose to vaccinated ones?

~~~
SamBam
The generally pose the most danger to those either too young to be vaccinated,
or who can't be vaccinated due to legitimate medical concerns. This is not
uncommon, and such children rely on the herd immunity of their peers.

Further, as few vaccines are 100% effective, the herd immunity also limits the
exposure of viruses to those for whom the vaccine was ineffective.

~~~
RandomTisk
Makes sense, thanks.

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CodeCube
Fantastic (note that the article mentions (or at least hints at) medical
exemptions, which of course makes sense)! Now ... if only we could make this
happen here in the US!

~~~
usaphp
> if only we could make this happen here in the US!

Hmm, isn't it already required in US? When I sent my son to first grade this
year they asked us to verify that we have all the necessary vaccines, without
it they would not allow us to register.

~~~
CharlesColeman
IIRC, many school districts have allowed conscientious objection to
vaccination requirements.

~~~
MBCook
Or religious exemptions, which it seems have become a catch all category in
some places.

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NeedMoreTea
About time too. Hopefully the UK and rest of Europe will follow suit.

~~~
s3m4j
Or, sadly soon, the UK and the EU ?

~~~
SamBam
The rest of Europe =/= the EU.

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geddy
Heck, I need to bring paperwork before I drop my dog off at doggy daycare
proving he's up to date on his shots, makes sense for kids as well as fur-
babies.

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ChrisGranger
As I mentioned the last time this was posted, the article title is clickbait.
The actual ban only applies to children under six. That is to say, hardly any
of them. Parents of older children will be fined.

"Children up to the age of six years will be excluded from nursery and
kindergarten without proof of vaccination under the new rules.

Those aged between six and 16 cannot be banned from attending school, but
their parents face fines if they do not complete the mandatory course of
immunisations."

~~~
LoSboccacc
there's a reason however: the limitation comes from our constitution and
changing that requires a supermajority that hardly any government had in the
last decades.

Art. 34. La scuola è aperta a tutti. L'istruzione inferiore, impartita per
almeno otto anni, è obbligatoria e gratuita.

"(public) schooling is open to everyone" "primary instruction, covering at
least eight years, is mandatory and free of charge"

there's both the right and the mandate to get all children into school,
changing that is something that has been evaluated and still under discussion
because it will be very hard to put an amendment in there that's both general
enough to cover the issue at hand but not so generic that it might be
exploited in the future.

~~~
franch
As an Italian I don't want that article changed for ANY reason. The
possibility to exploit any conditionality in art.34 both as an excuse to avoid
mandatory education and for privatization of the public school system is
really too high. Public schooling must remain free and mandatory without any
exemption or special case.

~~~
tomjen3
That is actually an interesting case, if you have a child with severe immunity
deficiency, should you be forced to send them to a public school with
vaccinated children?

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pulse7
They will have problems with United Nations Universal Declaration of Human
Rights: "26\. The Right to Education. Education is a right. Primary school
should be free. ..." Since primary school is a human right, nobody can ban you
from primary school!

~~~
frostburg
Which is why those parents get fined instead. Actually reading the article
helps.

~~~
puzzle
There is an even better incentive: make the parents accept liability for any
medical costs caused by their unvaccinated children. Because their principles
matter more than money, right?

~~~
frostburg
That would probably be illegal too. I'd have picked a heavier fine,
personally.

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libertine
In Portugal since like late 80's at least, when you're being signed up in the
school you have to present several documents, and one of them the Vaccines
Bulletin.

If it's not up to date, you cannot be registered.

It's a better solution instead of banning children. It might seem like it's
the same thing, but it's quite different.

~~~
dawnerd
We have something similar in the states but problem is there's a lot of
exceptions people can claim, such as religious or "personal beliefs" \- which
pretty much makes it completely useless. They need to shut down those
exemptions.

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jarmitage
I would be interested to know if any Italians (or otherwise knowledgable
people) are here who can comment on this anecdote:

I once stayed with some Italians near Pisa, who were home schooling their
children. They said that corrupt and ignorant politicians have added
unnecessary vaccines to the list of requirements, due to lobbying/collusion
with pharma companies and as a way to influence elections. As a result, some
parents decided to home school their children, so in turn the government said
that any home schooled children who don't have these vaccines cannot take the
official exams.

Edit: these were not my "friends"! Very nice folks but this one triggered my
BS detector. I never looked into it, and this story reminded me.

~~~
frostburg
I am Italian. Those people were anti-vaxers. That's a typical conspiracy
theory among them.

Just so that you know, vaccines are the most cost effective form of public
health intervention and the profit margins on them are thin, it would not make
any sense to do what they told you. The election part is obviously insane.

~~~
jarmitage
I was certainly suspicious of their claims but I did not know that was typical
anti-vaxer rhetoric. Good to know, thanks.

