Letter | Vaccinate your kids or endanger everyone – Santa Cruz Sentinel, 6/13/2019

The long-term risks associated with a measles infection are far more serious than the immediate rash, fever and coughing. Measles attacks the immune system, destroying for years the body’s immune memory. In a less benign society, immunization would be compelled. Instead, in California vaccination is targeted to provide herd protection to those who may not be immunized. The vaccine exemption process is a device to guarantee that children attending school achieve a 92-95% measles vaccination rate. Ebola, because of its lower contagion rate, would require 42-63% to achieve the equivalent level of herd protection. Simply put, parents who object to vaccinating their children for other than the prescribed medical reasons can satisfy the law and society’s underlying demand for the greater good by homeschooling them until all required vaccinations are complete, in most cases when the children are older.

— Doug Urbanus, Ben Lomond