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Ruining It for the Rest of Us
Caught a great snippet of This American Life about vaccinations on my way to lunch with Weezey.
There’s a pretty intense debate over mandatory vaccination between public health experts who want to eliminate measles/mumps/etc and concerned parents who think the vaccines may increase the risk of autism and autoimmune diseases.
In today’s episode, TAL framed things as a tragedy of the commons: Let’s say that there are risks associated with vaccination (which is very much the case, even if the above links prove to be false) - and these risks outweigh the benefits for any given child. But if each parent acts selfishly, then no one will be vaccinated, and we’ll all suffer. Is it right to force parents to make decisions that put their child at risk, for the benefit of society as a whole?
Weezey made a cool point - there are some parallels between this and the drug policy debate (“Should the government force you to take some poison, for the benefit of society?” vs. “Should you be allowed to take some poison, to the detriment of society?”).
NPR is one of my favorite things about being home.
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