[Aliantha]

Short-sighted, how so? Millions of people from past generations have always "gone to the trouble" to do many things that seemed right at the time for the benefit of children and/or the betterment of society; but many things came and continue to come under scrutiny as society modernized/-es. It's been the case for centuries, no?

It's short sighted because you currently have the luxury of saying, I'm not going to immunise my child because the chances of him/her catching a particular disease are so slim I'll take that risk. If previous generations had taken that view, then I'll bet you'd be lining up at the door to get your kids jabbed first before they had a chance to get sick and die of something preventable. This follows that if everyone stopped immunising today, in a couple of generations time, we'd be back where we started from.

Any death is tragic, really. But while we're discussing the numbers, let me also say that this is exactly what I meant when I said earlier that we all interpret the same data differently. Because when I examine the numbers I see that diseases were already experiencing a natural (if mild) decline when immunization became all the rage.

That could also be attributed to the normal flux of disease. There is not enough empirical data to know either way.

It's a possibility, and I agree - a sad one at that. It's an important conversation to have before bringing a child into the world together, for sure.

Yeah, and what happens when one or the other gets swayed by selfish arguments like the one you've presented after they've already discussed and agreed on a course of action?