My anti-vaxx cousin and family (2 kids under age 8) are sick as dogs with the flu.
All are un-vaxxed and didn't get the flu shot. I tried to entourage them to get vaxxed to the max but they didn't want to.
I get the flu shot every October. I had 6 covid vaccines. No side effects. I think they all got 1 or 2 covid vaccines years ago because they were forced to.
I feel like anti-vaxx parents should get fined or deported if/when their un-vaxxed kids get sick.
What do you think?
OK Dr. Strangelove (or, How I Learned to Start Worrying and Love the Shot), I'll play along a bit. I'll even suspend disbelief in your seeming predication of this interesting proposed enforcement regime upon completely anecdotal information.
So as I thought about it, I remembered that like me, you too were a denizen of the DMV -- Maryland, home of NIH, no less -- and then it all made perfect sense...
1. The flu vaccine is neither recommended nor mandated for many of the youngest children, and it is not required for older children. So, of course, one must first create a federal mandate, which will otherwise go against current clinical thinking for at least some children. (Note also that there will be substantial indirect costs as makers of other existing vaccines - LYME DISEASE!! -- will no doubt seek to reap the sales benefits of broader mandates, including through government contracts with federal and state public health agencies.) Either way, it takes a lot of lobbyists to make that happen, which is great for our DMV neighbors.
2. Believe it or not, there is no national registry of flu vaccinations.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/adults/vaccination-records.html There are, of course, state pediatric vaccine registries, though they generally only cover required vaccines rather than discretionary ones and are otherwise often incomplete. So, to enforce this regime, you will obviously need to award a massive government contract to create such a registry, which will surely entail hiring a number of employees to entertain the potnetial appeals from 300 million or so potential citizens who may think their particular records aren't accurate.
3. But of course, the registry just shows who's been vaccinated, and what we really want to know is who those bastards are that aren't, and more importantly, who actually got sick with the flu. So, of course, we need to have a national system (with appropriate agents) to continually compare the data to broader population registries, and to otherwise surveil, identify, report, and prosecute these ne'er do wells. Why not just hire the docs and require them to report? (But then people might not go to the doc, and do we really want that?) Perhaps a whistleblower system, with bounties?! It's going to have to be really comprehensive and fast too, since, of course, people tend to get over the flu pretty quickly. Maybe we could contract with zoom or teams, coupled with an AI bolt-on, to see who's wearing their pajamas on video calls? And a prescription claims surveillance system to see who fills antiviral Rx's!
4. Ah, but I'm getting ahead of myself. First, you have to define what constitutes "getting sick"! I felt sorta tired yesterday myself, and have had to blow my nose a lot lately, though spring is in the air. But I also felt a little queezy in the stomach last night ... after i ate that big bowl of chili. That's formal rulemaking, with an economic impact analysis and all the other stuff that OMB requires, which in turn require lawyers, economists, and another small army.
5. But hell, we've made it this far, let's continue. Some people might take issue with the fine, whether due to causation, confusion, constitution, or other reasons. So we'll need ALJ's to hear appeals, and lots of them, but not ones that are too powerful, because we don't want to create any appointment clause litigation that is going to go all the way up to scotus...
All in all, this sounds like a fantastic idea Doc...
