Measles 2015

[BigV]

Measles is *extremely* contagious. It's ten times more contagious than, say, ebola. And we lost our fucking minds when the shadow of ebola threatened to darken our shores. Jon Stewart has a brilliant piece about the "strange hospital bedfellows" made of people who show off for the camera their ignorant *and* mindful stupidity as anti-vaxxers. Civilians and politicians alike hold forth providing comic fodder for Stewart. I especially liked the part where President Obama was asked about measles, he said "parents should vaccinate their children". Which sent Stewart into a tizzy remarking that now half the population of the country will avoid vaccination, just on their political principles. duuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Which brings me to this related news item about a politician who thinks individual freedom from government meddling in things like public health should take the form of... different governmental meddling.

Thom Tillis: Keep Government Out of the Bathroom

Freshman Sen. Thom Tillis likes to tell a story about why he doesn’t believe government should require coffee shop employees to wash their hands after using the bathroom.

“Just to give you an idea of where my bias is when it comes to regulatory reform,” the North Carolina Republican said Monday, before telling the story at a discussion at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

In 2010, when he was in the state legislature, he had a conversation with an opponent of his views on regulations at a Starbucks.

He was arguing businesses should be allowed to opt out of regulations as long as they were upfront and transparent to the public about the move.

The two were sitting at a table near the restrooms, which prompted his opponent to ask Tillis if he would be OK with the Starbucks opting out of any regulation requiring that employees wash their hands after using the bathroom.

Tillis said he saw the question as an opportunity to illustrate his point.

“I don’t have any problem with Starbucks if they choose to opt out of this policy as long as they post a sign that says, ‘We don’t require our employees to wash their hands after they use the restroom,’” Tillis responded. “The market will take care of that.”

So, a regulation requiring that a business has to post a sign saying that "We don't require our employees to wash their hands after they use the restroom" is OK, but a regulation an individual to wash their hands after using the restroom is some kind of burden. To me, it sounds like he wants regulations to be more like... suggestions, and "let the market decide" what's best. But we all know that the business will strive to keep their own costs and overhead down and push as much as possible onto anyone else. Why not opt out of all regulations? Be "upfront and transparent with the public" about the choice, what could go wrong?

Shit's spilled, people are sickened, or injured, or killed, but hey, we were upfront and transparent, so what?

You know? We're only having a conversation about an outbreak of measles, we only have an OUTBREAK of measles strictly because of the effectiveness of vaccination. JFC.