Vaccination can be fun

As the parent of a seven-year-old diagnosed with asthma, and as an employee of an institution where almost 10 percent of the students are down with H1N1, I am frustrated, nay, infuriated by nothing more at the moment than the ideologues who won't vaccinate their children or themselves because it's either Commie juice or an effort by Pharma to take us all for a ride. (I know representatives of both points of view.) This piece from Slate, while presenting the problem in extremis, nonetheless makes the necessary point that the decision not to vaccinate sets off a whole lot more chaos a whole lot closer to home than the flapping of a butterfly's wings in China. "Responsibility for oneself is in truth responsibility with respect to the man, and that means responsibility with respect to mankind," writes theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And in that light, what could be less responsible than an adult making a choice that deliberately puts children at risk?