Unvaccinated 6-year-old boy was Oregon's first tetanus case in almost 30 years

>Excluding the costs of air transportation, inpatient rehabilitation and ambulatory follow-ups, inpatient charges for the boy totaled $811,929.

>But despite “extensive review of the risks and benefits of tetanus vaccination by physicians,” the boy’s parents declined a second dose of the tetanus-fighting medication and “any other recommended immunizations.”

I really wish the ACA had some provision that said "Failure to administer the following list of vaccines allows insurance companies to drop you or only offer plans with insanely high deductibles (or none)". Parents who don't vaccinate their children... you are bad parents, plain and simple. That alone doesn't really bother me, if you are ok with killing your own kid I'm not going to waste my time. Now when you endanger other children or run up insane bills for no good reason then I'm going to sit up and take notice.

Stupidity, in this form, shouldn't be a preexisting condition we cover.

My business is building sheds, and I've shot myself with my nail gun twice now in the 9 years I've been building.

The last time I did it, I came up with an invention while waiting in the emergency room: pneumatic coil nails with the Tetanus booster coating.

I feel anti-vaxxers deserve a new Darwin Award by Proxy category...

This is child abuse. Why aren't these parents in jail? The stupidity and danger that the government allows in America based on the idea of "personal belief", religion, and other nonsense is simply unbelievable. In this case, it led to two months worth of suffering and almost a million dollars worth of care (a price I'm sure was heavily inflated, but still). We need to dictate this at the federal level because states are clearly too incompetent to do it themselves. These children should be vaccinated and the parents should be educated and stopped from abusing their kids. It's fucking disgusting what's happening. This was completely avoidable. The parents are monsters.

One of the vaccines you want to get first, is against tetanus. It's a horrible disease. Also, speaking as a German, who is going to pay the bill? Is there any health insurance in the US, which is covering such a case?

I honestly don't see what this has to do with vaccination? The title has a bias written right into it. I grew up in the South (U.S.) and it is culturally normal in some rural areas for kids to run around bare footed. Don't curl your lip at it, it's a normal thing for some boys. I did too, and I made of mistake of stepping on a rusty nail in a board once. I had to go to the doctor and get a tetanus shot. You get the shot after stepping on a nail. Not before it.

While it’s pretty stupid to turn down a tetanus shot even after getting tetanus, much information is missing from the article - is tetanus a required immunization, and is it generally even given to school-aged kids? I remember getting it at a little older than he is (because it hurt significantly more than the others I received for some reason), but don’t recall getting any boosters for it as a child. I think I was in my early twenties when I got another.

It also doesn’t say what the other recommended vaccines were, or if he was otherwise up-to-date.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to be “anti” in any way here, I’m just trying to understand what actually happened here.