I feel compelled to praise Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN, who appeared on The Late Show with Colbert Thursday, and made the very important point that being personally irresponsible with our health means we’re endangering our families, friends, and strangers. Here’s the last segment:
There are two prior segments which are also worth viewing.
I’ve made this point before, including in this critique of a fairly immature petition here:
Let us honestly assess reality: we are not independent islands, inviolably separate from each other. Along with voluntary bonds which we often assume with each other through association, contract, and other forms, there are also the involuntary bonds over which we have no control, as we share the resources of this reality, amongst which we can enumerate air and water. Because of these involuntary bonds through which pathogens travel, we are vulnerable to the illnesses of the age: mumps, measles, etc. — their names are legion.
When I say the Fourth Amendment applies to everyone, I mean that I and my progeny have an equal right to protection under the Amendment, and that protection, in my case, is from easily propagated disease. Here we see the tension to which I alluded: I do not wish to become infected with a pathogen which can cause severe damage or death, yet is easily negated. The author of the petition does not wish to accept the vaccination. The tension comes in the fact that we have unavoidably shared resources (air, water. etc.) through which many pathogens travel to infect a new victim.
This isn’t like buying a couch or a toothbrush – our individual decisions can affect, positively or negatively, many other people. Not only is this of immediate significance, it also plays into the debate concerning the proper nature of our health system.
It’s worth considering.
