MORE ON PARENTS WHO WON’T VACCINATE THEIR KIDS. I still think that McCain should come out and redress his dumb remarks of a couple of weeks ago. I wouldn’t go so far as Megan’s rant suggests — but I do think we should make clear that parents who, with no genuine medical reason, forego vaccinating their kids are bad parents, and bad citizens. That kind of social pressure seems to get people to do all sorts of less important and more intrusive things — like recycle — so it should be enough.

I have some related thoughts here.

UPDATE: Dr. George Milonas emails:

In my office, it’s only the marginally educated white yuppies that are refusing vaccines. This is a trend seen across the country. They go on ridiculous websites where they are absolutely convinced that thimerosol or that vaccines cause autism. This, despite the fact that thimerosol has been removed for years without a drop in Autism rates and tens of million of dollars in research utterly refuting a link. I offer them packets of scientifically respectable information on vaccines, but they still refuse out of fear that their perfectly normal children will regress to the level of an autistic child. They prefer the hype of the medical garbage spread throughout the internet. I’ve had 14-16 year olds’ parents refuse vaccines for the same reason (despite the fact that there has never been a documented case of this).

What I’m truly surprised at is the fact that our illustrious legal community hasn’t begun a class action lawsuit against these parents and ‘autism’ advocates who are responsible for the fact that these eliminated diseases are making a comeback. If I were a parent whose child contracted an infectious disease from one of the unvaccinated children, I’d be out for blood. Why exactly hasn’t anybody sued Robert Kennedy and his minions for convincing parents not to vaccinate their children? To me, it’s the equivalent of yelling fire in a crowded theater.

I mentioned in my column that if drug companies peddled a product as defective and dangerous as what the anti-vaccine hysterics are peddling, they’d be sued out of existence. I doubt, however, that we’ll see any similar accountability on the part of the activists.