Thomas Hooker

Michigan is a frustrating state to live in these days. Our state government has just shown itself to be epically incompetent in its handling of the Flint water crisis, which I've written about a couple of times before. Our legislature repealed our mandatory motorcycle helmet law, and as a result in this state motorcycles are more donorcycles than ever. Our state has historically had low vaccine uptake, to the point where outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases are too common, with pertussis returning with a vengeance. We have naturopathic quacks (but I repeat myself) trying to cure their…

We have a problem with antivaccinationists here in Michigan. It's a problem that's been going on a long time that I first started paying attention to in a big way a few years ago when we started seeing pertussis outbreaks again due to low vaccine uptake. It's a problem that's persisted as last year we suffered from outbreaks of pertussis and measles, again because of pockets of low vaccine uptake. And what is the reason for these pockets of low vaccine uptake? Well, consistent with what we already know, namely that the risk of pertussis outbreaks is elevated in states where exemptions to…