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Entangled
Can we have schools for the unvaccinated?

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maxhedrome
Lol fuck yes

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throw1455
_Last month, an eight-year-old recovering from cancer was unable to attend
school in Rome due to his weak immune system._

 _The child had spent months receiving treatment for leukaemia, but was at
risk of infection because a proportion of pupils in the school had not been
vaccination_

Even vaccinated kids can be carrier of patogens. BBC should have better level.

~~~
celeritascelery
True, but vaccine preventable diseases are often far worse and far more
contagious then other diseases.

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alexandercrohde
I find it interesting and also confusing how invested random people on the
internet are about the outcome of vaccination (which could theoretically cause
an issue for a small percentage of the population), as opposed to say climate-
denial (which will undisputably cause a much bigger issue for the entire
population)

~~~
StevePerkins
I'm not saying it isn't a legitimate, serious issue. But the
echo/amplification effect in some corners (i.e. primarily Reddit and HN) is
really fascinating. Kind of a " _I feel strongly about a thing, because so
many people I interact with feel strongly about the thing_ " sort of thing.

Of all the worthy issues out there today, I'm not sure why Reddit and HN has
fixated on this particular one to the extent that they have. But I'm fairly
sure that validation-reward effect helps to ratchet up the intensity. You tend
to receive a lot votes, likes, etc for commenting in agreement, and I suspect
that feedback loop has an impact.

Once again, not speaking in opposition here (God forbid! Pitchforks down!).
It's just interesting to watch classic "flash mob" and "moral panic" cycles
play out in the new medium.

~~~
dagenix
Maybe because there is nothing stupider than having people die from from
preventable diseases due to bunk science?

~~~
secstate
Again, pitchforks down -- devil's advocate, but why is the topic not open for
any discussion at all? Isn't that what defines a religion?

~~~
frostburg
Deprogramming people from anti-vax lies is hard, it's impossible for everyone
to be an expert on the immune system and to grasp the nuances of the policy
issues involved. Uninformed layman level discussion of the issue spreads
lethal memes.

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amyjess
Honestly, what they need to do is that if a parent refuses to vaccinate their
kids, the parents should be given a life sentence in prison, and the kids
should be given vaccines and new parents.

If the option to keep the kids out of school exists, people will take it.
Half-measures like this are still going to result in more and more people
dying of measles, whooping cough, and maybe even polio.

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hirundo
It seems that some of the same arguments for mandatory vaccination of people
also apply to mandatory upgrades for Windows. E.g. if an exploit is rarely
open it would be more rarely attacked, thus giving the herd of Windows
computers a kind of immunity, somewhat protecting computers that for whatever
reason, can't be upgraded.

Is it therefore reasonable to legally mandate updates or anti virus software
for popular operating systems?

Also, since operating system customizations have the potential to defeat such
protection, is that valid grounds to ban unapproved changes?

~~~
alexozer
Preventing unnecessary deaths of children is not exactly in the same class of
severity as preventing a computer from running malicious code in my opinion.

~~~
secstate
I dunno. Stuxnet and the general use of networked computers to manage things
like nuclear reactors or power distribution networks would beg to differ.

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propter_hoc
The problem with this law is that there are children (like the child with
leukemia mentioned in the article) who are unvaccinated for good medical
reasons. Hopefully this law recognizes that and does not penalize children who
are unvaccinated for reasons beyond their (or their parents') control.

~~~
onetimemanytime
I doubt anyone will force a kid that risks losing his life because of
vaccination, to vaccinate. Let's not spread FUD

~~~
gubbrora
Maybe they will out of incompetence. "I wish I could give you an exemption,
but the computer doesn't let me fill it in like that".

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crankylinuxuser
In the USA, we have the idea of "informed consent" with regards to medical
treatments. The ideal standard is that the doctor tells you what you have, and
what ways there are to treat/manage it. Doing nothing is also an answer.

Vaccines are no different: some vaccines have some rather nasty side effects.
Except in this country, under 42 U.S. Code § 300aa–22,

"No vaccine manufacturer shall be liable in a civil action for damages arising
from a vaccine-related injury or death associated with the administration of a
vaccine after October 1, 1988, if the injury or death resulted from side
effects that were unavoidable even though the vaccine was properly prepared
and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings."

Obviously vaccines don't cause autism. But there are cases in which they do
have risk past simple dermatitis reactions. So why are those who are saying
"No" being lumped in with "vaccines cause $___" unscientific know-nothings?

~~~
tomjen3
That law nearly convinced me vaccines were dangerous (after all, why do you
otherwise need the law), but the issue is that juries were far too eager to
award damages for useless cases, so it would have been unprofitable to make
vaccines.

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RobertRoberts
There seems to be glut of pro-vaccine news lately. Is it because a expert CDC
witness came forward in 2019 to state that sometimes vaccines can cause
autism?

